Wednesday, August 17, 2011

New buyers being told building is 90% owner occupied, reality it is around 50 %

I spoke to one of my neighbors and she told me that when she bought she was told the building was 90% owner occupied. I have been here since conversion, this co-op has never been 90% owner occupied. The last five plus years has been around 50%. The managing agent and board president refuses to provide me the list of shareholders as provided by in the proprietary lease. They are also fighting me on my right to look at the financials, as provided by in the proprietary lease.
The board members do not know we paid a $15K prepayment penalty on our old mortgage which had almost 2 years left. Yet our new mortgage is via the bank that the owner of the managing company is a board member and our co-op president is an investor, and he handed all the mortgage paperwork. As an investor he should have been reclused, and the board should have made him recluse himself. The board president and his now deceased vice president/ mother in law were/are self dealing in many aspects of the building. Parking and storage room being the two outstanding ones.
I have given the board president the 3 page NYS law journal article concerning the courts rulings on who has the right to occupy a co-op.
I have frequently quoted and made copies of the proprietary lease where it states shareholder "AND" in paragraph 14 concerning right to occupy.

annual meeting, FDIC limits exceeded for multiple years, self dealing by president # 3

i proved at the 2011 annual meeting that the board president and managing agent both lied last year when i asked the direct question concerning page 9 of the auditors report of the financials. In the report it stated that the deposits of the co-op exceeded the 250,000 FDIC limits from time to time. I asked about this in 2010 and they both said that our deposits did not and never exceeded the FDIC limits. This year (2011) the same boilerplate on exceeding the FDIC limits was again on page 9. The Managing agent refused to discuss it and I called the auditor, the auditor confirmed that the co-op has exceeded the limits with amounts of up to $310,000. I believe that is the number that he stated, it was over 300k, that stuck in my brain. It was fiduciary irresponsible for the board to not correct this at the first instance. which may have been 5 years ago. The managing agent and the whole board would not perform their due diligance and fidicuary responsibilities to the co op by making a phone call to the auditor. The statement has been on page 9 of the auditors report for the last couple years. THe full page is dedicated to the exceeding of FDIC insured funds. The board president and managing agent, even after I questioned them on this, never followed up and made sure their statements they made at the annual meeting were correct. Their answer as in most if not all of my dealings with them have been fraudulent. I use the word fraudulent since they are contrary to the written proprietary lease and by-laws. However in the very volatile economy, with banks closing every week, any money over the limit we lose. This has been stated on page 9 of the auditors report for years, yet the managing company and the board have done nothing to correct it, putting the co-op in jeopardy of losing 10k to 60k dollars at any time. We as shareholders lose the money.
The managing company and board president, refuse to provide me with the list of shareholders and to look at the financials reports as is specified in the proprietary lease and by-laws. They also refuse to provide me with the contact information of the board of directors, some including the president, do not live here and one has never lived here and should never have been sold two apartments. The shareholders do nothing and they wonder why they can't sell. I spoke to one of the recent buyers and she told me that she was told the building was 90% owner occupied, reality is it is about 50% and slipping.
The board president and managing agent fight transparency at every turn, the board of directors do not open their mouths and have never performed due diligence, fiduciary responsibility to the building, nor have attempted to stop multiple self dealings by the board of directors president. One of the new BOD members was under the impression that the BOD indemnity insurance protected them from the above, it does not protect against the self dealing,lack of due diligence , fiduciary irresponsibility against the co-op . i have recently found out that having the building at 50% owner occupied is a fiduciary irresponsible to the shareholders.