Practice Areas

Cooperative and Condominium Board Representation
Our firm has over 30 years experience in representing cooperative boards of directors and condominium boards of managers. We tailor our services to each board to meet the particular needs of the client and as such, the client dictates what level of involvement we have in their operations. For some of our larger buildings, we attend monthly board meetings or otherwise provide written status reports that are reviewed by the board at their meetings. Otherwise, we generally attend one or two board meetings each year as the need arises as well as the annual meeting, where we are sometimes called upon to conduct the meeting and/or the election process. Having represented hundreds of boards over the past 30 plus years, there are few issues that we have not dealt with in the past.

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Cooperative and Condominium Conversions
Allen M. Turek has over 30 years experience representing sponsors of offering plans whereby existing rental, as well as new construction and rehabilitated buildings, were successfully converted to cooperative or condominium ownership. Our approach is to take the lead role among the sponsor client’s various other professionals involved in the conversion process – including the architect, marketing director, tax benefits advisor, expediters, etc. – and “quarterback” the effort so that each contributor to the process is efficiently working together with the attorney to expedite the filing of the offering plan and the consummation of the conversion. Our normal set-fee retainer arrangement takes the client through the conversion process, starting with the planning and submission of the proposed offering plan (the so-called “red-herring”) through the negotiation of the final offering plan with the Attorney General’s office, the filing of the formal offering plan (the so-called “black-book”), negotiations with existing tenants (if applicable), the filing of all amendments through the post-closing amendment and the individual apartment closings. However, if and when the client prefers, we are amenable to fee arrangements based upon either an hourly rate or a fixed fee for each individual aspect of our work.

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Residential and Commercial Real Estate Transactions and Financing
Jeremy Roth is our partner in charge of our transactional real estate practice. Our firm represents both purchasers and sellers of small to large scale real estate ventures including vacant land sales, multiple dwellings, shopping centers and commercial properties. We also represent individuals and investors who are buying or selling individual homes, whether they are single family homes, town houses, cooperatives or condominium apartments. In addition, our transactional practice also includes representing borrowers who are financing or refinancing their real estate, including individual home owners as well as owners and/or purchasers of large scale real estate transactions (commercial as well as residential) as well as parties involved in short sale transactions.

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Real Estate Litigation
Charles L. Mester is our partner in charge of the firm’s litigation matters. As the firm represents dozens of boards of directors and managers, we are well experienced in prosecuting and defending claims made by or against cooperative and condominium buildings. In most instances, we attempt to find solutions to the problems that our clients are facing, short of having to resort to litigation as a means of prosecuting a claim or otherwise defending our clients who are sued or where legal process is threatened. As such, we often recommend alternative dispute resolutions, such as mediation and arbitration, in addition to the more usual and customary attempts at negotiating resolutions to disputes whenever possible and beneficial to the client. When necessary, however, we do not shy away from any litigation, recognizing the necessary role that the courts play in our society. Whenever any of our clients are faced with the prospect of defending litigation, we always investigate whether or not there is insurance coverage to cover the cost of defending the client and in some instances have been appointed by the insurance carrier to defend the client/the insured at the expense of the insurance carrier. Our experience encompasses all phases of traditional and non-traditional real estate litigation, including partition actions, lien foreclosures, title disputes, trespass, contract disputes, shareholder derivative suits, Article 78 proceedings, election challenges, cooperative/condominium election disputes, landlord/tenant disputes, shareholder/unit owner disputes with their neighbors as well as their boards, insurance coverage issues and construction defects. In recent years, we have been involved in a number of mold related matters, often leading to litigation seeking remediation and restoration of the affected premises.

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General/Commercial Litigation
Our attorneys are also general litigators, experienced in general commercial litigation involving non-real estate related business ventures, inter-personal disputes, promissory note and other monetary disputes as well as equitable actions seeking or opposing injunctive relief on behalf of our clients.

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