When a Contractor Does Harm
Paying for a Contractor’s Damage
A subcontractor who was working on the renovation of my apartment scratched an elevator door. The condominium building is demanding $600 for the repair. The subcontractor admitted responsibility for the scratch, but thinks that the charge should be only $300. Th
e building manager, however, told the subcontractor not to pay the building anything, saying the building would deduct $600 from my damage deposit. What are my options to resolve this, given that I have already paid the subcontractor in full? Can the building legally withhold my deposit if it’s the building’s fault that the subcontractor isn’t paying? And if I do pay some or all of the charge, am I entitled to recover that amount from the subcontractor?
Union Square, Manhattan
Your condo has a relationship with you, not with the contractors or subcontractors that you hire. So if any damage is done under your watch, the building will turn to you for compensation. Most buildings require residents to sign an agreement before any work is done in the building.
“These agreements makes crystal clear that the condominium owner and not the contractor is liable for any damage to building property, which includes elevators,” said Adam Leitman Bailey, a Manhattan real estate lawyer.
Most buildings also require contractors to take out an insurance policy that names the condominium and the unit owner as additional insured. Look to your contract with the contractor to see how to file a claim under that insurance policy. You will likely need to show proof of damages, like date-stamped photographs. You could also file a claim against the contractor of up to $5,000 in small claims court. For that, you would not need a lawyer.
Dangerous Falling Snow
I own an apartment in a six-story condo building. Sunrooms on the top floors have sloped roofs, and snow gathers on the glass after winter storms. Eventually, the snow slides onto the sidewalk below in large, heavy clumps or as chunks of ice. This poses an obvious danger to anyone walking below. The superintendent uses barrier tape to block off the sidewalk, but eventually the tape gets torn and people walk there anyway. If someone became injured by falling snow, could the condo be held liable? The cost of a lawsuit would surely raise condo fees. Is there any agency that can force the condo to make structural changes to the building to prevent this?
Upper East Side, Manhattan
Ice and snow melting off rooftops can pose a serious safety hazard for anyone standing below. Many of the city’s skyscrapers, including One World Trade Center, have had to deal with ice shearing off their buildings on frosty days. As the snow from last month’s blizzard continues to melt, weary pedestrians might get another dumping.
Property owners should take notice because, as you rightly pointed out, if passers-by were to be injured by falling snow or ice, the building could be held liable, said Beatrice Lesser, a Manhattan real estate lawyer. The residents of the building would ultimately shoulder the cost in the form of higher common charges or a special assessment. But that is not the only risk. Chances are, you walk along that sidewalk whenever you enter or exit the building. So you (or one of your neighbors) could be the unfortunate victim. It is in your best interest, both financially and physically, to solve this problem.
Call 311 and report the dangerous condition. You should be directed to the Buildings Department. If you are not, call the department directly and report the condition again.
Write a letter to the board and the managing agent demanding that the condo resolve this problem immediately. Simply cordoning off a public sidewalk with tape is not an adequate solution. The building should hire an engineer to inspect the design of the roofs over the sunrooms to see if any alterations could be made to prevent a buildup in the future. The building should also alert its insurance carrier to the potential risk and have its insurance policy reassessed accordingly.
A Well-Connected Tenant
I live in a co-op building with some rent-regulated tenants. One of them happens to work for a city agency that deals with housing. He routinely uses his position to file complaints against the building, circumventing our internal system for making repairs. His actions tarnish our building’s reputation: Now our building has a list of complaints with the city, even though management would have resolved those problems immediately if he had come to it directly, as other tenants do. What can we do?
Upper West Side
Your neighbor’s strategy for getting repairs done might irk you, but if he is reporting conditions in the apartment or the building that violate the law, he has a right to do so, even if the building would prefer that he keep quiet.
“No matter how you slice it, the correction of violations is ultimately a building owner’s responsibility,” said Lucas A. Ferrara, an adjunct professor at New York Law School and a Manhattan real estate lawyer.
Rent-regulated tenants are not usually bound to the terms of the shareholders’ proprietary lease, so your neighbor is probably not required to follow your building’s internal process for making requests for repairs, said Bradley Scott Silverbush, a Manhattan lawyer who represents landlords.
He is merely exercising his rights as a rent-regulated tenant. By doing so, he is protecting his health and safety and perhaps that of his neighbors as well.
But the city does have a conflicts-of-interest rule that applies to all employees. If you think your neighbor might somehow be misusing his position by, say, making frivolous, unsubstantiated complaints to harass the co-op, you could file a complaint with the city’s Department of Investigation or the Conflicts of Interest Board.
But before you do so, you might want to check with legal counsel at the agency where he works to find out more about its official policy regarding employee conduct.
“If the conduct is unreasonable, and falls outside the scope of what the agency permits, you may have a legitimate complaint,” Mr. Silverbush said.
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