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Condominium & Cooperative Representation

Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. serves as general counsel to over 500 cooperative and condominium buildings in New York and its attorneys have been on the forefront of many of the legal issues confronting cooperatives and condominiums for over a generation. Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. was built to serve the needs of cooperative and condominiums by hiring the best attorneys for every issue where a building may require counsel.  Besides its general corporate representation, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. has revolutionized the condominium/cooperative representation using its creative methods such as:

  • Reducing common charges/maintenance while building a reserve system.
  • Seizing upon new laws that allow savings by using certain materials or standards.
  • Ensuring that both the building and the board are adequately protected using the firm’s insurance attorneys combined 60-plus years of insurance experience. 
  • Revising and upgrading outdated corporate documents inhibiting a building’s effectiveness in governing itself and its residents’ conduct.
  • Reviewing offering plans, creating bylaws and house rules that anticipate and prevent problems as well as provide for a amicable and smooth process for governance.
  • Inventing and devising an agreement/process to quicken foreclosure process to either get common charges paid or the property into new unit owners hands.

Aggressively pursuing avenues of revenue, tapping grants from local and federal governments, utilizing tax breaks and grants, following programs to efficiently manage a building and pursuing other programs and techniques, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. has enabled its clients to become models of management.

These methods and others have enabled Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. to achieve record breaking savings and successes for cooperatives and condominiums. In one instance, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. got a cooperative client a record breaking $21 million grant from the combined resources of City, State, and Federal governments.

Full Service Real Estate Firm

The firm’s attorneys have over 80 years combined  experience representing cooperatives and condominiums in New York. The firm’s proprietary leases, offering plans and bylaws have been lauded as the industry’s best. The firm’s model laundry room lease has been adopted as the model lease by the real estate community and Blumberg Forms.

As either general or litigation counsel for cooperatives, condominiums, HDFCs, Mitchell Lamas, and shareholders/unit owners, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. prides itself on its ability to assist all buildings, unit owners, and shareholders with all of their real estate needs. The satisfaction of the firm’s clients comes from its ability to give practical advice, and to guide prudent decisions, giving full weight to both legal and business and economic considerations. With regards to cooperative and condominium litigation, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s success comes from its ability to win at trial, obtain favorable settlements, and to prevent situations escalating towards litigation.

Customer Service and the 24-Hour Rule

Client satisfaction starts with the firm’s customer service. Its AV-rated and award-winning law firm responds to all emails and phone calls within 24 hours. Upon request, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. provides its clients with weekly or daily updates of all of your pending matters. Almost all of its attorneys live in the metropolitan New York City area, enabling them to attend building meetings and be available at your convenience. This responsiveness and hands on attentiveness allows the firm to prevent costly litigation by pinpointing potential issues before they become serious problems.

Litigation

As one of New York’s premier real estate litigation firms, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. has participated and prevailed in some of the most important litigation, landlord/tenant, foreclosures and condominium and cooperative cases of the new millennium, as reflected in numerous published and unpublished decisions on novel legal issues. The firm’s attorneys’ impressive success record in hundreds of trials places the firm’s performance among the very best in the profession.

Among these cases the firm has achieved the following results:

  • In Lorne v. 50 Madison,  making new law, the Appellate Division found condominium boards not liable for repairing newly constructed building and that the obligation to repair remains with Sponsor.
  • In Sky View Parc v. Onex Real Estate, Adam Leitman Bailey P.C. reached the largest settlement in condominium history, awarding the contract vendees millions of dollars.
  • In 40 West 67th Street v. Pullman,  Adam Leitman Bailey P.C. concluded a case and settled outstanding issues where a shareholder was evicted from its cooperative for bad behavior.
  • 710 Park Avenue v. Feld, the courts determined whether a board of directors could restrict whether a shareholder could run for the board of directors based on educational requirements.
  • In Sinensky v. Rokowsky, the Appellate Division determined whether an applicant/non-shareholder has the standing to sue a board of directors for discrimination.
  • In Kahn v. 230-79 Equity, the Appellate Term determined a cooperative’s liability for making repairs to a unit in one of the first’s decisions determining protocol for repairs.
  • In Demet Sabanci Centindogan v. 812 Fifth Avenue Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. prevailed in obtaining the return of a down payment for a rejected cooperative purchaser based on illegal discrimination.

Collections/Unpaid Common Charges/Maintenance/Foreclosures

Complementing its general counsel representation, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. provides one of the most outstanding cooperative landlord-tenant and condominium collection practices in New York.  Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C is the only the cooperative/condominium law firm with a landlord-tenant/foreclosure practice to have earned an AV® Martindale-Hubbell rating,  Super Lawyers  honors with a Top 100 recognition, Best Lawyers awards for the firm and attorneys, selected among America’s Top 100 Bet-The-Company Litigators, and selection into the Registry of Preeminent Lawyers, as well as the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and a Commercial Observer New York Most Powerful Real Estate Attorney ranking.  Chambers & Partners noted that Adam Leitman Bailey makes his “debut in the rankings following enthusiastic praise for his expertise in landlord and tenant litigation,” and hailed him as “a tenacious and confident litigator who is quick-witted in court and respected by the judges.”

The collective experience of its team has been responsible for winning landmark decisions in cooperative landlord-tenant law and condominium unpaid common charges cases. The firm’s attorneys have won over a thousand cases in housing court, including over 250 appellate court cases at the Court of Appeals, the highest court. Besides participating in some of the most important landlord-tenant decisions during the past decade, the firm’s attorneys have written 90 books on landlord-tenant law. This includes encyclopedias and the Housing Court Reporter: a thirty year collection, organization, and analysis of over 50,000 landlord-tenant cases used by most regular housing court practitioners and landlord-tenant judges.

On the forefront of condominium foreclosure litigation, Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. invented a plan and devised an agreement to either have unpaid common charges paid, or to push the foreclosure process to save months, or even years, in the foreclosure process to get the unit into a paying owner’s hands and the chance of redeeming any equity in the home to pay outstanding common charges.

While recognizing that these cases are balancing the need to collect monies to pay the buildings bills and understand the plight of collecting from the board member’s neighbors, Adam Leitman Bailey attorneys work closely with each board and building to reach agreements where everyone is satisfied. Every Adam Leitman Bailey attorney is always ready for an in person meeting at any time, morning to night, to try to settle a case; and every attorney is always trying to keep every building’s legal fees to a minimum.

Newly Constructed Condominium Buildings, Housing Fund Development Corporations and Mitchell-Lama Developments

Please click here to learn more about our representation of Newly Constructed Buildings.

Please click here to learn more about our representation of Mitchell-Lama Developments.

Awards, Rankings and Honors

Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.’s successes have led to the highest honors and awards from the bar and ranking organizations. We are the only cooperative condominium law firm with under 30 attorneys that has received an AV® Martindale-Hubbell rating,  Super Lawyers  honors with a Top 100 recognition, Best Lawyers awards for the firm and attorneys, and selection into the Registry of Preeminent Lawyers as well as the American College of Real Estate Lawyers. In addition, our success as cooperative and condominium general counsel earned our firm recognition in “Who’s Who in Real Estate” by Habitat Magazine. Real Estate Weekly noted that “Adam Leitman Bailey has made a name for himself with his success winning cases in the courtroom,” and for his “condominium representation.”

Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. is also the only real estate litigation law firm in New York City named by the internationally esteemed Chambers & Partners among New York’s Leading Real Estate Lawyers. Chambers & Partners noted that Adam Leitman Bailey received “enthusiastic praise for his expertise”.  In other years, Chambers & Partners remarked that Adam Leitman Bailey is “an extraordinary practitioner who gets great results” quoting a client on Adam Leitman Bailey’s “ability to anticipate things before they happen.”

Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. also takes great satisfaction in garnering victories for its clients at the bargaining table as well as in the courtroom. Recent negotiating victories have saved the day for clients ranging from elderly widows to universally recognized international corporations.

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