Court Holds That Tenant-Shareholder Waited Too Long to Dispute Number of Shares Allocated to Her Apartment
A tenant-shareholder in a Cooperative filed a lawsuit challenging the number of shares allocated to her unit. However, the tenant-shareholder had purchased the unit more than 15 years earlier. The court held that “[p]laintiff acceded to the terms of her proprietary lease and related share certificates which allocate 300 shares to her unit, for at least 15 years, and may not now seek to avoid the terms of those instruments.” The court found that the Cooperative would be prejudiced if plaintiff’s claim were entertained at this late date because, among other things, the Attorney General no longer maintains copies of amendments to the Cooperative’s offering plan, filed in 1985, which changed the allocation of shares. Accordingly, the Cooperative was granted a declaratory judgment that the number of shares of stock allocated to plaintiff’s unit is 300. Sidore v. 334 East 5th Street, 2019 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 5312, 2019 N.Y. Slip Op. 5321 (1st Dep’t July 2, 2019).