Apartment owners in Manhattan’s Trump Plaza are facing as much as $1 million in fees to purchase the ground their apartment building stands on–even though they have already paid for their apartments.
The owners of the land beneath the building, at 167 E. 61st Street, said they wanted to sell amid the sky-high Manhattan property market, putting the apartment owners at risk that a new ground owner might jack up the ground lease. “That scared the people there, the board,” says Adam Leitman Bailey, a real estate attorney who some of the apartment owners have contacted, but who is not handling the case. So the co-op board offered the landowners $185 million, a price that would get passed on to the apartment owners, as Bloomberg was first to report.
In New York, co-op residents buy shares in a corporation that owns their building; condominium owners get individual deeds to their properties. Co-op shareholders must pay a monthly maintenance fee to cover the joint costs of the building, including mortgage payments, rent for the ground, and operating expenses.
Trump Plaza is an unusual situation because the apartment owners don’t own the land that their apartment building stands on, whereas most co-ops do own the land under their buildings. Donald Trump is not the landowner, though he did build Trump Plaza. The landowners appear to be the Estate of Donald S. Ruth, based in Cedarhurst, N.Y., according to public records.Trump Plaza, a 39-story building, has 154 units and was built in 1983, according to Streeteasy.com
[readon1 url="http://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2014/11/06/manhattans-trump-plaza-apartment-owners-face-1-million-fee/"]Source:www.forbes.com[/readon1]
Manhattan's Trump Plaza Apartment Owners Face $1 Million Fee
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