Sprinkler Heads Responsibility
Hello, I am hoping someone has solid knowledge or case study in regards to coop building fire sprinkler responsibility. I filed a project to enclose a open terrace of my apartment with the building department and now to close the project out and receive the CO. The building department has asked for the building to…
Hello, I am hoping someone has solid knowledge or case study in regards to coop building fire sprinkler responsibility. I filed a project to enclose a open terrace of my apartment with the building department and now to close the project out and receive the CO. The building department has asked for the building to install sprinkler heads on the two floors adjacent to my apartment, due to the new building code that mandates all buildings install sprinkler system by 2019.
The building has indicated the coop board will hold me responsible for the cost the building will have to spend on the sprinkler head installation. My point is, the building is responsible for the sprinkler system installation by 2019, do they have a right to make one shareholders pay from it, as opposed to the the collective, because that is who it benefits.
This board is comprised of idiots. Get them out at the first opportunity. This is a building-wide improvement and should be assessed as Laurie says. No different from the DOB coming in and condemning your boiler, everyone pays on a per-share basis.
I’m not a pro, but if your coop gave you the ok to make the improvement in your unit . Then that improvement you made revealed issues that the building itself, must and would’ve been addressed in the future . Then truly they can’t compell you to pay for the nessassary building wide changes that your improvement just brought to the foreground, which they aproved . Before they oked your project, they would have been silly not to investagate the repecution of such an improvement, and what it meant to the entire building .That’s my 2 cents . good luck .
You’d need to refer to your co-op’s bylaws for the legal answer. But if the co-op is responsible for installing new sprinklers, it would have the right to assess all shareholders equally (relatively speaking, equal cost per share x # shares owned) for the expense if it chose to do so (or pay for it out of the reserve fund, or with a maintenance increase, etc) — not just charge the individual shareholder that it’s relevant to at any given time. You’re not getting some special, unique benefit by having sprinklers installed – the entire building is protected it. You should certainly fight it if they try to charge the expense back to you and you alone.