Doorbuster Prices

Published: Oct. 14, 2012, midnight

In an ideal co-op, the trustworth superintendent has a key to every apartment, securely stowed in a lockbox and only to be used in cases of emergency. If that emergency strikes and the resident of the unit isn’t home to give building workers or first responders access to the apartment, the key comes out and the emergency services can proceed in an orderly fashion. But we all know that things are rarely so tidy. Locks get changed and shareholders, intentionally or not, often fail to leave a copy of the key with the building. And when emergency access is needed? Out comes the battering ram. That’s the situation faced by this episode’s board questioner, Marleen Levi of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. In her co-op, screams were heard emanating from a unit in the middle of the night, and when no one answered the door and the super didn’t have a key, the Fire Department started busting it down. Fixing the front door to an apartment is usually the co-op’s responsibility, but in this case, Levi asks, can the co-op forward the bill to the shareholder who should have given them access in the first place? Our attorney panel answers her question and looks at all the angles when it comes to access: when should the building have it, and who’s responsible when it doesn’t? On the panel this week: Rob Braverman of Braverman & Associates and Ronald Gold of Kagan Lubic Lepper Finkelstein & Gold. Music: Noi, “Everything is Changing” (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Noi/~/noi_-_everything_is_changin)