Expert: Dick Dennis - 6/13/2008

Question
QUESTION: I pretty sure you have been asked this question before, but here it is again. I brought a co-op in 2000 and I signed a HUD 1 form, now I want to sell, and I guess that I have been taken for a fool, because I was told that I can not sell, and I have a membership. What exactly does this mean? I want to buy a home from the money I thought this co-op will bring now I feel that I am back to square one? Please help!!!

ANSWER: When you own a co-op, Michelle, you do not own real estate. Your name is not on the property. You own an interest, like a stock on the stock exchange, in a large piece of real estate. You are one of many who own an interest in a company, a business, so to speak. So, when you want to sell you have to advise the association of your intent. They will give you the necessary papers or tell you where you may get them. They will also arrange for a real estate agent to help you, one who is familiar with your co-op. I wish you well.

Dick Dennis

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: So what does the HUD 1 form mean. I am from a different country and I guess I do not understand the policies yet here in America. I brought it for 62,000 (at least from my understanding) does that mean I can at least get that much back or more?

Answer
I don't know from which country you are from, Michelle, but I am sure the word you meant to use is bought (you bought it, the past tense for to buy), not brought, as you have used twice now. Brought is past tense for to bring.

But to get to your little problem, since you have purchased an interest in a co-op (I am guessing you are in New York), and since it is like a stock in the New York Stock Exchange where you own an interest in a company, when you resell that stock (an interest) you bought in a company, you may sell those shares at some time by merely telling your broker that you want to sell.

If there is interest in the stock you want to sell, then you will have a buyer buy it from you that same day. That may not be the case with selling your interest in the co-op unless you are willing to accept a much lower price than perhaps you thought you would get.

By you electing to sell your co-op you now want to divorce yourself from that co-op. In your case, I have never heard of the HUD 1 form, but I am sure a real estate agent or real estate attorney in your area will get the proper forms for you when someone has decided to buy your co-op from you. By the way, co-ops have always been very hard to sell. I think the real estate person you decide to hire will tell you that, too. You are trying to sell in the midst of a very bad real estate market (even though your co-op interest technically is not real estate, but it is part of a large real estate project).

I wish you well, Michelle.

Dick Dennis