Opinion
5380N Index 303874/07
01-04-2018
Yessenia DAMAS, Plaintiff–Respondent, v. William J. BIGGS, Defendant–Appellant. Netherland Gardens Corp., Defendant–Respondent, HSBC Mortgage Corporation (USA), Defendant.
William J. Biggs, appellant pro se. Smith & Nesoff, PLLC, New York (David L. Smith of counsel), for Yessenia Damas, respondent. Tane, Waterman & Wurtzel, P.C., New York (Andrew D. Stern of counsel), for Netherland Gardens Corp., respondent.
William J. Biggs, appellant pro se.Smith & Nesoff, PLLC, New York (David L. Smith of counsel), for Yessenia Damas, respondent.
Tane, Waterman & Wurtzel, P.C., New York (Andrew D. Stern of counsel), for Netherland Gardens Corp., respondent.
Renwick, J.P., Manzanet–Daniels, Gische, Kahn, Singh, JJ.
Order and interlocutory judgment (one paper), Supreme Court, Bronx County (Larry S. Schachner, J.), entered on or about August 2, 2016, among other things, appointing a referee to conduct a sale of property and distribute the proceeds, unanimously affirmed, without costs.
Given that the parties could not reach a settlement agreement, and physical partition would cause great prejudice to both owners, the motion court correctly directed that the cooperative unit be sold and the proceeds divided ( RPAPL 915 ; see Estate of Steingart v. Hoffman, 33 A.D.3d 465, 466, 823 N.Y.S.2d 29 [1st Dept. 2006] ). Shares to a cooperative unit may be partitioned under RPAPL article 9 ( Chiang v. Chang, 137 A.D.2d 371, 529 N.Y.S.2d 294 [1st Dept. 1988] ). Further, it is undisputed that plaintiff signed the proprietary lease and was a co-owner of shares to the unit; thus, she had a right to seek partition of the unit (see id. ; see also RPAPL 901[1] ).
To the extent defendant co-owner of the unit raises any arguments concerning the proper division of the sales proceeds, such arguments are premature.