Inherited Manhattan Apartment Question

[Kathryn Kz]

Hi All, quick question:

I inherited a Manhattan apartment from a parent who was a NJ resident. I am executor of the estate and was named so in the state of NJ. 

I am now trying to transfer the apartment from the estate to my name and the co-op is being very difficult. They are asking me to hire a NY attorney to have me named executor/administrator in the state of NY as well as NJ. 

Is it true that this would be a redundancy since co-op ownership is in the form of stock and not real estate and thus NY state has no jurisdiction and therefore legally there are no assets and nothing to administer in NY?

The co-op will not give me an answer as to whether this is true and just keeps pushing that I just need to follow requirements.

Please help! 

[Morris Cohen]

My advice- do whatever the Co-op says. Their management companies tend be to be very unresponsive and given th red tape that is involved in everything they do, it will take a lot more time and money to get them to accept to do it your way. Even if it’s cheaper not to hire a NY attorney (you should calculate this by adding up the additional holding costs it will cost you to fight this, which will be significant), the time value of money will likely make it well worth your while to follow their instructions. The path of least resistance is listening to the Co-op board whether what they say makes sense or not.