doyle | (no subject)

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1) The things you learn while making last-minute changes to your Yuletide sign-up: a Noel Streatfeild book I haven't read, White Boots, features a character called Lalla Ward. Imagine my disappointment when I remembered how many years ago it must have been written and that it couldn't possibly be strange Doctor Who RPF. (ETA: okay, my final requests were two f/f and two m/m. I pruned some of the fandoms I wasn't certain I'd be able to come up with a story for but have a feeling I'm going to regret rashly offering 'any' for RPF - Historical. Eep.)

2) A cultural difference that has me stumped: we're watching Sex in the City and Carrie is moaning about having to move because her building is becoming a co-op. Assuming she hasn't been bought out by the UK supermarket chain, what's she on about?

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a co-op. Assuming she hasn't been bought out by the UK supermarket chain, what's she on about?

I'm the UK, so this is a well formed guess. Apartment buildings in NY have boards that regulate tennancy and vote people in and out, approve if they can rent. A executive landlord group as it were. I believe that controls are really stringent and that it's also a draw so rent increases.

But as I said, it's a half-formed guess.

A Co-op (which just means cooperative) is very similar to a condominium - you have to buy the apartment instead of renting it. The difference is that with a condo, you actually own the apartment itself - real property. With a co-op, it's a corporation that owns the building and each apartment is allotted a number of shares. For instance, my co-op apartment is worth/equivalent to @964 shares. I don't actually own real property, I own shares in the corporation which equates to one Junior4 apartment.

When your apartment building goes co-op (or condo) you have to buy it in order to stay.

Also, there are rules each owner has to abide by with regard to selling and subletting. My building in particular only allows you to sublet (rent) your apartment for a period of two years. The Shareholders elect a Board and there's also a managing agent who oversees the financial aspects. When you submit a bid to buy, you have to be approved by the Board before you can actually purchase, and you also need to get Board permission to sell.

One of the lovely little quirks of American real estate, particularly in Manhattan, is the co-op, in which a group of residents or investors get together and buy a property, renovate it and then make new tenants go through a humiliating process to prove themselves worthy to pay the new exorbitant rents. It's the American way...

Ah! If there's a UK equivalent I'm not aware of it, but then I've always rented houses rather than flats so am blissfully ignorant of such things.

Shared ownership schemes are probably the British equivalent: a housing association owns the whole block, and people can either buy flats in the scheme outright, or buy a certain percentage and pay rent for the rest. It's a way of getting onto the *shudder* housing ladder if you can't afford a full mortgage.

2. "A housing cooperative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Co-op#Housing_cooperative) is a legal mechanism for ownership of housing where residents either own shares (share capital co-op) reflecting their equity in the co-operative's real estate, or have membership and occupancy rights in a not-for-profit co-operative (non-share capital co-op), and they underwrite their housing through paying subscriptions or rent."

I loved White Boots. Not as much as Ballet Shoes, obviously, because I'm not sure I love anything as much as Ballet Shoes. But it's the same basic ingredients only with ice skating, and there's one particular bit about making a skating skirt which I seem to recall pestering my mother about. The Lalla thing passed over my head at the time, sadly.

Ballet Shoes! I haven't thought of that book in years. I used to read it over and over when I was a kid. (Yes, I did ballet for 11 years)

When I was very very young (8) I wrote a fan letter Noel Streatfield. Bless her heart, she wrote me back - on airmail stationery, which, back then, was like blue tissue paper.

I still have it, 36 years later :D

One more bit of trivia about co-ops: in most of America, owner-occupied shared housing is managed as condominiums, and co-ops are quite rare. In New York City (and this might be a primarily Manhattan phenomenon), I believe that co-ops are the norm and condos are the exception. A friend of mine was recently trying to buy in Manhattan and had a very hard time finding a condo. Most of the places she found for sale were co-ops.

I suspect part of the appeal of co-ops is that a new member needs the approval of the rest of the members to buy in. That makes it very easy to control who your neighbors are, at least within the building. It doesn't matter how much money a prospective buyer has; you can turn him down if he isn't "the right people."

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