A co-op is not real property

0:23What the owner of a co-op actually owns

Start with what the owner of a co-op actually owns. Two things, and neither of them is land.

The co-operative apartment corporation owns the building. A resident owns shares of stock in that corporation, allocated to a particular unit, together with a proprietary lease of the unit those shares entitle them to.

The deed to the building names the corporation. It doesn't name the resident, and no deed ever will.

So your search of the land records for a person's name returns nothing against the apartment they've lived in for 30 years. The index is answering correctly.

1:02Docketing reaches real property, and the statute says so

Now, what docketing does, because the statute names the property it reaches.

CPLR 5203, subsection A, is written about one kind of property, and it names it in the first line.

No transfer of an interest of the judgment debtor in real property is effective against the judgment creditor from the time the judgment is docketed with the clerk of the county where the property is.

That's the whole of the automatic lien, and it doesn't extend past the words it uses.

For personal property the mechanism is different, and later. Under CPLR 5202, subsection A, your rights in an interest of the debtor in personal property arise where you've delivered an execution to a sheriff. They're superior to a transferee only from that point, and not even then against somebody who acquired for fair consideration beforehand. CPLR 5232, subsection A, then has the sheriff levy by serving a copy of the execution on the garnishee.

And against a co-op, the garnishee is the corporation. So the step that binds the asset is a service on a managing agent, rather than a filing in a register. Nothing about it is searchable, by you or by anybody.

2:24The register does hold co-ops, and it does not hold your judgment

Then there's the part that misleads, because the register does hold co-ops.

Search ACRIS for a co-op address and documents come back.

New York City's own guidance says what they are. The register records interests in personal property that isn't real estate or real property. Such as shares of a co-operative showing ownership and mortgages. And fixture filings.

UCC 9-501, subsection A, paragraph 1, clause C, is why they're there. Where the collateral is a cooperative interest, the financing statement goes to the office designated for recording a mortgage on the related real property, rather than to the secretary of state where almost everything else goes. Subsection C makes that office the county clerk, except in the Bronx, Kings, New York and Queens, where it's the city register.

So the lender who financed the purchase of those shares is in the register. And you aren't, and won't be, however your judgment is docketed.

And now a clock that runs the opposite way to every other one in this library. 50 years, where everything else in article nine gets five.

3:40Fifty years, not five

A co-op financing statement runs 10 times longer than the rest of article nine.

UCC 9-515 makes an ordinary financing statement effective for 5 years. A financing statement covering a cooperative interest is effective for 50 years after the date of filing, if a cooperative addendum is filed with it, or before it lapses.

UCC 9-502, subsection A, paragraph 4, says what that addendum carries. The number or other designation of the unit, and its street address. Which is also what makes a co-op filing findable by address at all, because there's no block and lot for an apartment.

So the practical consequence runs backwards from the usual one. A filing from 1998 against equipment is long dead, and counting it is an error. A co-operative addendum filed in 1998 is live until 2048, and dismissing it as stale is the error instead. Same year, opposite mistake.

4:53What it changes about the rest of the register

Now, what carries over from the rest of the register.

Two rules the land records teach reach co-ops anyway, by their own terms, and both were amended to do it.

EPTL 6-2.2 creates a tenancy by the entirety where property is conveyed to a married couple. Since the first of January 1996 the same subsection reaches the shares of stock of a co-operative apartment corporation allocated to a unit, together with the appurtenant proprietary lease. So the strongest form of co-ownership, the one a creditor of one spouse likes least, applies to co-ops as well as to houses.

And CPLR 5206, subsection A, exempts a principal residence from a money judgment up to a stated figure in value. Paragraph 2 of that subsection lists shares of stock in a cooperative apartment corporation among the property types it covers.

So hear where that leaves you. A co-op isn't real property for the lien, and is a homestead for the exemption.

6:07How to read one off a register

So how do you read one off a register.

Three things are findable, and the order matters, because the first one is a negative.

Search the debtor's name in the land records, and treat an empty result as uninformative rather than as an answer. For a co-op resident it's the expected result, and it tells you nothing about what they own.

Then search by the building's address for financing statements and co-operative addenda. Those carry the unit number and the street address, and they name a debtor, which is how a co-op resident's name appears in a register at all.

Then check the date against 50 years rather than five, and look for the addendum, because the longer clock depends on it having been filed.

7:00What this does not cover

Here's what I can't tell you.

Whether a particular apartment is a co-op, a condominium or a rental. Which decides everything I just said, and isn't always obvious from an address.

A condominium unit is real property and has its own tax lot, so a judgment docketed against its owner behaves the way the rest of this library describes. A co-op doesn't. Buildings converted between the two exist, and the conversion is a fact about the building rather than about the resident. And beyond that, a proprietary lease usually needs board consent for a transfer, and the corporation commonly holds a lien on the shares for unpaid maintenance. Neither of those is in any public index.

I'm not a lawyer and none of this is advice. How to reach a co-operative interest, and in what order, is a question for counsel with the execution and the lease in front of them.

What I can tell you is narrower. An empty land records search against a Manhattan resident is very often correct. And the document naming them is filed under the building's address rather than their own.

There's a companion piece on tenancy by the entireties that matters here too, because the same subsection was amended to reach co-op shares. If you're working a Manhattan file, that's the one to read next.