Q. I serve on the board of my co-op in Forest Hills, and own one unit. Our ‘unsold unit owners’, as they demand we call them, have been in control forever. Originally, there were two sponsors, but both have since passed away, one leaving a wife and daughter, the other a daughter. These three are now saying that we have no sponsors and cannot call them the sponsors any longer—but rather ‘unsold shareholders.’  After the two original sponsors died, their survivors put their apartments in trusts and have been renting them out to subtenants, claiming that we are not allowed to ask them when their leases are up. I believe we have the right to see their leases, and to have a complete file in each unit here. Am I correct? 

                       — Concerned Shareholder

A. According to attorney Adam Leitman Bailey of Adam Leitman Bailey, PC in New York, “First, a holder of unsold shares is the sponsor—or a person or corporation that purchased from the sponsor and never personally moved into any of the units it owns in the subject building.

“Once the person qualifies for unsold shares, they have the right to lease their units without board approval and paying board fees. That does not mean that the board does not have the right to know who is living in its building. 

“Unsold shares can be assigned and sold and passed to other persons, making the wife and daughter viable candidates after the estate has been probated and the board has seen the will and ensured that it is being followed.”