A West Broadway condo association has sued the developers who put up their building and a man who lives down the street but who has a deed to one of its parking spaces, saying the developers sold him the space after they had already given up control of the building.
In its suit, filed this week in Suffolk Superior Court, the 150 West Broadway Condominium Trust asks a judge to boot Peter Russell, who lists another West Broadway address, from Parking Space 8 and to pay 2 1/2 year's worth of "fair market" parking fees for the time he's used it. The trust is also asking for a judge to "quiet" or basically revoke, the deed that developers Joe Hassell and Stephen Pitrowski recorded for their sale of the space to Russell, and for Russell and the developers to pay for trust's legal costs.
Should the judge find the sale was legal, the trust continues, it asks the developers be forced to hand over the $112,500 Russell paid for the space, since it was sold after the developers had ceded the building to the trust - and to require that should Russell sell the space, he only sell it to an actual resident of the building. The 24-unit building has 32 parking spaces in an underground garage.
The trust alleges that Hassell and Pitrowski filed a master deed for the building with the Registry of Deeds in May, 2018 agreeing to hand over the entire building, including its parking spaces, to the trust after certain sales conditions had been met, and that that handover occurred on Sept. 27, 2019, after three resident trustees were elected to replace the developers in that role.
But, the complaint continues, the developers then sold a parking space to Russell on March 30, 2020, even though their LLC no longer owned the building. A deed for the space was recorded with the Suffolk County Registry of Deeds on April 6, 2020.
It adds:
Parking spaces are at a premium in the geographic area of the locus with such spaces often made available for use on the basis of daily, weekly, or monthly fees.
Although Defendant Peter Russell has enjoyed the use and occupancy of the locus, he has paid no fees for the same to Plaintiff, the rightful owner of the locus.
Defendant Peter Russell's use and occupancy of the locus has prevented Plaintiff from providing the use and occupancy to anyone else for a fee.
Complete complaint (3M PDF).