It looks like co-op board of 210 E. 36th Street in Murray Hill has taken a page from the Dakota's discriminatory playbook. The board has been slapped with a $1 million lawsuit from a wealthy African man who wanted to buy a studio apartment in the building. Goldwyn Thandrayen, a 25-year-old business student at Berkeley College in New Jersey, was turned down without so much as an interview, even after complying with the board's every bizarre request, which included translating documents from British to English. The Daily news reports that Thandrayen put the entire cost of the unit into a bank account for the board, and he handed over more than a year's worth of maintenance fees.
Thandrayen says the board's behavior was "weird" from the start, and one member even made fun of his financial portfolio because it is entirely in "some tiny little unknown country," aka the Republic of Mauritius, the island nation where Thandrayen is from. He is suing for $1 million in damages because, according to his lawyer, he's now "blacklisted" from ever buying a co-op in the city since he was rejected. Additionally, Thandrayen is out thousands of dollars from fees and interest, and he'll probably have a tough time getting back the $445,000 he put away for the unit, as it would likely be flagged for money laundering.
Will co-op boards ever start to play nice?
· Wealthy African Man files $1 Million Lawsuit After Co-op Board Turns Him Down [NYDN]
· Dakota Co-op Board Accused of Being a Bunch of Racists [Curbed]
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