Strokes bassist, realtor neighbor battle over yard behind their houses

Nikolai Fraiture, the Grammy Award-winning bassist for the Strokes, is battling together with his neighbor – an actual property govt with Cushman & Wakefield – over a yard positioned between their New York Metropolis residences in a shared co-op constructing. Photograph courtesy of New York Supreme Courtroom

Dodd and de Pontbriand moved into their ground-floor condo at 42 King Avenue in 2017, for which they paid greater than $3 million, which got here with its backyard. The Dodds additionally purchased a small room in 44 King Avenue, which they allege got here with its backyard, for $300,000.

Fraiture and his spouse, Ilona, purchased a ground-floor unit in 44 King Avenue and its basement in 2019. The rock star filed his personal lawsuit in 2021 claiming the Dodds illegally mixed the 2 gardens.

The Fraitures mentioned of their lawsuit that the parlor ground, or first ground, of 44 King was as soon as a single unit when the cooperative constructing was included however {that a} earlier proprietor of the parlor ground at 42 King bought the parlor ground in his constructing sooner or later earlier than 1985.

That earlier proprietor, the Fraitures mentioned, then created three “unlawful openings” in a wall that separated the 2 buildings and thus created an unlawful premises that spanned each addresses with out approval from the Division of Buildings in New York Metropolis.

Then in 1985, the co-op board at 44 King resolved to separate the parlor ground unit into two models referred to as “Parlor Entrance Unit” and “Parlor Rear Unit.” The Fraitures mentioned that the unlawful openings had been situated within the Parlor Rear Unit, the room bought by the Dodds for $300,000.

“Thus, by dividing the parlor ground unit, the Board primarily ceded the Parlor Rear Unit to the parlor ground unit in 42 King and, by extension, the shareholders of 42 King,” the Fraitures declare.

The Dodds alleged of their lawsuit that the Fraitures have “in dangerous religion” sought to push them from the property they personal contained in the 44 King constructing to take the backyard for themselves.

“This scheme has now entered its ultimate section,” the Dodds mentioned, lambasting the Fraitures for having allegedly “weaponized” their management over the co-op board in 44 King “for their very own private achieve.”

The Dodds largely agreed of their lawsuit about most of the historic info of the case however argued that the partition of the bottom ground by 44 King was everlasting and prolonged the backyard for that constructing to that of 42 King.

Of their lawsuit, the Dodds famous that the earlier proprietor of their condo who offered it to them had been beneath strain to shut up the wall openings at 44 King from the constructing’s co-op board however determined to promote the property as an alternative.

Through the sale, the Dodds admitted that they agreed to shut up the openings however mentioned that they “realized, nonetheless, that merely bricking up and completely closing the wall openings may doubtlessly create an illegality.”

The Dodds declare that one doable answer they’d thought of was promoting their 44 King condo, however not the backyard, to the Fraitures who had simply bought their property. The Fraitures in the end rebuffed the thought as a result of the backyard was not part of the deal.