Flip Tax....Who's Responsibility?

As the owner of a Coop apartment in Manhattan you recognize that when you sell your apartment you will pay a Flip Tax. Its not really a tax in that it does not get paid to any state or local government. Actually what it is is a fee that gets paid to the Corporation that owns the Coop to help their bottom line.

Each Coop has their own formula for determining how much the Seller will pay. It may be a percentage of the gross sale, a percentage of the profit, a dollar amount per share and so forth.
Regardless of what the formula is, every seller will agree...it hurts to have to pay it. And so.....now they don't want to anymore.

Increasingly in this "Buyers Market" we are seeing Seller's asking to have the Buyer pay the Flip Tax in exchange for lowering prices. Often the Flip Tax is split 50/50 or some other negotiation ensues. Bottom line....its going to get paid and no one other than the Coop Board is happy about that.