Maintenance Fee HIGHER for Ground Floor Unit??

[jabraun]

I own a ground floor coop unit. We are a small coop of just 5 units. Each of us has one floor of equal square footage, though we each have different "cubic feet". The highest ceilings are in my ground floor unit, and they become lower gradually to the top floor.

I have been here for 13 years and have always accepted, a bit grudgingly, that I pay the highest maintenace fee. The schedule increases at a rate of 2.5% from top down to second floor and then 5%increase for my ground floor unit.

I have brought this up several times at our board meetings and always been greeted with "that's the way it's always been because I don't have to walk up any stairs." I feel this has nothing to do with "maintenance". I pay into cleaning the stairwells that I don't use, and into lighting the upper floor hallways that I don't use. I accept that as part of the building.

MY QUESTION IS: IS this STANDARD practice in Coops to have the ground floor pay more maintence? I don't think it has to do with heat either because our building has just one thermostat and it's on the 5th floor inside that unit, so if anything, I would be the coolest area. That space will warm up before mine.

I know it's basically at the descretion of the board to decide, but I am wondering how much precident there is for them to insist that it is "the way it is". THANK YOU! Judy

[TenantNet]

wrong web site. This is tenant.net, not a coop web site.