Founder
A cooperative apartment is not considered real property, it is personal property. When you own a cooperative apartment, you own a stock and lease. These apartments can cause complexity with your estate plan, which one should be aware of.
If you wish to avoid probate, you would want to do a revocable trust. That is especially true if you own real property in more than one state. If you own real property in more than one state, your will would need to be probated in all the states where you own property. Technically, since a coop is considered personal property, you should not need to do an ancillary probate (i.e., a secondary probate). A second probate is only required with real property. Unfortunately, more and more cooperative associations are requiring the family to do an ancillary probate.
It would seem that the easy answer would be to put your cooperative apartment into a trust in order to avoid probate. Unfortunately, unlike real property, you need the consent of the coop board. More and more coops are permitting these transfers, although some still will not permit it. Even if they do, the fees (especially their legal fees) can be quite steep. They also treat it like a purchase, so transfer forms and other various forms required, along with a lien search. Sometimes they will require you to attend an in-person “closing”. Your own attorney’s presence my be required.
Despite the expense and trouble of transferring your cooperative apartment into a trust, it may indeed be very worth it especially to avoid more than one probate process when you pass.