Landlord's Chance

In Manhattan, an apartment-house tenant last week was handed an ultimatum from his landlord. He could either buy his apartment for $10,000 or he would have to move out to make room for someone who would. When the tenant took his troubles to the Office of Rent Control, he found—along with hundreds of others—that the new rent-control law had a loophole. And landlords, chafing under rent ceilings, had found it. They could sell their apartments to tenants—or outside buyers—as "cooperatives," without so much as a by-your-leave from ORC.

The co-op method of...