In a New York TImes “Ask Real Estate” letter from last December, a co-op shareholder lamented the sorry state of her 10-unit building: the board president was abdicating his position with no willing successor, and the managing agent w…
Owners and shareholders trust their elected boards with their very lives . Okay... it's probably not a life-or-death scenario, but residents of co-ops and condos do put a great deal of faith in their association's representatives to have…
Condos and homeowner associations have made headlines over the years for passing all kinds of overreaching and downright silly rules and regulations—everything from forbidding the flying of the American flag to having prohibitions about ha…
Bad neighbors are something that everyone living with shared walls fears—and not without cause; co-op or condo, small or large, chances are there's at least one chronically objectionable person who seems to do his or her level best to anno…
From the Magna Carta to the U.S. Constitution, written documents have helped shape the way people live and interact with one another for centuries. The fundamental documents that establish co-ops and condos have that same importance in bui…
Sometimes insurance and the terms that accompany it can feel like a completely foreign language. It can be mystifying and overwhelming, whether for individual co-op or condo residents or the board members who oversee the community as a who…
An old time-worn saying ‘that you’re only as good as your first impression’ is paramount in how your co-op or condo building is perceived at street level. The curb appeal factor cannot be discounted when people pass by your building and se…
The word community, like many words in the English language, has more than one interpretation. A community can be identified as a geographical location—a physical infrastructure of streets, parks and buildings, defined by tangible brick an…
Community living' in the context of a co-op or condo building means abiding by a set of rules and regulations designed to serve the community’s best interests and maintain property values. The building board makes the rules, and the reside…
Most co-op and condo board members are not fully aware of all of the financial risks and liabilities associated with their service. Some may not realize that the management company, the co-op corporation board or homeowner's association is…