Westchester’s Building & Realty Institute (BRI) and its Cooperative & Condominium Advisory Council (CCAC) managed to halt a bill in its tracks that would have coerced cooperative boards into granting automatic acceptance of applicants. …
There has been a recent push by federal, state and local legislators to get reverse mortgages or Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) approved for New York cooperatives. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (…
The presence of unfamiliar cooking aromas, 'foreign' music in the hallways, multilingual chatter in the elevators, and increasing numbers of younger newcomers collecting their mail in the lobby alongside older longtime residents—these are s…
The 2015-16 New York State Legislative season is here, and on the table are many housing-related bills, many of which directly impact co-op and condo board members, managers and residents. Housing is also on the agenda in the New York City…
Individual commitment to a group effort; that's what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. Legendary Green Bay Packers football coach Vince Lombardi left cooperative and condo boards and managers off…
A quote often attributed to the Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck in the mid-1800s says something to the effect that laws are like sausages—it's better not to see either of them being made. It's a clever quip, and it's not entirely inac…
Whether change is good or bad often depends on who you talk to; even a welcome change produces a certain level of stress and adjustment. Personal changes are challenging enough, but for co-op and condo residents, a board decision to change…
Fires devastated Breezy Point; areas of Staten Island were destroyed with lives lost; thousands of residents in Lower Manhattan were plunged into darkness after an electrical transformer exploded on the East River. These events were amo…
The New York State legislative season is here again, and bills of all kinds are being considered, including housing. Some of these bills directly impact co-op and condo board members, managers and residents. Housing is also on the agend…
It's almost a mantra: the more you know, the better off you are—certainly when it comes to doing the job of a cooperative, condominium or HOA board member. No matter how enthused and engaged a new board appointee may be, they don't come…