Page 22 - CooperatorNews New York Expo 2021

22 COOPERATORNEWS — OCTOBER 2021 COOPERATORNEWS.COM New York City 212.688.2400 Westchester 914.476.0600 Long Island 516.207.7533 sbjlaw.com We build relationships. Co-op and condominium representation should be a relationship , not a transaction. strategic effective FROM FORMATION, THROUGH TRANSITION, AND AS ONGOING GENERAL COUNSEL. New York City 212.688.2400 Westchester 914.476.0600 Long Island 516.207.7533 sbjlaw.com We build relationships. Co-op and condominium representation should be a relationship , not a transaction. strategic effective FROM FORMATION, THROUGH TRANSITION, AND AS ONGOING GENERAL COUNSEL. sbjlaw.com Westchester 914.467.0600 New York City 212.688.2400 Long Island 516.207.7533 founding partner of Newark, New Jersey- based law firm Cutolo Barros, LLC, an RFP tor, and the other was outrageously priced. should stipulate a deadline for submissions— usually around 20 days—after which no other they can be that way. We now say we need to bids will be considered. Once all the responses are collected, says within ten days of contract signing.” Cutolo, they’re delivered back to the board and/or manager in a sealed format, and all opened at the same time. (Opening bids as smaller jobs—or for potentially long-term they come in could give an early bidder an service contracts like pest control or land- advantage—or allow other bidders to adjust scaping maintenance? their proposals to undercut the known bid.) Some boards elect to unseal bids at a regu- larly scheduled board meeting. Others limit it necked. We don’t bid out jobs less than to the manager and the board president (and $10,000. We just find someone to do it. For the engineer or other professional if involved), smaller buildings we have a $5,000 threshold. who coordinate the unsealing together ac- cording to their schedules, and then share the results with the rest of the board online. Re- gardless of a board’s preferred method, at least supers, for instance, to find a great extermi- two people should be charged with unsealing nator. We will go to three vendors to make the bids together to ensure transparency and sure they’re proposing a good deal, then bring accountability. And, says Cutolo, “While price is not the terms with them. The board will pick based sole factor in de- termining which vendor the board selects, the pro- cess of bidding under seal ensures that the vendors submitting bids will offer the most competitive prices. Without soliciting multiple bids, the board and its man- agement may not be able to reasonably determine if a bid is in Wolf explains that landscaping and snow re- line with market forces.” “We also tell boards that the lowest \[price where his firm is based, “It’s one contract per is\] not necessarily the best,” adds Schlossberg. season. A lot of associations do one for both. If “At this point, we pare it down to three candi- dates based on previous experience with the guy fixes it. Bids for these types of services are companies and/or referrals from other people less technical; there’s no RFP drawn up by an who have used them. Then comes a meet- ing with the engineer and companies one at up by the property manager and goes out to a time to ‘sharpen the pencil’”—a common between three and five vendors. The board euphemism for adjusting their proposals to choses one, and you go forward.” a more favorable price or offering. “We get their best price and best schedule, check for contingencies, and whether there’s a cushion in the price for unexpected problems. They come back with final revised bids, and then the board picks a vendor.” The pros add that this ‘pencil-sharpening’ stage is also a good time to leverage future projects, or suggest bulk purchasing or other efficiencies. For ex- ample, managers handling multiple proper- ties may be able to negotiate favorable prices when buying large quantities of necessities like snow melt that can be shared among those client properties. Even if a board-management team comes into the bidding process well prepared, with i’s dotted and t’s crossed, there can still be chal- lenges. “The biggest problem today is finding the bidders to do the job,” says Scott Wolf, CEO of Boston-based management firm BRIGS. “We had a situation recently where we went for five bids. Of the five, three vendors backed out, one was just not a great contrac- Contractors have so much work these days, know in the bid that the contractor can start Smaller Jobs & Long-Term Services How does the bidding process change for “Right now,” says Wolf, “smaller jobs are harder to fill, because everything is bottle- Otherwise, it’s the same process.” When seeking long-term vendors, Schloss- berg says, “We speak to other managers and the bids straight to the board and review the on price and services offered.” Schlossberg says that the bidding process for this type of contract doesn’t require an engineer, and is a less intense process overall, “but it does require a lot of research on our part.” In regions where snow and ice fac- tor into building and grounds maintenance, moval are often bid together. In New England, you get damage from snow removal, the same engineer. Instead, a request for bids is drawn How Are Potential Bidders Identified? So how do managers and boards find all these contractors and vendors from whom to solicit RFPs and bids? “It’s industry knowl- edge,” says Schlossberg of identifying poten- tial contractors and vendors. “It’s not a huge community. We talk to each other from other companies, etc. We know who will do a good job and who is iffy. If someone does a great job on one building, we are likely to bring them in for another building. On large jobs we consult with and defer to the engineering specialist, because they know the nuances of any particular job and any particular contrac- tor.” Schlossberg continues: “If the engineer writing the RFP has a preference for a particu- lar vendor with whom we’ve had a bad experi- BIDDING PROCESS... continued from page 1 “Vendors and contractors are very busy—so if you only send an RFP to three, you may not find one.” —Michele Schlossberg