It used to be that when you wanted to get into your building or apartment, you would have to pull out your ring of numerous keys and flip through them until you find the one that opens the door. Fumbling through the ring for the right key m…

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. …

Q. My question is this: Can a co-op board restrict outside contractors from working on a religious holiday? If so, is it legal for this to be done for only one religion? The board of my co-op has restricted work on all, including the mino…

Q. We’ve come across a situation at our cooperative, where some members of the board want to change the transfer fee or flip tax allocation. They want to assign a lower per share fee for those shareholders who purchase property in the nea…

Q. I am a 65-year-old disabled homeowner (I own a co-op apt. in Forest Hills). I have been a recipient of the STAR DHE property tax abatement for the last 8 years. This year the management of our co-op decided to replace the abatement wit…

As more and more new condominium construction projects are built, completed and sold off (as well as cooperatives and homeowners associations, although less common) there has been a correspondingly large number of what have come to be known…

Even with proper risk management best practices, it’s impossible to completely avoid all types of insurance claims from happening. At heart, a claim is like any other business dealing—a negotiation. Your ability to convincingly argue your p…

Most board members can use all the help they can get when it comes to understanding the rules, laws, and other factors that guide how they will help govern their community. Senior board members are a terrific source of information, as is a …

Just as the ways in which we socialize have changed in recent years, so too have the spaces in which that socializing has traditionally been done. Common spaces and amenities in multifamily buildings and condo associations have evolved to s…

No matter what the size of their portfolio, a property manager must wear a great many professional hats: human resources pro, administrator, mediator, organizer, social director, project manager, sounding board—sometimes even therapist.  I…