Generally, board directors in condos and HOAs are volunteers who live in the building and want to assist in protecting their investment. Often, however, new board members enter positions without knowing the full scope of expected responsibi…
Recently, have you noticed that your managing agent has exchanged his old Toyota for a new Mercedes? Has he installed a new addition to his house? Has he appeared erratic...and returning from jaunts to Atlantic City all the time? If so, it …
Accepting a board position for a homeowners association is no easy task- you can please some of the residents some of the time, but rarely if ever can you please everyone. For board members, serving the community they live in may seem like …
When you live in a multifamily building, however, peace and quiet can be hard to come by. From the guy upstairs who gargles loudly at precisely 6:47 a.m. every morning to the neighbor with the yapping Chihuahua—at some point the soundtrack …
It happens in business, government, and industry every day: employees learn the rules of a new job, and before long they know those rules so well, they start going around them or taking short cuts. Rarely is this done with malicious intent.…
Being on the board of a co-op or condo is a big responsibility—one that shouldn’t be taken lightly. While some people may run for a board seat just to have the title, they need to be prepared to govern fairly and make decisions that are in …
Q I received a letter, dated May 4, 2015, stating that I have an illegal tenant occupying my unit. It stated that all unit owners must inform management about any tenants and provide proper paperwork, including names, phone numbers, and …
Named after the 32nd president Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Roosevelt Island is a narrow island sitting in the middle of New York City's East River. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west and the borough of Queens on Long Island to the …
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…
Buying an apartment in New York can be a real odyssey—finding a place that fits your budget and other requirements, securing a mortgage, gathering reams of paperwork for the closing...all very stressful and tedious. But for those buying int…