It’s no secret that helping to run a board of directors or board of managers of a co-op or a condo association is quite often a thankless task. There are a lot of issues to take care of, and board members are strictly volunteers. While the…

Living in a condo means putting up with certain occasional inconveniences: that curious odor emanating from the neighbor’s unit, the downstairs saxophone player who practices every Tuesday afternoon, or that one resident that insists at ev…

You may love your building. You may even love your neighbors and the members of your board. But there are few people who can say that they love their monthly board meetings or annual owner or shareholder meetings. That’s because these meet…

Finding the right balance of involvement between HOAs and condo boards and residents can be like maintaining a healthy relationship with a significant other—you want to be compassionate, responsive and attentive, but not too needy, nosy or…

There’s nothing worse than being a unit owner in a building and seeing someone on your board breaking a rule and seemingly getting away with it. Some board members believe that they are “above the law” so to speak, and seem to be ope…

There has been much discussion recently about the antiquated New York Labor Law 241 and its effect on the availability and cost of insurance coverages for contractors. The fear is that smaller contractors will get priced out of purchasing …

Going about the course of our busy lives we may take for granted the sense of safety and security we have when we enter our office building in the morning or our apartment building when we arrive home at night. We don’t think twice when so…

Saving money is always a top concern of any co-op or condo board, but with tough economic times and high fuel prices, saving on energy costs can be a challenge. Thanks to deregulation of the New York energy market a little over a decade ag…

In March 1947, a group of nearly 600 onlookers gathered on the sidewalk in front of the home of bachelor brothers Homer and Langley Collyer on Fifth Avenue and 128th Street in Manhattan. Residents of the neighborhood had speculated and gos…

Mom was right. Her admonition to “Turn out the lights when you leave the room!” is as valid today as it was a generation ago. And yet many co-op and condo buildings, while energy-conscious in so many ways, seem to feel it’s better to just …