Edgar Dworsky is the treasurer of a small condo complex in Somerville, Massachusetts that was built back in 1987. He loves where he lives except for one rather large problem. Water leaks have plagued the complex since it was built. Dur…
Even cavemen knew that fire was dangerous—and they lived in flame-proof caves. But here in the 21st century, people blithely build roaring fires right in the middle of their furnished, wood-filled, carpeted, upholstered and bookcase-jam…
Q Our board president recently made a statement that "our building is essentially controlled by the building Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 32BJ." What does this mean? Are there some sort of documents to accompany…
Q My mother recently passed away and I inherited her shares in a Mitchell-Lama co-op building. It's taken quite some time to run down the paperwork, and make preparations to empty the unit, and the building management has not been at al…
Tucked away in the northernmost top of Brooklyn, Greenpoint is a historic New York neighborhood bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at the Bushwick inlet, on the southeast by the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and East Williamsburg, …
Most of the multifamily, residential buildings found in large cities are either co-ops or condos, and most are run the way co-ops and condos across the country are run. But if you dig a little deeper in here in New York City, you’ll fin…
New Yorkers are used to their fair share of urban wildlife. There are the famed New York City cockroaches, of course. And mice and rats are expected in any gritty city. But the proliferation of bedbugs is a phenomenon that has gained a …
As the harmful effects of cigarette smoking and secondhand smoke have become more widely publicized and acknowledged, anti-smoking campaigns have gained traction across the country. Cigarette commercials have been banned from TV and ra…
Every condo and co-op has its own set of governing documents by which building administrators direct their community's day-to-day business. Bylaws, rules and regulations, and precedent-setting legal cases help keep boards within the le…