As an attorney and an apartment dweller, Michelle Freudenberger has seen it all when it comes to living with difficult residents.     “I lived next door to twin toddlers whose parents were both attorneys,” says Freudenberger, prin…

We all know the feeling—whether we encounter it trying to navigate the city bureaucracy, dealing with a far-flung credit card call center, or trying to resolve an issue with our cable box: the feeling that we’ve got a legitimate problem, an…

Q My co-op is about to engage in a multi-million dollar energy upgrade project.  The board president has decided to not allow me—a newly elected member of the board— and any shareholders access to review the documents on this project. How…

Q If a building decides to adopt a transfer tax, can they impose a tax when an apartment is sold to an outsider but exempt from the tax when selling to an insider? The apartments that have been combined with other apartments, (three …

Q Three shareholders organized the development of 861 square feet of unused courtyard space behind their building, after having surveyed the building for interest (57 percent of shareholders responded—of which 70 percent were in favo…

I currently run my family’s construction business and have been doing so since I left management business over four years ago. Recently, I was asked to renovate an apartment for a client in a luxurious East Side apartment building. The b…

It’s no secret—in fact, it’s been a problem for years: residential developers in Manhattan and other hot areas like Downtown Brooklyn are running out of space. Various solutions have been applied to the space issue over the years.…

Mortgage financiers are gearing up for a different lending landscape in 2007. To succeed in the coming year, lenders will need to pay attention, look around and get in front of trends.  Here are a few trends we can already foresee: …

One of the major initiatives which will soon benefit New York City’s co-op and condominium landscape is the ongoing effort to certify the resident managers and superintendents that live and work in city housing. It’s time to dust off A…

There is a tendency among many co-op boards, building managers and developers to consider “green” building technologies as extras—or as luxuries that have nothing to do with their need to reduce costs. That kind of thinking is so …