It's Friday night and you've just arrived home from a long week at work. Picking up your mail, you head upstairs in anticipation of a cold drink and a hot bath. But when you enter the bathroom, you find a quarter inch of water covering the …

One of the most common problems in co-op and condo management is the failure of building boards and staff to maintain accurate and accessible records of the past performance and activities within the building. Recording the minutes of board…

The terraces were crumbling and the board engaged an engineer to make a recommendation. When the engineer reported that the terraces needed several hundred thousand dollars worth of repairs, the board went through a bidding process with the…

In a recent decision, New York's second highest court ruled that the Hotel Des Artistes coop-erative did not have the authority to impose a 30 percent sublet fee on its shareholders. In Zimiles v. Hotel des Artistes, Inc., the judge requi…

When a conversion sponsor fails to meet his financial obligations, the result can be a default on the underlying mortgage, one of the most destructive catastrophes to strike a co-op. Even a default on the sponsor's maintenance obligations c…

Members of the insurance industry do not agree on much, but if they agree on one thing it's that insurance can seem like a very complex subject. For board members, there is one clear objective regarding insurance: to secure the lowest pos…

In the first cold day of the season, a group of res- idents and politicians stood in front of the Griffin, a 199-unit co-op in Brooklyn, trying to stay warm. You're not cold are you? exclaimed Jeannette Gadson, deputy borough president of…

As issues such as global warming, shrinking rain forests and overflowing landfills move to the top of our national agenda, environmental considerations have taken a higher priority among interior designers as well. These days, a kitchen ren…

If you thought asbestos was a problem, wait until you hear about lead. Found in 57 million private homes in the United States (two million in New York City), lead-based paint poisons young children, reduces IQs, and causes learning disabili…

It has been compared to a trip to the dentist and a police interrogation. The very mention of it makes potential buyers' knees tremble and sets brokers' eyes rolling heavenward. What could strike such apprehension in even the most jaded New…