The headline of a recent Walpole, Massachusetts newspaper article reads: “Fight between Walpole selectmen cuts meeting short.” The first sentence of the article stated, “Selectmen came to verbal blows on Tuesday night, prompting other boar…
Say you’re in bed and you hear what sounds like the shower going, but it's late, and you're tired, so you pay it no mind. You wake up at 4 a.m. to get a glass of water, and find half the rooms in your apartment flooded— you forgot to turn …
Individuals, associations and other entities carry insurance coverage to protect them from liability, loss, and other financial and legal threats—that's pretty basic. What isn't always so basic is deciding when to file a claim versus payin…
Sometimes insurance and the terms that accompany it can feel like a completely foreign language. It can be mystifying and overwhelming, whether for individual co-op or condo residents or the board members who oversee the community as a who…
You can’t underestimate the value of insurance. In a simple analogy, operating a business—or the day-to-day business of a co-op or condo—without adequate insurance coverage is a lot like skydiving without a parachute. Needless to say, it’s…
According to a 2013 poll by the Insurance Information Institute, only 13 percent of American homeowners have some sort of flood insurance policy, and those living in New York City are low on that list. After all, New York City certai…
Running the day-to-day business of a co-op, condo or HOA of any size—be it a self-contained high-rise in Manhattan or a sprawling, multi-building community in Queens—requires not just a functional board but a team of competent outside prof…
Working together is something we all must do in one or many ways pretty much every day. But it’s a rule of thumb that’s easy to forget, given the varying pressures of a 21st century economy and the needs of businesses to profit, and of res…
While it's true that having apathetic leadership is an all-too-common problem in a lot of co-op and condo buildings, having a board that oversteps the boundaries of its power or invades the privacy of residents can be just as bad. Ignoranc…
Community living' in the context of a co-op or condo building means abiding by a set of rules and regulations designed to serve the community’s best interests and maintain property values. The building board makes the rules, and the reside…