It's almost a mantra: the more you know, the better off you are—certainly when it comes to doing the job of a cooperative, condominium or HOA board member. No matter how enthused and engaged a new board appointee may be, they don't come…
As an attorney and an apartment dweller, Michelle Freudenberger had seen it all and more when it comes to living with difficult residents. “I lived next door to twin toddlers whose parents were both attorneys,” says Michelle, w…
It is one of life’s eternal questions: is it possible to have too much of a good thing? That question certainly can apply to the matter of long-serving board members: those individuals who get elected and re-elected term after term and …
One of the trickier problems to deal with when you live in a co-op or condo is dealing with board members who sometimes let the power go to their heads. Even though they are entrusted with a great deal of responsibility in the smooth r…
Remember your first day at a new school? Most likely, you didn’t know a soul, had no idea what the students were learning and you probably felt nervous, intimidated or maybe even afraid. In most cases, this is what it’s like to be a new …
The good news is, after a fallow period in the depths of the recession, the construction industry in New York City is starting to come back. However, with that activity comes the potential for disputes and property damage, especially w…
It’s not necessarily to the degree of the Hatfields vs. the McCoys, the famous mountain clan involved in a decades-long blood feud, but living side-by-side in a co-op or a condo can, needless to say, get pretty heated on occasion. …
Congratulations, you’ve been elected to serve on your building’s board. You managed to convince the rest of the building that you know enough about building systems or law or economics or even people-pleasing to make them vote for you a…
No one likes it when a neighbor has an ongoing renovation project that lasts for months on end, especially when the renovations may cause damage to your own apartment. Luckily, most buildings have a mechanism in place to fix this: the …
In the best of circumstances, qualifying an applicant for a co-op or condominium purchase can be a challenging process. Market conditions play a part in a board's consideration of applicants, and recent fluctuations have changed the wa…