Real estate lore has its share of stories about merciless, if not downright unscrupulous, city inspectors popping in on unaware building owners, conducting unscheduled examinations of all types, and sometimes even demanding payoffs in excha…
As part of the larger Climate Mobilization Act, the City of New York passed Local Law 97 (LL97) in 2019 to reduce carbon emissions from buildings. This law enforces carbon caps on most buildings larger than 25,000 square feet—including roug…
On October 18, workers at 108 Leonard Street, a 166-unit luxury condo in the Tribeca section of Manhattan, went on strike to protest a number of alleged unfair labor practices at the condominium developed by Elad Group. According to an anno…
The New York City Department of Buildings (DOB) recently published proposed rules for implementing Local Law 97 (LL97), landmark legislation initially passed in 2019 aimed at limiting the city’s carbon emissions. These limits are the center…
While many condominium associations and co-op corporations hire professional property managers or management firms to handle the routine (and not-so-routine) tasks involved in running a multifamily building or HOA, a significant number take…
Indoor plumbing is a minor miracle: clean water on demand, at the temperature one chooses, right out of the tap. What would have been the height of luxury just a couple of generations ago is now considered a bare necessity. Miraculous as it…
Achieving balance between board and management is vital in maintaining a healthy collective. For the resident of a condominium or cooperative, knowing which of the two pillars of the homeowning community to address for maintenance issues or…
In our current environment of steeply rising costs, it’s more important than ever to safeguard your reserves to ensure that your association has sufficient funds available for immediate and future capital projects. Unfortunately, many assoc…
In early 2020, our firm was hired to prepare a reserve study for an unremarkable 136-unit, 12-story condominium in south Florida. It was the kind of association you could drive right by without noticing, not much different from all the othe…
Where there are people, there is detritus. It’s an age-old reality — so much so that even the remains of our ancient trash are often the basis upon which archeologists develop theories about vanished civilizations. While we can’t say what f…