2016 December
Focus on... Safety and Security

Everyone is right to be concerned with the safety of their communities, whether they live in an area highly susceptible to crime or a sleepy Mayberry-esque hamlet. Condominiums, cooperatives, and homeowners associations are no exception; in…

Some days it rains, some days it pours — and some days, there’s a Category 4 hurricane. And while the latter is relatively rare, it can be a true disaster, and any condominium, co-op or homeowners association worth its salt should be prepar…

George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 was all about how Big Brother was watching us. It isn’t hard to imagine what Orwell would think about today’s technologically-advanced world, where there are full-body scans at the airports, photos snapp…

Multifamily residential buildings provide both privacy and community. Privacy, because a recluse in New York City can have almost anything delivered to his door and thus never have to leave the sanctuary of his apartment; and community, bec…

As just about every mother tells her child, it’s important to share with others. The same can be true when it comes to condos and homeowners associations — especially for smaller buildings that may be doing everything they can to control co…

In New York, with its countless multifamily buildings, there are certain dangers that have nothing to do with crime rates, economics, or the latest exotic imported disease. Falling bricks, short circuits leading to fires, trash piling up, a…

Time will tell whether global warming and climate change eventually make winter—and its attendant snow, ice, sleet, and other challenging weather issues—extinct, but for now at least, the colder months can take a seasonal toll on buildings …

For the last decade or so, newly-constructed residential buildings have featured all kinds of new amenities, from the opulent to the simple, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down. This leaves older buildings sparser amenities in a lu…

There has been a recent push by federal, state and local legislators to get reverse mortgages or Home Equity Conversion Mortgages (HECM) approved for residential cooperatives. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) h…

Q. Buying a co-op vs. a condo probably wasn't the best choice given how dictatorial my board is. What is your suggestion for trying to sell my co-op without a traditional real estate agent?                                      —Spurned O…

Q. Can a unit owner demand to see a copy of the monthly list of unit owners' payments of the monthly HOA? —Shareholder Seeking Open Access to Documents A. “Yes,” says attorney Aaron Shmulewitz of the New York City firm of Belkin Burde…