Residents in condo, HOA and co-op communities are frequently quite busy. Boards consist of elected volunteers who nearly always have other jobs and lives. So while a professional management company can relieve much of the day-to-day operati…

Community association and co-op boards typically consist of elected volunteers whose job is to serve the best interests of the community in day-to-day decisions both big and small. In an ideal world, every board would live and die by its fi…

Whether in a single-family home or an apartment building, every homeowner has experienced that moment: he or she turns on the kitchen light in the middle of the night to see a huge water bug scurry across the counter, or hear the sound of t…

Unlike in a co-op, wherein residents own shares in a corporation entitling them to occupy their apartment – and in which the co-op board is pretty much the final authority over how the community is run – condos and HOAs are considered ‘real…

Q. I want to know if my condo association is legally registered, because the president of association refuses to show me any documents to verify that we are. Where do I have to ask to get this information?                         —Reside…

Q. Can we include an alternate dispute resolution (ADR) in our co-op’s application itself? Since the applicant is not a shareholder yet, is this legal? If we reject a candidate, we would like to avoid the threat of litigation and use our …

Q. As a condo association in Illinois, do we have a fiduciary duty to hire a property tax attorney in an effort to lower our assessed valuations? If successful, each owner would pay a percentage of the first year’s savings.        —Seeki…

Once upon a time, you usually greeted your neighbor in the hallway of your building as you're coming or going. But lately you haven’t seen or heard a peep from her in almost two months. You wonder if she is okay.   So you ask the super one…

Co-op, condo and HOA communities are a property manager’s bread and butter.  Ensuring that their client buildings and associations run smoothly everyday provides managers with both purpose and pay. Therefore, it stands to reason that a dedi…

Q. I’m a resident owner in a 56-unit condo building, and share a common balcony with my next-door neighbor, divided by just a short rail. I have sensitivity to cigarette smoke, and don’t believe it’s fair that the building allows smoking …