When your building or association is faced with an exterior maintenance or repair job, it’s important that you don’t just hire the first contractor who comes along; carrying out your due diligence can make the difference between working coo…
There are certain perils—fires, major weather events, and so forth—that announce themselves clearly; others are more subtle, if no less hazardous. Things like gas leaks, electrical shorts and surges, and water leaks may not be as dramatic a…
Even if your condominium or homeowner's association (HOA) is a fortified castle atop a hill and surrounded by a moat, one day, someone will hit it with a really big rock, and thus it’s inevitable: work will be done, repairs will be made, th…
Even after the rain is gone, you may still not be able to see clearly—if your windows haven’t been washed lately, that is. Even if you have the greatest views in the entire complex and your windows are dirty, your views might as well be a b…
A building’s roof serves as the first line of defense against whatever the skies throw at its inhabitants—wind, rain and blazing sun, even snow and ice in some climates—so it’s crucial for that roof to be sound and well maintained. All it t…
Q. I have a question concerning the confidentiality of a person in a condo or HOA filing a complaint. Number one, are all complaints confidential? Or when a management agent of a condominium receives a complaint from a homeowner about an…
Q. In our parking garage we have access to a bike storage room and an outside bike rack that is next to a resident's handicapped parking spot. Right now the only way to get to the bikes is to "trespass" over the parking spot. Our concern …
It’s cheaper for two families to pool resources and share a house than for the same two families to buy two houses. This underlying concept has been around since people starting building houses. As a report by the National Cooperative Law C…
A fire breaks out in an apartment building; A broken water pipe floods several floors; A resident collapses with a heart attack on the tennis court; An intruder roams the premises with criminal intent; and the chilly winds whipping in off L…
It's almost axiomatic that when numbers of people live in close quarters with each other, disagreements over noise, odors, shared spaces, and other day-to-day minutia are bound to crop up. This is true even in the most usually-harmonious co…