For co-ops, condos, and HOAs, insurance premiums are some of those quiet necessities that tend to fly under the budgetary radar until it is time to examine the bottom line, provoking a search for savings. Without a doubt, insurance e…
In South Africa, it’s called a “sectional title.” In Quebec, it’s a copropriété divise or “divided co-property.” In Italy, they call it “condominio,” derived from Latin. Regardless of location, a condominium, commonly referred to as “condo…
Like a python that has swallowed a deer and now needs to rest while digesting it, the Illinois General Assembly emerged from a 2014 session full of important common-interest community association legislation, and paused in 2015 to digest w…
Condos and homeowner associations have made headlines over the years for passing all kinds of overreaching and downright silly rules and regulations—everything from forbidding the flying of the American flag to having prohibitions about ha…
If someone offered free advice and equipment to help you use less of his product, would you say it’s too good to be true? A lot of people do. That’s a challenge as Chicagoland’s electric and natural-gas utilities try to promote energy-savi…
There’s a reason why all the law drama shows do so well on TV. There’s so much material revolving around lawyers and the people who need to call one—even if those people are ordinary people doing ordinary things, like buying and selling pr…
I Love Lucy is one of the most beloved sitcoms in all of television history. In one episode, after Little Ricky is born, the baby is screaming and screaming, keeping awake the next door tenant, Mrs. Trumbull. Mrs. Trumbull complains to lan…
Few things can raise one's blood pressure like signing a big contract. That can be especially true for board members or managers signing sometimes mammoth contracts on behalf of a co-op or condo association, obligating their neighbors, fri…
Much like corporations and charity organizations, condos, co-ops and HOAs across the nation are helmed by groups of residents who volunteer to serve their communities, and who are elected to their post by their neighbors. This is of course…
A quote often attributed to the Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck in the mid-1800s says something to the effect that laws are like sausages—it's better not to see either of them being made. It's a clever quip, and it's not entirely inac…