Category: Law & Legislation

The synopsis for the 2013 horror film The Purge is pretty extreme: in the future, society implements a 12-hour period called “the purge,” wherein any and all crime is legalized. Always wanted to vandalize your boss’s car? Thinking about sho…

Finding a good neighbor—it’s what we all hope for when we move into a new building or community. The same is true for commercial properties in residential buildings.  Making a good match, one that benefits both the commercial tenants and un…

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…