The coronavirus outbreak has highlighted the tension between the rights of the community and the rights of individuals. For now, governments are relying on their inherent police power to protect the community at large. Centers for Disease C…
Life in a co-op or condo is in many respects a microcosm of the larger world outside. It can suffer from the same factionalism and power struggles as any political entity, only on a much smaller and more intimate—and thus potentially more d…
Removing a disruptive, abusive, non-paying, or otherwise problematic tenant from a rental building is relatively easy. Doing the same thing in a co-op is also possible, though substantially harder. But removing a condo owner from the premis…
There is a natural inclination in business to work with those whom you know and trust. Relying on relationships that have developed over time is just a commonsense way to ensure that you’re getting a fair deal from a competent vendor who wi…
Community living comes with lots of rules and regulations – many of which are codified in largely static, hard-to-amend governing documents like proprietary leases and condominium declarations. Others are laid out in the more flexible conte…
While children are most certainly the future, in the present they can often be a bit of a handful. In buildings and associations where residents live in close quarters, it’s inevitable that unit owners without kids will cross paths with the…
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…