Category: Building Operations

 While the grid of streets and avenues may remain rigid and unchanging as the  years go by, New York City’s neighborhoods are organic entities, constantly shifting and evolving as new  features emerge and old ones fade away. Nowhere is thi…

 Though often responsible for millions of dollars in property and charged with  the oversight of complex building functions, few co-op/condo board members are  real estate professionals. Board members are resident volunteers who come from …

 Inefficiently-run board meetings are time-wasters that can make even the most  enthusiastic board member cringe at the thought of an upcoming session. By  contrast, a well-run board meeting can be a productive hour or two that  benefits t…

Most co-op and condo residents understand that there is a board protecting the interests of their building community and individual owners—they’ve probably taken part in numerous board elections, or even served on committees, or volunte…

 Unlike individual apartment owners’ insurance coverage, most co-op and condo buildings’ insurance policies are pretty standard—they include homeowners’ insurance, liability, and umbrella coverage. Usually, the common areas such as  the ha…

Part of the process of bidding and hiring a contractor to work in your building is verifying their insurance coverage. Uninsured or inadequately insured contractors pose a serious threat to a co-op or condo community’s finances and can …

The economic crisis has affected many individuals, businesses and markets—the real estate and job markets, to name just two particularly nasty examples. Until now, one of the few industries that didn’t seem as deeply impacted was the ins…

 In the last two years, Fannie Mae has amended it’s guidelines for selling and serving mortgages on condominiums, cooperatives,  and planned unit developments three times. Why should service providers,  cooperative corporations and communi…

 Proposed legislation by the New York City Council to require energy audits,  while a nice idea, is extremely cost-prohibitive especially in today’s economy. The bottom line is that the spending proposed in this bill (Intro  967) will be t…

In today’s harsh economic times, maintaining a healthy reserve fund is more important than ever. A co-op or condo’s reserve fund can be used to cover any number of emergency expenses from sudden repairs to legal costs. In addition, a re…