Category: On The Board

As an attorney and an apartment dweller, Michelle Freudenberger has seen it all when it comes to living with difficult residents.     “I lived next door to twin toddlers whose parents were both attorneys,” says Freudenberger, prin…

We all know the feeling—whether we encounter it trying to navigate the city bureaucracy, dealing with a far-flung credit card call center, or trying to resolve an issue with our cable box: the feeling that we’ve got a legitimate problem, an…

In what may prove to be a significant victory for cooperative and condominium boards sued for housing discrimination, an appellate court recently applied the protection of the business judgment rule to a discrimination claim for disabili…

Perhaps Benjamin Franklin said it best: “In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes.” And taxes aren’t just a certainty for co-op and condo buildings—they’re a complicated part of keeping a building co…

Molds are naturally occurring organisms that are present almost everywhere.  While molds need both moisture and nutrients to grow, moisture is the primary factor that promotes indoor mold growth. Therefore, whenever there is a water leak…

Sometime in the future, perhaps, teleporters like those seen on Star Trek will be a reality. Every co-op and condo building will have one—not for purposes of travel, but for storage. Until technology allows us to beam our bins and boxes …

Managing a co-op or condo community is far from an easy job. Six managing agents from some of the city’s top firms recently participated in the continuing series of roundtable discussions hosted by The Cooperator and the Federation of Ne…

Whether you’re part of a giant co-op the size of Co-op City, a 21-story building with over 15,000 residential units, or a small 25-unit condo in Staten Island, whether your building is self-managed or uses a management company, your b…

Your roof terrace leaked and the neighbor below you sued for damages. Do you have any recourse? The heating system in your apartment failed to work and the managing agent sent you the bill for its repair. Do you have to pay? The a…

In many ways, a co-op or condo building is a lot like a tiny democratic nation. Like an independent state, a building elects its leaders, and those leaders have certain responsibilities to the people who elected them. Each “citizen” of the …