In a dense urban or sprawling suburban environment, people can still feel isolated. While high-rise residential buildings and suburban subdivisions put many people and families in very close proximity to one another, living side-by-side do…
When electing board members to serve on behalf of your condo or co-op community, you expect them to act as crusaders for prosperity, considering the needs of the building and the people who live there to be paramount when making their deci…
The candidates. The issues. The campaigns. Excitement and suspense are built into just about every election, including those of co-op and condo board members. In fact, those elections can stir even more emotion given the impact they may ha…
Mayor Bill de Blasio says that New York has “a crisis of affordability.” According to the mayor’s ten-year housing plan, his administration is committed to “build or preserve nearly 200,000 affordable units” throughout the five boroughs. M…
From the Magna Carta to the U.S. Constitution, written documents have helped shape the way people live and interact with one another for centuries. The fundamental documents that establish co-ops and condos have that same importance in bui…
The headline of a recent Walpole, Massachusetts newspaper article reads: “Fight between Walpole selectmen cuts meeting short.” The first sentence of the article stated, “Selectmen came to verbal blows on Tuesday night, prompting other boar…
Say you’re in bed and you hear what sounds like the shower going, but it's late, and you're tired, so you pay it no mind. You wake up at 4 a.m. to get a glass of water, and find half the rooms in your apartment flooded— you forgot to turn …
Individuals, associations and other entities carry insurance coverage to protect them from liability, loss, and other financial and legal threats—that's pretty basic. What isn't always so basic is deciding when to file a claim versus payin…
Sometimes insurance and the terms that accompany it can feel like a completely foreign language. It can be mystifying and overwhelming, whether for individual co-op or condo residents or the board members who oversee the community as a who…
You can’t underestimate the value of insurance. In a simple analogy, operating a business—or the day-to-day business of a co-op or condo—without adequate insurance coverage is a lot like skydiving without a parachute. Needless to say, it’s…