In a multifamily building with families who are cooking, cleaning, dusting and breathing, it's no surprise that airways, chutes and garbage rooms can get clogged and dirty over time. Garbage, debris and allergens build up in a building's…

Apartment buildings, whether cooperatives or condos, are inherently fragile. When that many units share the same plot of land, and the same walls, the same floors, the same elevators and stairways, standpipes and boilers, lobbies and roo…

Q Who checks up on the board? Does the board police themselves from within, or is it the managing agent that checks up on their actions? If the board makes a mistake, will the shareholders be notified? In what way is a board accountable…

Q In years past, condo unit owners were given copies of the minutes of the annual meeting. A new management company was engaged and this practice stopped. Now, when I have requested the minutes of the annual meeting, I have been told th…

Q One of our board members has been president for many years. She runs the building on a unilateral basis, giving out very little information about the business of the condo. Unit owners have little influence because she is elected by …

Sobering studies have recently been published by organizations like the International Energy Association and the National Petroleum Council suggesting that the planet's supply of traditional energy sources may not meet demand by as soon …

Running a successful co-op or condo—whether you're a shareholder or a manager—requires a lot of outside help. There are landscapers to contract, attorneys to query, owners to deal with and hundreds of other tasks each day that require in…

When Bob Madison, a unit owner on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, tried to contact a board member to talk to them about an ongoing problem he had in the building, he was told "board members don't give out their e-mail addresses." He wa…

The homeowners association is, in theory if not always in practice, democracy in action. Once elected via popular vote by the members of the association, the board members—again, in theory, if not always in practice—represent the organiz…

Whenever an HOA resident has a burning question about policy, rules or procedure in their association community, chances are the answer doesn't lie in some obscure legal document or under lock and key somewhere in the depths of the assoc…