Though mostly unseen, a building’s plumbing and piping network is one of its most important systems—as anyone who has ever had to endure a freezing February shower, or who has come home to a flooded floor, can attest. Plumbing includes not…
The rarely stated—but all too well understood—Murphy’s Law for Boilers— asserts that if your boiler quits working, it will do so on Christmas or New Year’s Eve, or at 4:45 p.m. on the coldest day of the year. With some planning, though, th…
From the outside, the structure of a condo, co-op or townhouse building may appear to be monolithic; just pieces of brick, steel, vinyl or wood, punctuated with some glass here and there. That's an oversimplification, however. A multifamil…
After this winter, a concrete walkway in our condo property was completely ruined. Several unit owners contend the property manager used rock salt instead of the usual calcium chloride. If we can establish that rock salt was indeed used as …
Q I am the president of a condominium association, and we are very certain that a tenant is maliciously running up the water bills. The problem is that we don’t have definitive proof. Our water bills have gone up from about $2,000 a quart…
Just south of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, one will find the city of Laconia, a popular resort town known in the winter for its skiing, snow tubing and ziplining and in the summer for its extensive beachfront, teeming rivers and c…
With the advent of relatively cheap and accessible television source options such as Verizon’s FiOS TV, Cablevision’s Optimum and Comcast’s Xfinity, it might surprise some to hear that the seemingly antiquated satellite dish is still a mai…
Ideally, building or HOA boards and their managing agents or property managers work as a team, collaborating to carry out the administrative duties and make the decisions that keep their communities running from day to day. Management cont…
Many if not most boards of trustees get along famously. There are boards that have had the same members for decades and run their communities without a hitch. But sometimes boards don’t get along so well. We frequently get calls from…
Speak to any volunteer-run organization, whether it is a town board, the soccer association, a church’s childcare program or the school PTO, and the same complaint resounds: “We don’t have enough people stepping up to serve.” Condominium h…