Drawing up a contract for management services looks at first glance like a simple task. Such contracts usually follow a particular format and outline similar services. But what about contract areas where there’s room for negotiation? Ho…
Job losses. Bankruptcies. Foreclosures. These are tough times for everyone, but when homeowners fall on hard times, they are often late paying condo fees. Some can’t even afford to pay them at all. Add i…
These are hardly the best of times for those who manage community associations, charged as they are with overseeing financial well-being, maintenance goals, legal issues and an almost unpredictable kaleidoscope of other daily concerns, …
Q Do you have any information on what to do about a neighbor who admittedly has a problem with cockroaches and occasionally mice? I moved into a new unit about a month ago. I had an exterminator before I even moved in, and after a month…
When people mention “suburbs,” it’s not uncommon to think of quiet towns – bedroom communities – lacking the vibrancy of the nearby city that residents head off to each morning. Malden, Massachusetts, however, though only a 12-minute tra…
Usually, life in a condo goes on uneventfully on a day-to-day basis, with routine maintenance, elections, gardening, move-ins, move-outs and the like taking up most of its attention. Every once in a while, however, something comes up t…
A lot of people buy condominiums because they never want to have to mow a lawn or shovel snow again. But eight owners of University Park Lofts in Worcester, Massachusetts, had no choice after the developer at the mostly-vacant 37-unit …
In today’s difficult economy, more and more homeowner associations are facing the prospect of dealing with some form of distress. Whether it’s physical distress from lack of funding for repairs or financial distress from foreclosures an…
Self-managed condominiums are a puzzle to many, especially considering that one major driving force for purchasing a condominium is to offload countless common home ownership responsibilities to someone else. A community that assumes the s…
At the vast majority of condominiums, a management company’s duties can be fairly straightforward – maintain the common areas, advise the trustees about operations, and keep financial documents and other records. But in the rarified atmo…