We hear about them all the time. Whole movies are made about them. Those nosey, controlling, downright hostile neighbors who can make your life miserable. Having one down the hall or next door is bad enough—imagine what happens when they e…
Buying into a residential community like a co-op, condominium, or HOA can be a bit like selecting the political system you’d like to live under. Governance styles can range from an Athenian democracy where every member of the community is i…
Residents in condo and HOA communities are frequently quite busy. Boards generally consist of elected volunteers who nearly always have other jobs and lives outside their duties as trustees. So while a professional management company can ha…
The job of managing a multifamily property is hectic, and often stressful - but it’s rarely (and blessedly) ever deadly. A tragic exception to that unfolded on August 22 in Atlanta, Georgia, when according to local news outlets a local cond…
At the heart of co-op and condo living is the association or corporation board, that unique self-governing body that directs the community and carries out its mission to uphold quality of life and preserve the investment of its members. Boa…
The 347,000 planned communities in the United States—a number that includes cooperatives, condominiums, and homeowners associations—are generally governed by volunteer members of the building or community elected by their fellow unit owners…
One of the unique aspects of life in an HOA, condo, or co-op is that in many ways, a building or association is a microcosm of the larger world outside it. It can suffer from the same factionalism and partisan bickering as any political ent…
Americans are a particularly litigious lot, believing as many of us do that we are endowed with the inalienable right to life, liberty…and the pursuit of recompense for any slight or wrong done to us, real or perceived. This tendency is unf…
Even though 2022 started off with a backlog of court proceedings and legislative sessions after months of COVID closures and related scheduling issues, a number of cases and bills of interest to the multifamily housing community have gone t…
For many, the topic of insurance can be a bit overwhelming. Even the terms we use as insurance purchasers differ substantially from the terms industry professionals use when discussing and settling claims—which can leave laymen feeling like…