Many if not most boards get along famously. There are boards that have had the same members for decades and run their communities without a hitch. We frequently get calls from readers who are troubled when they find that their board …

In an 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 doesn’t…

You can’t underestimate the value of insurance. In a simple analogy, operating a business—or the day-to-day business of an association or condo association—without adequate insurance coverage is a lot like skydiving without a parachute. Ne…

Protection against embezzlement, fraud, theft, computer crime, forgery and more are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to crimes at community associations across the United States. During challenging economic times, crime goes up an…

Say you’re in bed, and you hear what sounds like the shower going. 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 the …

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 condo residents or the board members who oversee the community as a whole. The i…

Homeowners associations and condos are governed by a set of specific documents that lay out the administrative structure of the community, its rules and regulations, and protocols for decision-making. The declaration of covenants, conditio…

One of the biggest problems that can cause the downfall of any association is a lack of funds, or more specifically, not enough money to keep operations running smoothly and to make the necessary repairs to keep everything up to par. …

As the 2012 federal legislative fiasco over the debt ceiling—as well as any number of other spending bills proposed since then—demonstrated, balancing a budget can be like pulling teeth. Balancing a condo association or HOA community's bud…