Preparing the annual budget is by no means an easy task. Those charged with preparing condo association or HOA budgets will soon begin reviewing costs, gathering data and projecting expenses for the coming year. Communities, businesses, in…

Allegedly, on his death bed and with his last breath, the great writer Oscar Wilde said, “This wallpaper is dreadful; one of us will have to go.” The quote conjures a mental picture: Wilde, pale and bedridden, propped up on massive Victori…

Ask people to list the household chores they dislike most, and chances are, doing laundry will consistently rank among the top ten. The need and appreciation for clean clothes gets overshadowed by the inconvenience of constantly having to …

While crime rates are steadily decreasing nationwide—even in the tri-state area—multifamily dwellings are often more difficult to 'police' due to the number of residents, visitors, delivery personnel, and third-party workers such as contra…

Seeing the positive in life is a wonderful thing, but when you’re a manager at an association, regardless of its size or how civil and well-mannered shareholders and owners can be, there will always be situations that arise that need to be…

Everyone would love to believe their HOA or condo association building is a miniature utopia where everyone gets along and disagreements are well-nigh unheard of. Of course, if you have ever actually lived in a condo association or HOA, yo…

Go down any major shopping street and chances are you’ll see five or six bank branches within two or three blocks—big banks like Chase and Citibank, smaller community banks, foreign-owned banks, you name it. Add to that investment banks, on…

Having apathetic leadership is a problem in some buildings, though a board that oversteps the boundaries of its power or invades the privacy of residents also can be a headache. An informed board, however, should be less apt to go beyond i…

When it comes to work in, on, or around a residential building, there’s really no such thing as a small job. Whether a minor fix or a major capital improvement, there are a number of factors that determine the success of a project, particu…

Even before the economic meltdown and the media storm swirling around the thievery of money men like Bernie Madoff, financial mismanagement and fraud have been destructive problems for many associations and unit owners. An HOA or con…