Did you hear the one about the Florida family that was about to be kicked out of their HOA because the wife had just had twins? The family already had one child, and the arrival of the twins would put them over the two-kids-per-unit allowed…
Most people go about their days paying little attention to the labor performed by those who make their lives easier. From transit workers to service employees to government officials, how often does one stop to thank the people making every…
Supers, building managers, maintenance persons, custodial staff, groundskeeping personnel, porters, doormen, concierges—depending on the size of a community, the staff roster for a condo, co-op or HOA can be pretty long. The truth is, in th…
Community living—the very basis of co-op, condo and HOA life—is based on the idea of trust. In a community of potentially hundreds or thousands of residents, every resident can’t be involved in the making of every decision. Too many cooks c…
Though many—in fact, most—co-op buildings flatly forbid residents from subletting their apartments to rental tenants, many co-op (and many more condo) buildings have populations of subtenants residing in them. Sometimes a unit owner or shar…
Every year the state of Florida experiences an ebb and flow of full-time and part time residents; as the seasons change, so does the population. Part-time residents from the northern United States and Canada live and work in Florida for an …
A condo or homeowners association is the cornerstone of a building community. The condominium or HOA maintains order and continuity by preserving architectural integrity, maintaining the common elements, protecting property values, and ofte…
While most often the exception and not the rule, fires in high-rise buildings do occur. Whether it’s a scary-but-manageable kitchen fire or a four-alarm blaze involving multiple units or even floors, smoke alarms, sprinkler systems and flam…
Whether you make your home in the heart of a city or in a sprawling suburb, there are certain dangers that have nothing to do with crime rates, economics, or the latest exotic imported disease (see our piece on the Zika epidemic elsewhere i…
Anonymous buyers and foreign investors for years have played in the Miami-Dade and South Florida real estate market, buying luxury properties to fuel the region’s condo boom. But now two investigations have put those shadow buyers under the…