Hi, my name is Andrew Weltchek. I’m a partner at the law firm of Cohen, Hochman, and Allen. I help property owners with their problems. Apartment owners often ask, ‘What can I do about my board?’ Here are some simple tips.
First of all, go read the minutes. The managing agent is supposed to have them, so if you find out that they’re not there, that’s an initial problem you’re going to have to address but in a normal, regular-run co-op or condo, board managers will keep the minutes of the board and you will be entitled to see them so you find out what’s going on then you can go to the meetings.
That rarely happens, but welcome… people are welcome to come. They’re able to come, and you could get to meet the board members, talk with them afterwards, visit with them, get to know what they think they’re doing to help manage this building. That’s a very challenging task. They deserve props, respect for even attempting to do it, and if they’re managing it poorly, then they deserve oversight.
So you can go and visit these meetings and find out what’s going on and then if you think there are issues that are not being properly addressed or things that you think you could offer to help, you can talk to not only the board members but the other apartment owners in your building and you can even consider running as a slate of candidates to attempt to take the board into your hands and give the present board members the relief of not having to be bothered by everybody else in the building.
You don’t have to be necessarily treated as an antagonistic exercise, but rather a change of guard to share the service responsibilities in the building among everybody who’s there, I hope that’s helpful to you.
Again, my name is Andrew Weltchek. I’m a partner of Cohen, Hochman, and Allen, and my contact information is at the end of this video, thank you.
From the desk of Andrew Weltchek 