For some reason I don’t get many emails from New York, even though condo and co-op problems there are as bad as elsewhere.
But here’s an interesting lawsuit involving a New York condo dispute, in which the board appears to have intentionally targeted one homeowner, possibly as an attempt to get him to move out and sell his home to one of the board members.
With this kind of nastiness, what do you think that does to the character of a condominium? Does a Homeowners Association of any kind actually protect property values?
(link to New York condo lawsuit)
Sometimes these very small, self-managed HOAs/Condo associations are the worst living situations of all. You cannot escape your neighbors and conflict when there are less than 10 members!
We don’t know how many HOAs are small — less than 40-50 units. But they would be more common in the northeast and midwest of the US, where old brownstones, rowhomes, beach houses, and Victorians have been chopped up (or popped up) over the years to create several units under one roof.