Hiring outside contractors is simply part of running a co?op or condo community. From routine repairs to major capital projects, boards rely on vendors to keep buildings operating safely and efficiently year-round. In many cases, the board or manager’s focus during the hiring process is on choosing a qualified contractor and confirming that proper insurance is in place. While both are important, what’s less obvious, and often misunderstood, is how New York labor laws can dramatically affect liability when a contractor is injured on a property. These laws can shape how claims unfold, which insurance policies respond, and how much risk a building ultimately retains.
A Deeper Look
New York labor laws are designed to protect workers performing construction?related activities. While that intent is clear, its impact on property owners is not always intuitive. In many situations, these laws place significant responsibility on the building owner, regardless of who hired the contractor or how much oversight the board exercised during the process. As a result, along with board members and managing agents, co?op corporations and condominium associations are frequently named in lawsuits following contractor accidents—even when the injured worker was employed by a third?party vendor.
Labor Law §240, commonly known as the Scaffold Law, is often the most significant concern for boards. It applies to injuries involving physical falls from heights, or incidents caused by falling objects—scenarios that commonly arise during facade work, roof repairs, window replacement, and other elevated projects. What makes this law particularly impactful is the concept of strict liability. If adequate safety devices failed, or were not provided, the property owner may be held responsible, regardless of fault or direct involvement. Quite often, ownership of the property alone is enough to trigger exposure. These claims also tend to be expensive, frequently exhausting primary liability limits and reaching umbrella or excess coverage.
Labor Law §241 establishes specific safety requirements for certain construction, demolition, and excavation activities. Labor Law §200 addresses general job?site safety and is based on negligence principles. While not as absolute as §240, these statutes are commonly cited in conjunction with it. Together, they can broaden the scope of litigation and increase defense costs, even on projects that appear relatively straightforward.
In many labor law cases, the central issue is not who caused the accident, but which insurance policy responds. The outcome is frequently driven by decisions made during contract negotiations and insurance placement, long before the injury occurred. Boards often feel reassured once they receive a contractor’s certificate of insurance, but while certificates confirm that coverage exists, they do not transfer risk by themselves. If contracts do not include properly structured additional insured endorsements, hold harmless and indemnification language, or primary and non?contributory wording, the building’s own insurance policy may end up responding first to a claim. Shortcomings in contract language often lead to greater claim severity and unexpected financial exposure.
Mindful Risk Management
Labor law exposure cannot be eliminated entirely, but it can be managed thoughtfully. Boards are best served when contracts are reviewed before any work begins, and when insurance requirements reflect the scope of work being performed. It is also important to recognize that while workers’ compensation coverage is required for contractors, it does not protect property owners from third?party lawsuits. Liability limits, umbrella policies, and enforceable contracts all influence how a claim ultimately plays out. Early coordination among boards, managing agents, legal counsel, and insurance professionals can make a meaningful difference.
Understanding how these laws affect liability and insurance coverage enables boards to take a proactive approach as projects progress. Hiring contractors is unavoidable. Making sure the legal and insurance implications are carefully managed is what helps protect the long?term interests of the community.
Vanessa Cusumano, ACSR, is an insurance consultant with Mackoul Risk Solutions. She may be reached at vcusumano@mackoul.com.
Q:I have lived in a co-op on the Upper East Side for about 40 years, and had enjoyed its sizable balcony until it became infested with pigeons. Management allowed us in writing to pay to install screens, which worked for many years. The new management ripped them down and won’t allow us to replace them. The pigeons are back, building nests and reproducing. It’s filthy, and I won’t set foot out there. What can we do?
A: Unfortunately, just because the previous management company granted you written permission to install the screens doesn’t necessarily mean that you can do so now, replies the Ask Real Estate column in The New York Times.
If management wasn’t permitted under your co-op’s proprietary lease and bylaws to let you install the screens in the first place, you can’t insist that you have that right to reinstall them now.
Therefore, shareholders need to look at the co-op’s governing documents to see whether shareholders are responsible for maintaining the balcony, and whether they have the right to install screening or other deterrents, says Leni Morrison Cummins, chair of condominiums and cooperatives at the law firm Cozen O’Connor.
It’s possible that the co-op’s governing documents offer the worst of both worlds: Shareholders might be responsible for maintaining the balcony, keeping it clean and free from bird droppings, yet prohibited from adding screening or other measures to deter avian invaders.
Unlike in a typical landlord-tenant relationship, the co-op’s maintenance obligations are defined by the governing documents, and it’s not clear that filing a lawsuit would offer relief in your case.
“Courts are often reluctant to impose duties that the cooperative did not expressly assume,” Cummins says.
But there is an option that doesn’t involve a lawsuit. Once you establish what is allowed under your governing documents, you could write to the co-op board and management company and explain your concerns about the pigeons and the mess they are creating. See if you can come to an agreement on an effective deterrent that is inconspicuous, such as netting.
“Pigeons are homing birds,” says Andrew Fletcher, a foreman at Bell Bird Control in Parsippany, N.J. “Once they establish that area as their home, they will come back no matter what you do.”
You can purchase gel that can prevent pigeons from landing, but the application process could take over your entire balcony. Some deterrents, like shiny objects, noise machines or plastic owls, might work for a time, but Fletcher says that in his experience, these solutions are temporary. He adds that shareholders have just one option: “They’ve got to put up a physical barrier.”
And before they do that, they’ve got to win the blessing of the co-op board.
Communication is a critical skill that seems rarely to be explicitly taught.
Communication is an essential part of any business activity.
Certain tools and approaches can increase influence.
I had been a practicing psychologist for more than a decade when I had a critical realization. No one in my academic journey through leading psychology schools had ever addressed communication. And my experience was now revealing that communication should be one of the main topics in medical, or any, education, especially when the job entails critical personal interaction.
I decided to research the topic and eventually wrote the book Power Talk: The Art of Effective Communication. The effort changed how I approached my clients. Now, not only was I trying to understand their perceptions and feelings from a diagnostic viewpoint but also from a motivational one. I needed to understand where they were at and adjust my messaging accordingly.
It still stuns me to this day how little education there is on communication generally, given that it is an absolutely critical life skill, not just a business one.
The Universal Importance of Communication
Almost every endeavor that involves working with others relies on effective communication. One of the biggest reasons patients change doctors is that they don’t feel the doctor understands or relates to them. We’ve all encountered the doctor who is just telling you what to do and treating you like just another number.
Conversely, some of us have encountered doctors who have a great “bedside manner”; in other words, they really try to understand you and address you accordingly. I believe that this difference in approach does impact outcome.
The same could be applied to teachers, managers, nurses—you name it. Genuinely investigating where people are at not only helps in the planning of messaging but also in connection. And connection clearly matters.
Specific Communication Tools
One of the greatest advocates of understanding others’ viewpoints and where they were coming from was the psychiatrist Milton Erickson, who brilliantly used this approach to change rigidly held beliefs. Jay Haley’s book Uncommon Therapy explains and shares Erickson’s exceptional work.
Erickson couched his work in terms of hypnotherapy, but his fundamental tools do not require hypnosis as such. A person doesn’t have to be in a hypnotic state to defend and uphold their most important perceptions and ideas. This point was highlighted by Robert Cialdini, a psychologist and communication expert whose book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion identifies several key principles, like social proof, that can be used to change someone’s perceptions. Now, unfortunately, some of these principles, like social proof, have been hijacked by scamming advertisers who show fake photos as signs of their product’s worth. However, it’s not the principle’s fault that they are misappropriated in this way.
Aren’t Sales People the Best Communicators?
Even in fields like sales, where you might assume communication is a required trait, good communication isn’t necessarily a given. In his recent book Uncertainty: Why Deals Stall: The Human Side of Buying and the 13 Buyer Uncertainties That Cost You Wins, marketing guru Bill Zujewski shows that even in the sales industry, many people don’t understand where the potential buyer is coming from or the real factors behind their decision-making. These are often not about the product per se, but the potential social, reputational, political, and emotional impact of the purchase.
This understanding about communication is even more relevant today, when primitive, binary thinking only leads to disconnection and anger (see politics and social media).
Preparing for an Important Conversation
There are some simple questions that can help you prepare for any conversation in which you desire a specific outcome, i.e., getting the other person to agree with you in some way.
What is the purpose of this communication?
What do I want the outcome to be?
How might the other person respond?
What is important to the other person in this context?
What core principles do they hold?
How can I frame the conversation to embrace their core beliefs?
We tend to be egotistical in our communication and make the mistake of not trying to understand the other person or figure out how to really engage them.
As I wrote in Power Talk: “People aren’t logical; they’re psychological, often with the emphasis on the psycho.”
When a hurricane like Isaias strikes, affected homeowners may face thousands of dollars in repair costs and out-of-pocket expenses.
According to Angi, these could range from $3,000 to $25,000, depending on the extent of the damage. And if your home is located in an HOA, you may pay even more.
“After a hurricane, an HOA homeowner may face two layers of recovery: damage to their own residence and damage to common or shared property the association maintains,” explains Donna DiMaggio Berger, shareholder at Becker and Poliakoff in Ft. Lauderdale.
How an HOA affects homeowners after a hurricane
After a major disaster like a hurricane, an HOA may need to repair common areas and infrastructure, address insurance deductibles and uninsured losses, and restore essential community services.
If insurance proceeds and existing association funds are insufficient, homeowners could be charged a special assessment to fund their share of those costs.
Melanie Zimmerman, owner and real estate agent at MVP Chicago Real Estate in Chicago recently worked with a client who lives in a Chicago area condo and received a whopping special assessment of $7,400.
Part of the building’s roof had sustained wind and water damage. While her personal insurance policy covered the damage inside her unit, it didn’t pay for the building’s insurance deductible.
“She was shocked by the assessment, believing her regular HOA dues would cover expenses like this. Let her story be a reminder that special assessments can result in other surprises and are not covered by your basic HOA dues,” says Zimmerman.
If your home is not in an HOA, however, you carry the full cost of the damage, but have control over every decision involved. You won’t have to navigate disputes over who is responsible for a roof or wall, wait for board member decisions, or pay assessments for community repairs.
“A well-managed association may actually be better prepared because it has been planning collectively for major repairs and emergencies through insurance, reserve funding, maintenance, professional management, and disaster planning,” Bauman explains.
Condos flooded at Siesta Key after Hurricane Milton’s landfall on Oct. 10, 2024, in Sarasota, FL.Eva Marie Uzcategui for The Washington Post via Getty Images
When it comes to running effective annual community meetings, the battle is often won or lost before the meeting is even called to order. If the residents of a building or association are fundamentally satisfied with how their community is being governed and managed, meetings tend to be low-key, conflict-free affairs where routine business is handled over coffee and baked goods, and everybody goes home after an hour or so.
On the other hand, if residents are frustrated, feel that their board-management team is unresponsive to their needs and dismissive of their concerns, and are generally unhappy with how their community is being run, the annual meeting is where they’ll make those grievances known. If the board and management has failed to effectively address resident concerns throughout the year, they must be prepared for potential disruptions and fireworks.
Whether it’s expected to be uneventful or uncomfortable, the board-management team should come to every meeting with a plan in hand. Here are some tips that can help:
What’s the Agenda?
There are some generally accepted components to keeping a meeting on track, even if the assembled group is contentious. They include setting an agenda, understanding basic parliamentary procedure as laid out in Robert’s Rules of Order, setting ground rules at the beginning of the meeting, and appointing a parliamentarian to address procedural issues.
Regardless of whether a meeting is formal or informal, drafting an agenda ahead of time lets the membership know what to expect from the proceedings, and helps the chairperson keep the meeting focused.
“The best way to keep tight control over an annual meeting is to have a specific agenda that everyone has seen in advance,” says Richard Brooks, principal at the law firm of Marcus, Errico, Emmer & Brooks, a law firm based in Braintree, Massachusetts. “List out exactly what will be covered, and make time for questions, comments, and other business. Try to follow the agenda as closely as possible, and make it clear that attendees are not to interrupt or talk over each other. Assure everyone that they will get an opportunity to ask questions and make comments at the end of the meeting.”
And, says William McCraken, a partner with Moritt Hock & Hamroff, a law firm based in Manhattan, “You need a presiding officer who can communicate effectively, in words and actions, that the meeting is for the conduct of business, and not for any personal grudges or challenges or one-upmanship. Of course, part of the business of the meeting can be to hear complaints and concerns, and those should be taken without defensiveness or combativeness. But as soon as someone’s grievance turns into a personal vendetta, the chair needs to be strong enough to pull the plug and keep things moving.”
Basic Parliamentary Procedure
The acknowledged standard blueprint for meetings large and small, from the U.S. House of Representatives to your condo’s annual meeting, is Robert’s Rules of Order. First published in 1876, this “pocket manual of rules of order for deliberative assemblies” spells out step by step how to conduct an orderly, well-structured meeting.
To chair an orderly, productive annual meeting, “One must understand basic parliamentary procedure,” advises Kris Kasten, a principal with Chicago-based law firm Bartzen Rosenlund Kasten. “For example, you should understand the role of the chair, how to make motions, whether seconding a motion is required, voting on motions, discussing or debating motions, etc. Some associations are required to follow specific parliamentary procedures such as Robert’s Rules of Order because they have either chosen to adopt those procedures or their governing documents require it.
“Even if an association is not obligated to follow specific parliamentary procedures and can choose to adopt its own, knowing basic principles of parliamentary procedure still helps,” Kasten continues. “Robert’s Rules can be a good source for guidance, even if the board doesn’t follow those exact procedures.”
Michael Simone, principal with the Simone Law Firm based in Cinnaminson, New Jersey, practices in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania and notes that “Circumstances may differ between smaller and larger associations. In a small association, less formal arrangements may be warranted. However, in New Jersey specifically, the Radburn decision requires all associations to publish an agenda prior to a meeting to give all members sufficient notice. Similarly, notes of the meeting must be taken, and a print copy must be provided for the members to review thereafter.”
“If the board and/or manager are insufficiently familiar with Robert’s Rules,” Simone continues, “they can lean on the association’s attorney for any procedural questions and required notices. Both are key.”
Following the Rules
Once an agenda has been established and all present have an understanding of the rules governing the meeting, what’s the next step to keeping the meeting moving and on-task?
According to McCracken, it’s adhering to that agenda. “It is an important principle of any public meeting to be predictable and stick to the schedule,” he says. “We always want our residents to have an opportunity to comment and ask questions, but we also need to get through the official business of the meeting first. If the building’s accountant is presenting the annual financials, it’s not uncommon to have a mini-Q&A just with the accountant so that he or she can go home, but otherwise we usually ask residents to hold their questions to the end of the stated agenda.”
While it’s often best to assign the responsibility for conducting the meeting to a single person, that person must be someone who communicates well. “Some board members are better than others when it comes to conducting a meeting,” says Simone. “The board needs to pick a point person who is calm, knowledgeable, and proficient in Robert’s Rules of Order. It depends on the association, but if the board knows a meeting will be contentious, consider delegating the running of the meeting to the property manager or attorney, or a board member who is not the president.”
Musical Chairs
Power dynamics come into play in organizing meetings and keeping control of them once underway. How should the room be set up? Who should sit where? Does having refreshments at the start of the meeting make the proceedings more convivial, or should they be made available at the end?
While many communities meet on their own property, in a common room or clubhouse, Brooks says the best way to keep control and stick to both an agenda and a time frame is to hold the meeting in a neutral public space, like a meeting room in your local library or community center. Participants are less likely to get “loud” in a public place, and knowing that the next user of the room may be waiting at the doors for their turn can keep things timely.
When it comes to how the meeting space is set up, “It’s common for the board members to sit at a table at the front of the room facing the members,” says Kasten, but he adds a caveat: “Although there’s nothing legally wrong with such a setup, it can give the impression or feeling of the board versus the membership. That can create an undesirable atmosphere that’s especially problematic when there is a contentious election for the board or a divisive issue is brought before the membership for a vote.
“Generally, the board president is the chair of the membership meetings,” Kasten continues. “The rest of the board are typically not acting as board members, but as part of the association membership. Therefore, having only the board president or chair sitting at the front of the room with the rest of the board sitting with the membership is appropriate, and may ease tensions. Of course, the association’s managing agent can sit with the chair when he or she is assisting the chair in running the meeting. Also, if a board member is giving a report to the membership, he or she can be at the front of the room to give the report. When finished, that board member should then go back and sit with the membership.”
While it’s not necessary to provide refreshments during meetings, doing so is an easy way to garner some goodwill. If you do have them, keep things simple. Water, soda, coffee, tea, and lemonade are all good choices. Tempting as it might be, most pros advise staying away from alcohol, including beer and wine. Meetings are business functions, not social events—and in addition to liability concerns, the disinhibitory effects of alcohol can cause focus to wander and raise the odds of disruption. As for food, light snacks like cookies, cheese and crackers, small sandwiches, or pizza are more than enough.
Don’t Get Your Feathers Ruffled
If a meeting does get testy, how should a board, or the board member conducting the meeting, handle it?
First of all, “Don’t take it personally,” says Brooks, a veteran of literally hundreds of such meetings. “It’s very hard, but you have to keep your distance from any personal attack or grievance. There are always competing views—two sides to any story, and as members of the association, these people are entitled to their say. If someone is disrespectful, don’t attack back. That will disarm the person. You want the room on your side. You don’t want to have a fight, because you’re all still neighbors when the issue is resolved. As the association’s attorney, I will step in if the temperature gets too high.”
If things do get truly ugly, can a meeting be adjourned for acrimony? In a word, yes. Unless your governing documents say otherwise, the board does have the authority to adjourn a meeting if necessary. On the remote chance that a conflict turns physical, or threatens to, it’s not unheard of to call in police assistance—but of course the goal is never get anywhere near such a point.
McCracken points out that “much depends on what has happened prior to the meeting. If management has already done what they can to address residents’ concerns in good faith, yet that resident or residents remain unhappy, it makes it easier not to get defensive about it at the meeting. If necessary, just to declare very plainly that we are moving on.”
Few people would say their annual co-op or condo meeting is the highlight of the calendar year, but with a little planning, forethought, and cooperation, your community’s next business gathering can be efficient, cordial, and best of all, quick.
A.J. Sidransky is a staff writer/reporter for CooperatorNews, and a published novelist. He may be reached at alan@yrinc.com.
Every community manager remembers their first truly unfamiliar situation: the dispute nobody trained you for, the financial report whose implications aren’t immediately clear, responding to an unexpected maintenance item. CAMICB is developing a resource built for exactly those moments.
The Body of Knowledge (BOK – working title) is a comprehensive reference for CMCAs, written especially for early-career managers who want practical, real-world guidance they can consult on the job. Built on the CMCA content outline, it complements CAI’s educational resources by clarifying the knowledge and competencies expected of a CMCA-level manager and showing how effective practices play out in real situations.
Because it’s drafted around the CMCA exam content outline, it does double duty. It’s a study companion for those preparing for the credential and a reference guide to keep within reach afterward. It will also strengthen the source content behind the CMCA examination itself.
Where the project stands
The BOK team has just completed second drafts. Next comes final editing and work to weave in additional international perspectives, while design begins at the same time. The goal is an official launch at the 2027 CAI annual event, CommUNITY: CAI World Conference & Expo,
May 5-8.
Built by the people who do the work
The BOK grew out of a board-approved initiative and a two-year effort by volunteers from across the profession.
A Steering Committee of highly experienced subject matter experts guides the project. It includes managers, developers, and attorneys, many of them recognized leaders in the field and several of them past CAI presidents. The Steering Committee confirmed the project’s principles and content framework, and helped reconcile differing views of “standard practice” where they arose.
Content creators, often working in small teams, wrote the guide in topical sections, that reflect the CMCA exam domains. Most contributors are practicing managers, and all hold a CMCA, AMS, and/or PCAM. A handful of business partners from insurance, development, banking, and law, plus a CMCA who is also a board member, round out the group, so the guide reflects the perspectives managers encounter every day.
Tested by early-career managers
Once first drafts were in, a team of peer reviewers checked each section against the CMCA content outline and for effective practice, and their notes shaped the second drafts. Since the BOK is written for managers in their first years on the job, those managers’ feedback was essential. The 20 reviewers represent every career stage:
Six managers with 1-3 years of experience
Five with 4-7 years
Five with 8-14 years
Four with 15 or more years
Reviewers came from at least 22 U.S. states, along with the UAE, South Africa, and Australia. The team will keep working with these international reviewers to add global perspective to the final publication.
The Steering Committee and Board will soon finalize a formal title for the BOK. Watch camicb.org for updates as the BOK moves toward its 2027 debut.
Janae Langreck is CAMICB’s Project and Volunteer Manager.
One longstanding challenge for shared interest communities is that of recruiting members to serve on the board and the board’s subcommittees. Given that these are unpaid volunteer positions, many residents prefer to leave the job to others, claiming they have neither the time nor expertise necessary to serve the community well.
The result of this is that those who do serve often serve for many years. While this does preserve institutional memory and provides administrative continuity from year to year, the hard truth is that without periodic infusions of fresh perspectives and new ideas, boards tend to atrophy. That can lead to some problematic outcomes, from financial mismanagement (even outright fraud) to deferred maintenance and eroding property values. That’s why it’s so important for boards and managers to cultivate and encourage their neighbors to step up and do their part by serving.
Out with the Old…
The old adage about not putting all one’s eggs into one basket applies to condo and co-op boards as well, says Jessica Ruiz, senior vice president of management, Southeast, for AKAM management, a real estate management firm with offices in New York and Florida.
“The biggest mistake a community can make is allowing all of its institutional knowledge, relationships and decision-making authority to sit with one person,” she warns. “A strong president can be an incredible asset, but a truly successful president should also be thinking about who comes next. Succession planning should happen continuously. Boards should intentionally involve other directors in major projects, rotate responsibilities, encourage newer members to lead committees and make sure multiple people understand the association’s finances, contracts, capital projects and long-term priorities.”
That makes very good sense—but how can a current board encourage more participation and investiture from more reticent residents?
“Cooperative and condo boards shouldn’t wait until a longtime president or other board member announces they’re stepping down” before putting out feelers to identify potential successors, says Mark Hakim, a partner with NYC-based law firm Schwartz Sladkis Reich Greenberg Atlas. “The goal is [to assemble] a group of informed residents, so the building never depends on just one person.”
To accomplish this, “Boards should regularly invite newer residents to attend meetings, join committees, and take on smaller projects,” Hakim continues. This approach avoids the scramble to find volunteers when something major is afoot and time is short. “Experienced members should share what they know. Bring others into meetings with management and outside professionals, and keep clear records of contracts, projects, responsibilities, and key contacts.”
An approach that encourages change and growth in community governance also depends on those already in power. “In part,” says Michael Kim, of counsel with Chicago-based law firm Schoenberg Finkel Beederman Bell Glazer, “the existing long-term or long-time president must be open to sharing and developing his or her potential successor. Not everyone may be or should be groomed to be the future president; you should look to see who might be a good fit for treasurer or social committee chair as well. Some people are not so inclined, so the board needs to find logical and possibly creative ways to identify future leaders, as well as engaging the current president to be open minded and not feel threatened by this process, in which he or she will be significantly involved. As they say, the best predictor of a person’s future performance is that person’s past performance.”
Barriers to Service
The most common reason residents offer for declining community or board service is the lack of time. People have busy lives, after all, and most don’t immediately jump at the chance to add yet another commitment to their calendars. Lack of expertise is a close second, with shareholders and unit owners feeling that they don’t have the knowledge or skill set to be an effective, competent board member.
A third roadblock is often the result of personal observation. Residents who attend annual meetings that are contentious, chaotic, and unproductive are unlikely to sign up to be the direct targets of their neighbors’ ire—and who can blame them?
“Time commitment and liability concerns are definitely factors, but those can often be addressed by setting clear expectations, providing support and training, and making sure board members understand they don’t have to know everything,” says Jacquelyn Dion, vice president of management services for Evergreen Management Group, located in Bedford, New Hampshire. “The biggest barrier is often the atmosphere. People are willing to volunteer their time when they feel their efforts will be appreciated and productive. If meetings become contentious, overly personal, or focused on conflict, it can quickly discourage good people from getting involved. ”
Addie Acosta is the president of Lakeside at North Haledon Condo Association, in North Haledon, New Jersey. She has served on her board for many years. “People assume serving on the board is a massive time commitment, or that they’ll be dragged into drama,” she says. “And yes, if a board is dysfunctional, that fear is justified—but when meetings are well-run and respectful, the barrier drops significantly. Liability concerns come up too, but once residents understand how indemnification and insurance work, that fear usually fades. The real challenge is convincing people that board service doesn’t have to be stressful.”
Getting Interested
According to the pros, one good way to get members interested in board service is to start small, with an invitation to join a committee working on a relatively low-stakes task, like a social event or a community beautification project. These types of tasks have an end date, which can remove concerns people may have about long-term time commitments, and they tend to generate goodwill among residents, which removes concerns about conflict with neighbors. There’s also an element of flattery; if your board thinks highly enough of you to invite you to help plan an event or guide design decisions for the whole community, most residents take that as a compliment and accept the invitation—and that can lead to more involvement down the road.
“Committees are one of the best leadership pipelines available to a community,” says Ruiz. “Someone may not be ready to commit to serving on the board, but they may be very willing to spend a few months helping with landscaping, finance, social programming, architectural review, or a specific capital project. Committee service gives residents an opportunity to understand how the association operates while giving the board an opportunity to see how those individuals collaborate, communicate, and approach decisions. It’s essentially a leadership laboratory. You begin identifying residents who ask thoughtful questions, work well with others, understand the difference between personal preference and the interests of the entire community, and are willing to do the work. Those are often excellent future board candidates. The key is giving committees meaningful assignments and clear boundaries. A committee should have a defined purpose, rather than becoming just another layer of governance or a competing board.”
Term Limits – Pros & Cons
The problem of being unable to find anyone to serve on their board has a flip-side: having board members cling to their positions for years on end. One possible solution for both sides of the issue is to impose term limits on board members, essentially forcing seats to turn over after a set amount of time.
There are compelling arguments to be made both for and against such a policy. “The pro for term limits,” says Kim, “is that you avoid entrenched and possibly stagnant leadership that perpetuates the status quo. The con is that you are forcing out good talent just for the sake of circulating talent, which may not be readily available. As I believe Charles De Gaulle purportedly said, ‘The graveyards of the world are filled with irreplaceable men.’”
Hakim concurs, and suggests a compromise if circumstances call for it. “I often get asked about term limits, and I generally advise against them. Most buildings already struggle to find people willing to serve, and term limits just create another hurdle by pushing out experienced, capable members. A better compromise is requiring someone to sit out for a period after a certain number of consecutive terms.”
Acosta offers a view from the inside as a long-serving board member. In her experience, “Term limits can be healthy. They prevent stagnation and ensure fresh perspectives. They also force boards to think about succession planning instead of relying on the same person year after year.”
That said, she does allow there are downsides. “If you have a small community or limited volunteer interest, term limits can create gaps in leadership. And when a long-serving member steps down, unless you’ve been intentional about documenting processes, you lose institutional knowledge. So term limits can work best in communities that already have strong engagement and active committees.”
Orientation & Training
When a new member does join the board, it’s vitally important to set that person up for success from the start. That means investing thought and effort into orientation and training, so the new member doesn’t feel they’ve been dropped into the deep end of the pool with no guidance or support.
“In a high-functioning community,” says Dion, “new board members should receive more than just a stack of documents. They should be given an overview of the governing documents, finances, current projects, responsibilities, and how the board and management team work together. I also think having the manager or an experienced board member spend some time with them is important—to walk them through how meetings work, how decisions are made, and what their role is.”
Kim stresses that orientation for a new board member should contain a balance of technical and legal instruction with an equal dose of real-world operational advice and information about how the community functions day-to-day.
Along with the board, the other key component in making board service more attractive may lay with the community’s management company, if there is one. A responsive, supportive manager in a well-run property is an ally and advisor to the board, and will make the idea of board service less ominous to residents.
Ruiz emphasizes that “the relationship between board leadership and professional management can make board service significantly more sustainable by providing structure, information and recommendations so volunteer directors can make informed decisions without becoming the day-to-day operators of the property.”
Fundamentally, the healthiest communities create a leadership ecosystem, with experienced board members providing history and perspective, and newer members bringing fresh ideas, committees creating opportunities for residents to become involved, and professional management providing continuity between leadership changes. “The bottom line message,” says Kim, “is that in a condo, co-op or other form of community organization, if you like what is being done—or if you want to change what is being done—then you need to get involved. That is the essential nature of communal living.” That message should be presented in such a way that residents desire involvement rather than spurn it.
A.J. Sidransky is a staff writer/reporter for CooperatorNews, and a published novelist. He may be reached at alan@yrinc.com.
Question: Does the manager need to be at every meeting? We would like to get a new manager but it’s awkward discussing it in front of the current manager, who actually presides over the meetings which the board president is supposed to do. J.M., Tustin
Dear Kelly: Our board allows our paid maintenance manager to participate in every aspect of the meeting(s) including executive sessions. I find this employee to be very influential on the members and actually is allowed to sit in on the discussion and vote of their own contract with our HOA. Is this a matter for our HOA’s attorney? Do I have a right to pursue legal action against the board? Thank you, C.T., San Pedro
Dear J.M. and C.T.: California Corporations Code Section 7210 specifically allows HOA boards (nonprofit mutual benefit corporations) to delegate management of the corporation to a third party (i.e., a manager or management company), but it still places the ultimate legal responsibility upon the corporate board of directors.
Apologies to my lawyer colleagues, but we are not the most important day to day service providers for HOAs – it’s the professional community association manager. The manager’s role is to advise the board and carry out the board’s instructions. There is nothing wrong, and much right, with managers attending most board meetings. The manager’s advice is often very important in helping the board make good and informed decisions (and to alert the board when more specialized expert input is needed). However, managers should advise the board and not set policy or make decisions. After receiving that advice, the board then decides what the HOA will do.
There are some meetings in which the manager’s attendance is completely inappropriate, and the greatest example of that is when the board wishes to discuss the manager’s contract, performance, or compensation. The manager should not be advising the board on those subjects, since of course the manager has a major self-interest. There is nothing wrong or illegal with calling a board meeting and politely informing the manager they are not needed to attend that particular meeting. Experienced and quality managers know that not every board is a good fit and that sometimes HOAs make vendor changes – including the manager. The board should be entitled to expect that the manager will not try to interfere in board reviews or even discussion of management transitions.
The manager should not chair board meetings – that is the role of a board officer, normally the HOA president. The manager should be an active participant in board meetings, because the manager provides the board information and advice on most decisions. So, managers in healthy associations should be a significant player in most meetings, but not the person actually running the meeting.
C.T., suing the board is rarely a good way to accomplish permanent change in your HOA. The outcome of litigation often is a great expense and has reverberations of ill will for years to come. A more effective and less destructive approach is to find a slate of good people who will commit to running the HOA properly, transparently, and without personal agendas or egos interfering with the exercise of good business judgment. Then, get your neighbors to elect them!
If you feel more stressed at work than ever before, you’re not alone. In fact, several recent Gallup polls reveal that workplace stress is at an all-time high due in part to declines in employee engagement, a growing mental health and well-being crisis and poor management. The remedy? Intentional leadership and supportive managers who can restore connection, clarity and culture.
That’s where Verosa comes in. The London-based company offers leadership and management training programs that equip professionals with practical neuroscience-based strategies and tools to make the most of their teams. Since Verosa was established in 2019, founder and CEO Beth Hood and her team have blended deep executive coaching expertise with interactive, thought-provoking methods to help participants around the world—including individuals and companies in Europe, the Middle East and the United States—make a better impact on their teams and wider organizations.
Verosa was born after Hood left a career with the British government and moved into the field of organizational psychology. While working as an executive coach, she noticed the gap between offerings for leaders that were either very focused on inner stability and personal development or business acumen, foresight and critical thinking.
“I felt like there was a gap where those two things could meet quite neatly, and that was where Verosa was born and actually also where the ‘relationship cycle’ came from that informed our philosophy,” Hood says.
With support from a group of like-minded colleagues, Hood built programs that moved away from the one-on-one executive coaching and the traditional leadership training that’s offered in a lot of workplaces. Instead, Verosa’s hands-on, human-centered experiences help managers and leaders utilize the relationship cycle, a process that starts by understanding today’s “VUCA” environment.
What Is a VUCA World?
VUCA is a situation characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. While VUCA is based on the leadership theories of Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus, it was first introduced more broadly in the late 1980s by the U.S. Army War College to describe the complex and unpredictable environment after the Cold War. The term has been widely adapted by the business world to describe the challenges of leading in an unpredictable environment (sometimes an “H” is added to the acronym, for “hyperconnectivity,” to incorporate the age of social media, smart phones and the internet).
With predictability at an all-time low, Hood says VUCA+H describes the environment everyone seems to constantly live in now—a “permacrisis” marked by unforeseen and unpredictable events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, war in Ukraine, conflicts in the Middle East and economic uncertainty. All these things impact organizational culture, making the modality of risk aversion that companies used to manage disruption in the early 2000s and before ineffective.
“Those jump scares that we get in horror films weren’t just happening then, now they’re happening all the time,” she says. “So, because of that, we need to create a leadership methodology, a way of being, that responds to that reality well.”
In Verosa’s programs, the relationship cycle comes down to leaders’ abilities to pause and develop the mindset, skills and strategies to navigate uncertainty with confidence rather than have all the answers. “It’s not actually rocket science,” Hood says. “It’s simple neuroscience.”
Rather than follow their natural human instincts to move into a mode of fight or flight in chaotic times, which can lead to burnout, individuals learn how to choose pause over pace, depth over breadth and clarity over urgency. But this mindful approach isn’t new. It’s based on many historic ways of thinking, such as Buddhist teachings, businessman Stephen Covey’s stoic rhetoric—and, notably, psychologist Daniel Kahneman’s ideas on the System 1 and System 2 modes of the human mind.
“[Kahneman] essentially identified that we have these two working systems in the brain where we’re either working very instinctively, which is often what’s happening in the fight, flight, freeze phenomena,” Hood says. “Or we can move into a System 2 space, where we are taking in data and using our prefrontal cortex in a more sophisticated way. And when we’re able to move and stay into that space, we make better decisions.”
To get leaders to a place where they can essentially be the “calm” in a mad world, Verosa offers programs tailored to clients’ needs that can be completed within various time frames, whether that’s four days, 12 months or multiple years. No matter what path participants take, though, progress always starts with self-awareness.
“We’ll start with the individual, and then we’ll look more relational—the immediate relationships,” Hood says. “Then we’ll start to look at the system beyond the relationships, and then finally take an enterprise lens.”
Why Emotional Intelligence Matters for Leaders
One of Verosa’s greatest challenges is working with talented leaders who struggle to think differently from the ways that have brought them success in the past but aren’t serving them now. But Hood says taking small steps is key, and even tiny changes can make a big impact, such as implementing mindfulness or deep breathing or periods of reflection before meetings. “If there was a golden thread running through all this, it is emotional intelligence because emotional intelligence starts with self,” she says.
If leaders can turn within, tune into their strengths and weaknesses and develop emotional intelligence, they can hopefully make the workplace a less stressful place for employees, too.
4 Tips for Leading in a VUCA World
Hood offers four tips for navigating today’s unpredictable world.
Call out what you’re afraid of. “What is it in your environment that’s unpredictable?” Hood says. “Move along each one and just jot down some notes. Unless you can name it, you can’t actually deal with it.”
Make peace with your fears. Accepting what you can’t change on your list of “monsters” is important. To cope, Hood recommends turning to mindfulness. “Getting present in the moment that you’re in and not thinking either backward or forward,” she says.
Develop optimism. While humans have a horrible negativity bias, gratitude works wonders in fast-moving environments. “It serves us better to be thoughtful about all the great things around us that we are blessed with,” she says.
Build in periods of pause. Give yourself the permission and time to collect the right data, which will help you make better decisions in the long run. “Spaciousness is the antidote to VUCA+H,” Hood says.
By Kelly G. Richardson, Esq. CCAL, HOA Homefront Column
Dear Kelly: Thanks for your articles on rules. We follow the process correctly. I have a question. If the proposed rule is changed based on input from the community or board members before or during the second meeting, must it go out for community comment again or can the board adopt the revised (proposed) rule at the second meeting. It seems similar to the gut and replace approach of the legislature which can take an introduced bill on one thing and replace it with a wholly different bill without hearings, debate or public awareness as happened last year with AB130. B.S., Murrieta.
Dear B.S.: The rulemaking process is stated in Civil Code Section 4360. The statute requires that the notice sent out to homeowners must contain the text of the proposed rule change. At the second board meeting (at least 28 days after the publication of the proposed rule change) important input occurs during the mandatory open forum opportunity on the proposed rule change (Section 4360(b)), and the board may well decide to modify the proposed rule change. If during that second board meeting, the board changes the proposed draft rule change, the process starts over- and the new proposed rule must be announced to the members at least 28 days before it is voted upon. The requirement is important because members may decide whether or not to attend to attend the board meeting based upon the announced proposed rule change.
Rule changes should be adopted carefully and in full compliance with the statute, to avoid the possibility a rule change might be invalidated because it was not adopted “with substantial compliance” with the statute’s requirements. Hopefully we would all agree that crafting the rule well is more important than passing a rule quickly. Best, Kelly
Kelly Richardson: The board is planning to adopt a rule that gives the managers complete authority to review and decide the rule violation process. Board members have refused to hold the owners’ Rules Committee Meetings for seven months. Our bylaws read Rules is a Standing Committee with owner duty for: “Investigating reported violations of the published rules and regulations and making recommendations to the board.” Please confirm that a board is not permitted to adopt a policy manual rule that voids a Bylaw. Thank you, T.H., San Diego
Dear T.H.: It may be much more convenient to try to grant to the manager full authority to issue discipline, but that is not what Civil Code Section 5855 requires. That statute discusses discipline being issued by the BOARD, not the manager, and sets forth some important procedural requirements for the informal disciplinary hearing. Those requirements must be followed for the discipline to be effective, because Section 5855(g) states that disciplinary actions not following the statute are not “effective,” meaning they will not hold up if challenged.
I think a wise manager would not want to take on that responsibility, even if the statute allowed it, because managers are there to make recommendations and carry out decisions, but the ultimate decider has to be the board of directors, per Corporations Code Section 7210.
T.H., also the HOA’s rules must not conflict with the HOA CC&Rs or bylaws, pursuant to Civil Code Section 4205. Thanks for your question, Kelly
