New Neighborhoods: The Consumer's Guide to Condominium, Co-op and HOA Living
July 31, 2009 — New parents often lament, "Oh, if only children came with owner's manuals!" That probably wouldn't make much difference since nobody reads owners manuals anyway, being that most of them seem to be written in poorly translated Dutch. But you get the idea. Bright-eyed volunteers who find themselves serving on co-op or condo boards often feel the same way: There's the crying and the screaming and the lack of sleep and the wishing that board service came with an owners manual. In English.
Authors Gary and Ryan Poliakoff — a father and son team, appropriately enough — can empathize. Dad Gary (below), an adjunct professor at Nova Southeastern University School of Law, and a partner in the Florida firm Becker & Poliakoff, and Ryan, a former attorney and now a writer on legal topics, are themselves veterans of shared ownership communities (SOC), which include cooperatives, condominiums, time-shares and homeowner/property-owner associations. Ryan was the first board president of the $100 million Hollywood, Fla., condo The Ocean Palms.
For the estimated two million volunteers who serve on such boards, the Poliakoffs have written this 246-page tome (list price $16.95) that covers the rights and responsibilities of both homeowners and board members, much of which most people are unaware. Not Habitat readers, mind you, but, y'know, other people. Presented as a conversational primer in non-legalese, the books deals wih everything from determining whether an SOC is right for you to the nuts and bolts of operation, revenue collection, meetings, elections, covenants and conditions — and even includes, in the words of the publisher, "some of the crazy rules and regulations that have arisen around the country and how to know when to follow them."
Available as both a real book and as Sony and Amazon Kindle e-books, New Neighborhoods answers good ol' questions about both being on and dealing with co-op and condo boards. When you have little shareholders and unit-owners of your own someday, you'll understand. Ah, they grow up so fast -- especially when there are books like this to help.
New Neighborhoods Publishing / Emerald Book Company , a division of Greenleaf Book Group • P.O. Box 91869, Austin, Texas 78709 • toll-free (800) 932-5420 • E-mail contact form here