NASSAU COUNTY

Unit-owners were vocal about the loan. "Some didn't want the debt, period," recalls Patrick Niland, president of First Funding of New York, the mortgage broker for the transaction. "There were a series of very intense meetings. At one, there was an exchange that almost came to blows."

Gandolfo ("Dolf") Ferucci has served on the board of the 66-unit Smith Street Gardens in Freeport, Long Island, since the mid-1980s. He moved into the 56-year-old building around 1982, and bought in as an insider when the building went cooperative in 1986. The apartments have very large rooms, he notes, and most residents are elderly and middle-income. Here, talking with Habitat Associate Editor Aparna Narayanan, the co-op board veteran discusses lessons learned over 25 years.

A past installment of our Teachable Moments series looked at disaster preparedness and recovery. With scientists predicting more such extreme weather as superstorm Sandy, and with New York City's history of electrical blackouts, terrorism and other disasters — as well as lesser incidents like road-choking blizzards and plumbing-destroying cold snaps and ice storms — it's worth listening to two experienced property-management professionals as they each share a real-life story of how they spearheaded co-op / condo readiness and remediation.

At 51 Fifth Avenue, the co-op board came into possession last year of a 2,000-square-foot two-bedroom apartment overlooking a church. The board enlisted a broker who told them to put the apartment on the market for $1.5 million as is. That's when the property manager stepped in and put a stop to it.

Lido Beach Towers, the historic, 184-unit complex in Nassau County, Long Island, is appealing a decision by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) that resulted in the condominium receiving only $8 million in flood-insurance coverage despite suffering what FEMA acknowledged as $32 million damages from superstorm Sandy.

The reason for the $24 million difference? According to the condo board's attorney, just a $20,000 missed premium that the board wasn't even aware of due to simple lack of communication.

Promoting staff based on how popular someone is with the residents, rather than on strictly professional criteria and experience, is an invitation to problems — and there could be no greater example than the experience of one co-op board in Freeport, Long Island, when a staffer's popularity allowed him to buy two apartments and eventually win election to the five-member board, where he and two cronies gained control of the building.

Hoarding is a mental illness, and condo and co-op boards need to treat hoarders with the same care and understanding as they would anyone with a mental-health issue. But that doesn't mean you ignore the safety, hygiene and vermin problems that hoarders bring about. Here are some tips.

The  Beachwalk Landing Condominium in Long Beach, on Long Island, was having its share of problems. The oceanfront property — two buildings nearly 30 years old with a total of 72 units — was suffering from wear and needed all sorts of work, ranging from replacing terrace doors and air-conditioning sleeves to repairing the balconies and terraces. While there was little argument that things needed to be done, paying the price tag of $3.75 million for all that capital work was an issue. Some residents simply couldn't afford it to pay their share of the needed assessment. Or could they?

Many co-op and condo boards require its shareholders or unit-owners to carry homeowner insurance. It makes for a smoother-running building by, for instance, not having to have the building pay for repairs when an uninsured resident damages a common area, and then having sue the resident to recoup the outlay. Or if a contractor hired by an uninsured resident hurts himself due to the resident's negligence, leading the contractor to sue the building. So, yeah, lots of scenarios you could think of make it good to have your homeowners be insured. But enforcing that requirement? Good luck. Fortunately, there are ways to help you do that.

True story: Shareholders at one Manhattan co-op voted down a referendum that would have required them to buy homeowner insurance. Then one day some water pipes burst, the building's insurance didn't cover all the damage, and the board had to issue an assessment to make up the difference. Shareholders who had homeowners insurance got reimbursed by their insurance companies for the assessment amount. Those without had to pay out of pocket. And the next time the board tried to require homeowner insurance — the shareholders voted it down again!

Guess you can't insure against shortsightedness. That notwithstanding, condo and co-op boards still may want to mandate that unit-owners and shareholders carry insurance, as many buildings already require. But how?