NEW YORK CITY

"Foreclosure" is a four-letter word for most co-op and condo owners, but after you're done cursing your bank, your bills, your finances and a cold and indifferent universe, take heart: There are "5 Reasons a Foreclosure Notice Doesn’t Mean You’ll Lose Your Home," writes attorney Steven Wagner, a principal of Porzio Bromberg & Newman, in BrickUnderground.com. These range from the technical — "Your lender doesn’t actually own your mortgage," since many loans have been repackaged and resold — to the folksy-but-true — "The bank messed up," which covers a multitude of sins and slip-ups. Since the article also gives you defenses that could help you keep your apartment, homeowners should read this piece on foreclosure forthwith. (And so should boards, since a bank's mishaps can scuttle a board's foreclosure filing against those in serious arrears, a financial threat to any cooperative or condominium.)

The board of managers of a condominium had a serious common-charge collection problem caused by a defaulting unit-owner. There was no equity in the unit since it was purchased at the top of the market and the mortgage exceeded its current value. What are the steps to take in a situation like this? The step not to take is to give up and do nothing.

We represent a condominium in New York City that has been suffering with an abandoned unit, still owned by an owner long since gone, and a bank foreclosure filed in 2009 that remains "on hold" and shows no signs of it concluding soon with ownership transferred to the bank.

OK, so it's a 10-year plan and nothing might be available immediately. But this is New York, where we can wait 10 years on a co-op / condo waiting list for storage-room space or a parking spot. Ten years? We've eaten knishes older than that. So anyway, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, Comptroller Scott Stringer and others have announced that the affordable-housing lender Community Preservation Corp. is receiving $350 million to invest in struggling neighborhoods, reports The Wall Street Journal, Crain's New York Business and other publications The public-private partnership with several financial institutions will provide 7,500 units in mostly low-rise buildings to start, as part of the City's $41 billion plan for 200,000 new or "preserved" — whatever that loophole-sounding word means — affordable apartment in a decade. And none of them will have a "poor door."

Many boards don't know, understand or care about minutes, seeing them as a chore to be treated lightly, if at all. Some accounts are full of typographical errors and colorful descriptions of the people at the meeting. Others devote pages and pages to speeches on how the garbage is packed. Still others refer to everyone present by their first names in chatty discourses.

Yet verbose and unfocused ramblings can spell trouble as a public record of a corporation. Minutes matter: They can be used to defend the board in court, explain actions to shareholders (and future boards), and offer a picture of the building to potential buyers. How well they are kept reflects on the corporation.

Without a property manager to wrangle applications and organize interviews, self-managed co-ops need to nail down an efficient admissions procedure to ensure that everyone has the right information. But getting everyone's schedules organized, getting all the application forms copied and distributed, following up on missing documents and all the other back-and-forth matters take persistence, dedication and time — items sometimes in short supply for self-managed boards.

A sad fact of life is that building staff can become disabled over the course of their jobs. But a happy fact is that many still can perform their jobs: A doorman who needs a cane or whose vision doesn't allow him to drive can still work as a doorman; a porter with learning disabilities can still vacuum the hallways and take out garbage; a hearing-impaired super can wear a hearing aid and do the job just fine. 

The real issue for boards and building managers is when long-term disabilities genuinely affect an employee's ability to perform his or her duties adequately. The leading reasons, says the Council for Disability Awareness (CDA), are musculoskeletal disease, cancer, injuries and mental illness. When that happens, what do you do? Throw them out with the trash and get a newer, younger model?

A READER ASKS: I'm concerned that my board doesn't communicate with residents enough. There has to be a way for them to get information to us other than at the annual meeting. What are some options that I can suggest?

It's an issue that's been getting more and more attention since Habitat's 2012 expose of false disability claims and shady "certification" mills unscrupulous pet-owners use in order to scam their way to having dogs in a pet-free building. The New York Times covered the issue in 2013, and a new featurette at BrickUnderground.com encapsulates three do's and don'ts for landlords and co-op and condo boards. No one wants to discriminate, obviously, and likewise no one wants fakers who abuse the system, so take these tips to heart — before your pet-free building goes to the dogs.

Does your super say he feels not so super on more days that seem reasonable? Most employees don't abuse paid or unpaid sick days — which most New York City employers must offer — but co-op and condo boards can attest that there there are those who do. How can you stop it? Writing on Lexology.com, attorney Joanna R. Vilos of Holland & Hart offers six simple tips to help curb fakers. And if you don't know what a PTO System is, well, it's about time you learned! Our favorite: "Tip #5: Adopt Sick Leave Incentive or Attendance Awards," followed by a half-dozen interesting examples like "Free lunch or a gift card for each quarter that an employee has perfect attendance" and "A floating personal day off with pay for every six months without calling in sick." Say, we're feeling better already!