QUEENS

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week, a Long Island co-op struggle to finance common-area repair, not covered by FEMA, after superstorm Sandy; a condo super in Greenpoint risks blowing the place up; and rich folk got dem pied-à-terre blues. For co-op and condo boards, we've two tales of illegal hoteling — both with hilarious, albeit nefarious, behavior by the apartment owners. Plus, the latest amenity: onsite well-being programs.

In the terrible aftermath of superstorm Sandy, co-op and condo boards and residents found themselves struggling with both immediate needs and longer-term woes. With lobbies, basements and other common areas flooded and in need of repair and reconstruction, with electrical panels destroyed and with buildings not collecting maintenance or common charges from uninhabitable apartments, many boards are understandably overwhelmed. But federal help is available. Through conversations with government agencies and others, Habitat is here to you get through a flood of misinformation.

Now it was time to talk to the dame's mouthpiece. Adam Leitman Bailey had made a name for himself writing books about real estate, like Finding the Uncommon Deal (2011). He had a pretty swell set-up, down on Broadway near the courthouses. He was the kind of guy that judges called, "Your honor."

The condo board at the Village Mall at Hillcrest Condominium, in Queens, thought it was doing everything it had to do on that winter's day. Its porters and superintendent regularly used a small tractor to remove snow, and a plastic device on wheels to spread salt onto the sidewalks. But they kept no logbook of when they did these things — and so when Jaime R. Toro slipped and fell on ice while walking his dog on Feb. 16, 2007, the condo had no defense. In part for want of a logbook, the case continues to drag through the courts nearly six years later — and nearly three years after Toro passed away.

Recent news affecting co-op / condo buyers, sellers, boards and residents. This week's riddle: In a no-dog building is a pet pig livestock? Plus, the federal Interstate Land Sales Full-Disclosure Act (ILSA) takes a homeowner-protection hit, we tell you where can you buy a co-op apartment for just $250 to $1,800, and The Rushmore condominium swears it meant to be finished by 2009 and that 2008 promise? Just a typo! And for co-op and condo boards, we have news about collecting monthly charges in the aftermath of superstorm Sandy.

It was a rubber mat that allegedly tripped Rita Brady — and may eventually trip up a co-op board in Rego Park, Queens. It just goes to show that when your contractor leaves hard marble slabs just laying around in the common area for anybody to fall into that the co-op or condo might still be responsible. For the cost of a new rubber mat, a co-op complex of over 2,000 apartments may find itself so broke it has to write rubber checks.

I was talking to attorney Mark Hankin, a partner at Hankin & Mazel, about "Papa Louie," one of Hankin's clients. I don't remember exactly how Louie got in touch with me — a lot comes across my desk every day — but the man intrigued me. Louie, in broken English, was pitching his life story to me, something along the lines of "My Autobiography: From Handyman to Board President."

Was he a self-promoting egoist? Or was he, as he claimed, a hard-working superintendent who graduated to the role of co-op board president? Curious, I called him up.

It's one thing to read about co-op or condo board officers' duties and responsibilities. But only another board officer can tell you what it's really like. In our ongoing series "Board 101," we present three co-op board treasurers sharing some of the most significant and even amusing things they've learned about taking on the role.

Laura Corwin knew the time had come to put an end to it when she got another $16,000 bill at the end of the year. “There’s a time when you say enough is enough.” The board of directors at her Forest Hills, Queens, co-op agreed. No one knew how old this particular pair was, but it was time for the two elevators to go. “The elevators were getting a little scary,” Corwin says.

Don Bilodeau, board president of a 72-unit condo in Astoria, Queens, started hearing two kinds of complaints about cigarette smoke shortly after he moved into the building in 2007. The first was about people smoking in common areas, which is forbidden in the bylaws. The second was about people smoking so heavily inside their apartments that the smoke was leaking into common areas.