I use Diana Bulger from Remax 201 693 8669 to manage a building I own in the heights, she does a good job and always collects the rent on time. I never have empty apartments and she always markets way before she has to to ensure I done miss out on rent. Of course she gets paid well 5% a month of what she collects, but its pice of mind and she has everything taken care of and handles all issues. She is fabulous.

self managing will work if the following three conditions are satisified

- Everyone pays their dues on time
- There are no issues between the unit owners and building
- All duties are carried out and shared evenly (ie putting out trash, cleaning, collecting dues, paying bills).

If there is a very good working relationship and level of understanding between all owners that self managing is great (not to mention saves on a monthly fee).

However if all the responsibilities falls to one person and there are small disagreements and inpaid dues it is better to bave a management company deal with that. The fee for a small unti is roughly 300 a month. Another point is that if there are litagation issues, violations against the building management companies have experience with dealing with these issues and can quickly set you in the right direction to address them properly.

I'm gonna take an educated guess that the developer is also the management company. That is generally how it works with new condos. It's usually a good idea to replace the developer because it might be a conflict of interest or they simply may not be qualified. In such a small building, the best bet might be to self-manage, but that's another story. Call the management company or whomever you're paying your maintenance fees to and get all the documentation from them. Ask them who is on the board and who the president is.

K, if you have been paying maintenance dues, then you definitely have an association established, unless there is a management company taking care of your building. Who collects your dues?

If you have questions, feel free to PM me.

It is a new renovation, and we have all just moved in. I will definitely check with the developer to see if she established an association and has POS -- I think she must have, because we have been paying maintenance dues.

We have a 4-unit condo building as well, and one rep for each unit is an officer (via election) of our condo association.

We had pre-existing condo association bylaws, which we haven't really referred to, as we have not encountered any real problems that would merit having to refer to 'the book.' We're also very lucky because we get along with our neighbors very well, and each meeting is more of a party for us. The accounting is done by our Treasurer (the only person who really does any work, God bless her), and any decision about maintenance, repairs, improvements, etc is voted on by each member.

Did your building recently condo-ize, or did you buy an existing condo?

If I'm not mistaken, every condo must have a POS which details the structure and bylaws. That's what you need to work off of. If you don't know of any such documents, I would make inquiries - not sure who with, I'd start with the business registration section of NJ.

My building only has four units, so I'm thinking it can't be that difficult, can it? What I'd like to know -- from someone with experience -- is how the group is structured, how accounting and maintenance are handled, and how decisions get made. TIA for any advice.