212.319.5000 david@erudd.com

Planning Capital Improvements

Oct 23, 2018

If you are undertaking Major Capital Improvements in your building, it’s important that you address these issues carefully and with an eye to budgeting for them. From new roofs to Local Law 11 work to elevator modernizations, now more than ever it is essential to plan these projects out early and completely so you do not have any surprises.

At Rudd Realty, we begin by making sure we choose the right professionals. The right professional with the right spec’s enable us to save money on these projects. And saving money is one of the most important aspects of what can do for our clients.

Next we address the funding of Major Capital Improvements in our annual budgets for each building. How will you pay for the project—do you have enough in the reserve fund? Will you need to raise maintenance or common charges? Will you have to pass along an assessment? While the projects need to be done—many of the MCI’s we oversee are mandated by the city—paying for them can be difficult.

That is why we begin each project early and spend a lot of time planning for them. You cannot budget for a Local Law 11 job if you do not know what it will cost. We have close working relationships with all the professionals needed—in this case, engineers and architects, exterior maintenance contractors, sidewalk shed companies—and we know that when they give us a price, they will hold to that price.

Once we have a price for the job, we then decide where the funds will come from—is the reserve fund sufficient to get the job done? Has maintenance been raised this year? Has the building passed along assessments recently? All of these factors have to be carefully weighed to make the project as easy to pay for as possible.

At Rudd, our expertise is used to create solutions for our clients. We pride ourselves on managing Major Capital Projects efficiently, making sure they come in on time and on budget. Rudd Realty has the track record to manage these projects for our clients and we welcome the opportunity to help new clients avoid the pitfalls many inexperienced managers fall into.

If you are getting ready to replace a roof, start a Local Law 11 project, replace windows or elevators, I encourage you to call me, Fred Rudd, directly, at 212-319-5000. We at Rudd Realty are devoted to getting the best outcomes for our clients.

NYC’s New Smoking Policy Regulations: Deadline is August 28

Jul 11, 2018

Throughout New York City, multi-unit residential buildings are grappling with the new requirement that all properties have a smoking policy in place by August 28, 2018. Smoking policy can range from simply following the City’s current smoking laws, which prohibit smoking in all indoor public spaces as well as certain outdoor places, to an outright ban throughout the building.

For co-op and condo boards, there are many issues to weigh when deciding what your building’s smoking policy will be. One is that while your policy must be written and in place by the end of August, you can change it moving forward, so you don’t have to feel that your policy is set in stone for the future. Another is that to create a smoke-free building, you need to have the agreement of a supermajority of shareholders or unit owners in order to change the bylaws or proprietary leases.

City regulations already prohibit smoking in all public areas of the building, including the lobby, stairwells, hallways, elevator, basement, etc. However, the law does allow smoking inside the apartments themselves. Most buildings are choosing to use some form of this policy, and to spell out exactly where smoking is allowed and where it is prohibited. Our management team has developed a number of sample policies for our boards to choose from, and we are working to ensure that all our buildings have set their policies and distributed them to all owners and residents, as required, by the August 28 deadline.

If residents in your building are concerned about the smell of smoke emanating from inside certain units and bothering other residents, we have solutions, including the installation of smoke filters in those apartments. An engineering study can be done to track the smoke and determine where it is coming from. Building policy can then require those residents to install air filters to prevent the odor from spreading beyond their unit.

We have also worked with buildings to implement a complete ban on smoking, when that is the consensus among apartment owners. We have crafted policies that make it clear that there is no smoking allowed anywhere on the premises, and helped boards obtain the supermajority of owners required to vote the policy into effect. This enables those buildings to call themselves “Smoke-Free Buildings,” and we have found that this type of policy actually increases the value of each apartment. With smoking on the wane, and a mere 20 percent of New York City residents active smokers, smoke-free properties are very appealing to a growing portion of buyers in the New York real estate market.

Whatever path your building decides to take, your property manager should be helping your board create, distribute and implement the proper policy. Time is of the essence to meet the deadline and avoid potential penalties. Please contact us if we can help. Since 1984, Rudd Realty has focused exclusively on Manhattan property management. Our professional team has decades of experience, and we work closely with all of our properties, from co-ops and condos to rentals, commercial and mixed-use buildings of all sizes.