Our building needs access to apartments to repair the façade. How do we minimize disruption for residents?
“While it’s rare, there are some situations where a façade cannot be repaired from the outside and the board needs to gain access to individual apartments to perform the repair from the inside,” says Bonnie Reid Berkow, a real estate attorney at Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. who has decades of experience representing co-ops and condos in New York City.
It might mean owners have to completely empty one or two rooms of furniture and belongings for several weeks, which can be hugely disruptive.
Your board does have rights of entry, even if it’s a major inconvenience to residents, so in order to keep owners on your side it will be critical to communicate clearly with residents. You should be transparent about the work being done, how long it will take, assure them that their home and belongings will be protected, and consider offering some reasonable compensation for the disruption, depending on the circumstances.