Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Israel conference on residential private governmnet

I just got back from the Interdisciplinary Center at Herzliya, Israel, (known as IDC Herzliya) where I attended a conference on private communities and presented a paper. It was a wonderful experience in many ways, because I made new friends, learned a great deal about  what is happening with common interest housing in other nations, and visited Israel for the first time. You can read about it by following the link below. We are producing a book from all the papers we wrote, and there will be more research to come after that.  These were mostly lawyers and law professors, which is a different network than the urban planners, geographers, and social scientists who populate the other international network of private government scholars I'm associated with.

Here are a few notes:  Insolvency of condominium associations is a significant  problem in other nations--it isn't just a US problem.  And owners are ultimately liable for the debts of their associations in other nations, not just the US.  Most US condo and HOA owners don't know they are potentially on the hook for their associations debts, by the way.  In Spain, everybody has to rotate as a BOD member, like it or not.



http://gazit-globe.idc.ac.il/en/announcements/international-conference-private-communities-and-urban-governance-theoretical-and-c