So You Want to Run for Apartment Board President?

For anyone who has ever lived in an apartment building, becoming the president of the apartment Baord is a very tough and unrewarding position to hold. In most apartment buildings, especially in big cities or in apartment buildings with a lot of people, elections are held in which people who live in the building run for positions on a committee board.

The committee board is made up of a president, vice president , treasurer and usually a secretary. The hardest position by far is being the president. I hav known quite a few people who were the president of my apartment building since I have lived in an apartment building my entire life. Each person who serves on the committee board does not get paid. It is strictly a volunteer position. However each person still needs to get elected.

While committee board positions are usually filled by the people who are the most experienced or have deep backgrounds in real estate or leadership positions, sometimes the election for the board president can be a popularity contest. The elections do not work in any ordinary manner. While anyone from the building can vote for board positions, the voting works according to the stock certificates. In a co-op building which most apartment buildings are today, each person who owns their apartment holds a stock certificate. Each person owns stock in the building which they sell to aother person when they sell their apartment in a co-op building. In the elections, there is usually the building owner who owns more stock than anyone else in the building individually because in most cases all of the apartments have not been sold in the builsding to to people leaving the building or dying. So sometimes if one person is friends with the building owner or agrees to pass policies favorable to that person, the election results can be swayed one way or the other.

The building Board president is a thankless job and the president never gets the recognition he deserves. I personally knew the Board president of my apartment building and he always made sure that the building was in top condition and that the outside and inside of the building looked nice. Sometimes people in the bulding questioned his decision maknig and judgements. However the majority of the people int the building realized what a great job he was doing.

The building president is usually allowed to run and win for as many terms as the person desires since there usually are not any term limits.

However in many cases of board elections that I have seen, if most of the residents of the co-op building do not vote in the election and there is a small turnout, an undesireable candidate could end up winning if he is able to get the building owner to vote for him. This was the case in my building as the Board president who had done a marvelous job for around 10 years but lost the election. My building has never been the same since as the outside of the building badly needs landscaping and gardening work and many of the residents have complained about the lack of effort of the new Board president. Now that it is too late, people in the building realize what a great job the former building president did for the entire 10 years he was president.