What is a reserve study and how often do we need one?

A professional analysis of your major components — roofs, paving, painting, mechanicals — their remaining useful life, and what replacing them will cost. It is the basis for how much your association should be putting away each year.

Requirements vary by state. Some mandate a study on a fixed cycle, some require only that reserves be disclosed, and Florida requires a structural integrity reserve study for condominium and cooperative buildings of three or more habitable stories.

Ask whether coordination of the study is included in a management proposal or billed separately. It is a common a-la-carte line.

Ask who performs it and what their relationship to the Management Company is. An affiliated provider or a referral fee is not automatically wrong, but you want it disclosed — the study is supposed to be an independent professional opinion, and it loses most of its value if it is an internal product.

Then make sure the funding recommendation actually reaches the budget. Associations commission studies, file them, and fund at last year's level more often than anyone admits. That is an expensive way to buy a document, and it defeats the only purpose it had.