You have every right to expect your sensitive financial (and all other sensitive information) be adequately protected by your managing agent. What you describe is, in my opinion, inexcusable, and points to larger, systemic problems with your MA's business processes.

The mechanics of encryption are very simple and cost nothing. After the PDF files are created, your MA uses a program like WinZip or 7-Zip to bundle them together and compress them. While the finale .zip file is being created, it can be password protected which forces encryption. WinZip may cost a few bucks and I know 7-Zip is free. The resulting .zip file can be much smaller and easier to send via email.

You should insist that all sensitive files be sent to you password protected. If your MA balks at your request, you need to wonder what other corners they are trying to cut and how it will affect your co-op. If a shareholder is harmed by your MA's shoddy document protection and decides to litigate, your co-op may bear some legal liability. Check with your attorney.

I don't know how long your CoOp has had your MA but it's time to shop around for a new one. It has been advise for all CoOp's & Condo's to change managing agent every few years. This is one main reason why. What if your buildings sensitive info. got into the wrong hands? Managing agents get way to comfy and mess up or slacks off. Go to the back of your Habitat magazine and look up and research other agents, lawyers and controllers. This is one of the most important jobs for the board "MONEY" and managing your building to the fullest that's what you pay them for. Your their boss. Best of Luck

The president/treasurer here threw my application for the apartment in the paper recycle bin. It contained all my financials, all my personal information. I was just lucky that my roommate ( bodyguard, afraid of super..a violent felony offender with a short fuse) saw the material and said it looked like building business, was I interested. Yes I was it was a months worth of board business. Aside from my financials it included information about other share holders. I never recieved an appology from this monster.
But the people here don't care unless it happens to them.... It's what they call "minding their own business". There is no fixing this because the desire is just not there.

Our MA is reluctant to adoption encryption. They don't want to pick up the extra cost.

How do your MA's distribute your financials and purchase applications?

We've received the financials and the purchase applications for other properties - in both cases revealing the financial info of the other property and potential purchasers.

Since this is a concern to you ask for a special meeting with your board. Don't include your MA. Present all info and discuss why you need to change your MA.
James see below: Ask The Experts LEARN MORE
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The board president/ treasurer throw out a whole months worth of board communication in the recycle bin in the basement garbage room. Fortunately I had a friend staying with me who noticed it in the trash and brought my attention to it. I went down and retrieved the paperwork and it was shocking. It contained all my financial information because it was from the time when I awaiting board approval.
I did not even get an apology. The MAs only comment was "that was stupid of him!
I listed the dump last night. I have nightmares about what has transpired here. But I will soon be gone and they will still be in Hempstead NY where they belong. Village of Hempstead where the slum lords get PIOLETS and community members get the shaft. We have a new mayor- the last one gave away 14 of the villages parking lots to some slumlords. Then to sweeten the deal they all got PIOLETS. Mean while the villages largest source of revenue is parking tickets.
He claims he did it for our benifit. We don't believe it.
Also the schools are a complete disaster, yet our taxes are comparable to those of garden city which has superior schools. The library is a complete joke! But we have something other communities don't have "shot spotter" immediately detects gunfire and location. IMPRESSIVE!
Can't wait to leave... Have an excellent agent from Brooklyn, signed up and ready to go.
Happy Days Will soon be here again. Hate co-ops
NEVER AGAIN!

Jim, could you ask your MA exactly what would generate the extra cost for encryption he is so reluctant to take on. Is it the cost of an encryption program? The allocation of additional staff time (how much additional staff time), complexity, perceived as being unnecessary, anything like this. Your MA's resistance really piques my curiosity.

Thanks!

One of the partners in our Managing company told me that there would be an expense to license the encryption software for each of his agents. He claims, it would increase their costs approximately $2,000 - $3,000 per year. I did a little research, and the encryption software that I looked into is free for personal use, but there is a license fee for commercial use. Though I didn't investigate the actual costs - I think that will be my next step.


I contacted the president of the board of the development that we mistakenly were sent their financials. He wasn't surprised (they've received other developments communications), and he's not prepared to issue an ultimatum over this. His opinion is that the best one could expect from a managing agent is mediocre performance, and this issue while unfortunate isn't surprising. The other disappointing thing is that the partner I spoke with assured me that he informed the other development that their financials were leaked. When I spoke to the other president, he told me that our conversation was the first he heard of it.

So, unfortunately, if a significant number of their clients feel this way, I don't have a lot of leverage short of changing MAs and finding one that distributed financials and sensitive information in a secure manner.

Thanks, Jim. I don't know what encryption software your MA is thinking of using, but reasonably secure encryption doesn't have to cost anything.

I recommend 7-Zip. It has a lot of different compression and encryption formats, and can create files that are fully compatible with the standard .ZIP format.

Here's the link to 7-Zip. http://www.7-zip.org/ The software is open source and licensed under GNU LGPL. It allows free and unrestricted commercial use.

Here's a tutorial describing how to encrypt and password protect sensitive files. http://www.medicalnerds.com/how-to-encrypt-zip-files-securely-using-7zip/ It's so extraordinarily simple that I think even the partner in your MA company can figure it out.

You might want to ask your MA how much liability insurance his company carries to cover litigation if they are sued due to irresponsible handling and/or exposure of sensitive co-op financial and personal information.

Also ask them if they are willing to sign an ironclad hold-harmless agreement that protects your Co-op against being brought into any litigation. Since they feel proper information security is too much of a bother and expense, they should have no qualms about protecting your Co-op from their gross negligence.

Oh, and make sure they don't use the same password for all the buildings they manage. I wouldn't be surprised if they tell you password management is also too much of a bother.

Please let us know how it turns out. Good luck.

I appreciate the feedback.

As a Managing Agent I take the security and welfare of our Shareholders seriously and find that there are several ways to achieve a level of safe dissemination of information.
Ask your MA to set up a dropbox account (very cheap and he can use if for all his buildings). The MA would then set up groups that consist only of Board members. Files are uploaded to this secure folder and only accessible by you, the intended viewer.

Just a thought
~Anthony Reinglas