Condo Painting serving Fitchburg and Metro West MA.

Census estimates show how much of Fitchburg's housing is in shared buildings: 31.1% of units sit in structures with two to four units, and 19.9% are in buildings of five or more, including 1,544 units in buildings with at least fifty. Another 6.3% are attached single-family homes. The Census does not track ownership form, so those counts mix apartments, condominiums and townhouses; your master deed is the only reliable record of whether a building is a condo and what each owner controls.

That mix can include two very different kinds of association. One is a converted two- or three-family where the owners are the board and nobody is paid to manage. The other is a complex large enough to have a management company, a reserve budget and a vendor checklist. The painting is similar; the approvals, paperwork and scheduling are not.

Who is responsible for which surface

Massachusetts condominiums are governed by Chapter 183A, and each master deed draws the line between units and common elements. Interior walls and ceilings inside a unit generally belong to its owner. Siding, exterior trim, shared stairwells, and sometimes porches, decks and the outside face of entry doors belong to the association. Before booking any work that crosses that line, a unit owner should get the board's approval in writing.

Under the statute, common expenses are shared according to each unit's percentage interest. In a small self-managed condo, a written estimate addressed to the association, broken out by elevation, porch and stair, gives every owner the same numbers to vote on.

Condo buildings inside the Monument Park district

Part of downtown is a local historic district administered by the Fitchburg Historical Commission. Its design guidelines do not review paint color, but they require an application and a Certificate of Non-Applicability even for ordinary in-kind repairs before work begins, they bar artificial siding, and they call for repairing existing windows rather than replacing them. The guidelines estimate two to six weeks or more for approval, with abutter notice before a monthly hearing for most applications. An association planning exterior work in the district should build that time into its budget year. Our downtown page has more on the area.

Common areas in occupied buildings

In a building where residents use the same stairs and corridors every day, phasing the work by floor or by stair run keeps a usable path out at all times. Waterborne, low-odor coatings dry fast enough to reopen a section the same day. Residents should have written notice of which areas are affected and when. Corridor walls do well in a washable eggshell, with semi-gloss on doors, frames and handrails that get touched constantly.

In a larger complex, the manager may want a single point of contact and a daily end-of-work walkthrough. Those expectations belong in the written scope before the start date.

Lead rules, insurance and documents

With 78.7% of local housing units built before 1980, lead paint is a real question for associations, since residential lead paint was banned only in 1978. In pre-1978 multi-unit housing, the EPA's lead rule covers common areas as well as units, and the contractor must notify residents of affected units, or post signs, describing the nature, locations and dates of the work. See our lead-safe painting page for what containment looks like.

• Certificate of insurance listing the association, and the management company if requested
• A scope naming each surface, the product line, finish and coat count
• A phase schedule residents can read
• Lead-safe documentation for any pre-1978 building

Unit owners and landlords

Almost half of the city's occupied homes, 45.9%, are rented, and a condo owner who rents out a unit can have it repainted between tenants while it is empty. For work inside your own unit, check the building's rules on notice, work hours and moving materials through shared halls. AJ Painting is licensed and insured, and the visit and written estimate are free. The interior painting page covers plaster and trim inside older units.