Condo Painting across Needham, Massachusetts.

Multi-unit housing is a minority here, but not a small one. Census figures count 1,995 units (16.7% of the total) in buildings with five or more units, and 1,215 of those sit in buildings of 20 or more. Another 625 units (5.2%) are single-family attached, the Census category that covers townhouses, and 427 are in two- to four-unit buildings.

Those numbers mix rentals and condos, since the Census counts buildings, not ownership type. Still, they describe the range a condo project can fall into: a unit in a mid-rise with an elevator and a management company, a townhouse with its own front door and a shared exterior, or one half of a converted two-family run by a two-person board.

What the master deed decides

Massachusetts condominiums are organized under General Laws Chapter 183A. The master deed and its plans define where your unit ends and the common area begins, and common expenses are shared according to each owner's percentage interest. For painting, that line determines who chooses the color and who pays.

Walls and ceilings inside a unit generally fall to the owner. Entry doors, the hallway face of those doors, balcony railings and exterior trim can be classed as common or limited common elements, even when only one owner uses them; the documents for your building say which. Read the master deed and rules, or ask the manager, before changing anything visible from a hallway or the street.

• Unit owner: walls, ceilings, interior trim, closets, cabinets
• Shared spaces, normally the association's: corridor walls, stairwells, lobby, exterior siding and trim
• Check first: entry doors, decks and balconies, garage doors on townhouses

Painting inside a unit

Unit work is ordinary interior painting with a few added constraints: building work hours, elevator reservations, where to park a van and where materials can be staged. An association may require a certificate of insurance on file before a contractor's first day, even for work inside a single unit.

With 63.9% of local housing built in 1979 or earlier, older buildings carry the same lead questions as older houses. In a pre-1978 building, paid work that disturbs more than six square feet of paint per room must follow EPA lead-safe practices, and in a multi-unit building that containment also protects neighbors and the shared hallway. The lead-safe painting page explains what to expect.

For an owner who rents out a unit (16.9% of occupied homes in town are rentals), turnover painting between tenants is its own kind of job, and neutral colors with a scrubbable finish make it simpler to repeat. For the walls and trim in more detail, see the interior painting page for this town.

For boards and managers: common areas

Corridors and stairwells have to stay usable while they are painted. Work can be sequenced floor by floor with notices posted ahead of time, wet-paint signs on fresh walls and low-odor waterborne coatings chosen for occupied buildings. Durable eggshell or satin on walls and semi-gloss on handrails and door frames hold up to luggage, strollers and move-in days.

A written estimate can break a large scope into pieces such as building by building, floor by floor, or interior and exterior, so a board can match it to a reserve study and spread it over more than one year.

Certificates of insurance and exteriors

AJ Painting is licensed and insured. Ask the manager for the exact certificate-holder wording the association wants on a certificate of insurance and pass it along with the estimate, so the paperwork is settled before the first day of work.

Exterior repainting of townhouse rows and small converted buildings follows the same prep rules as single-family homes, including the 20-square-foot exterior lead threshold on pre-1978 structures, but the color decision belongs to the board. The exterior painting page for this town covers siding and trim, and the Needham Center page describes housing near the town center.