Posted on 06/26/2021 5:56:00 AM PDT by dynachrome
The partially collapsed Florida condo building, which has left at least four dead and 159 people missing, was flagged as having “major structural damage” in 2018, according to reports.
A lack of proper drainage on the pool deck of Champlain Towers South condo, which sits above the building’s parking garage, was the source of the “main issue,” wrote engineer Frank Morabito, according to the Miami Herald.
Years of standing water had seriously damaged the concrete structural slabs below the deck, a problem Morabito warned would be “extremely expensive” to fix.
“Failure to replace waterproofing in the near future will cause the extent of the concrete deterioration to expand exponentially,” Morabito said in his “Structural Field Survey Report,” which was produced for the Condominium Association.
Officials in Surfside, Fla., released the report late Friday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
154 units at $1300 a month is $200,000 a month or 2.4 million a year.
How much was spent on maintenance?
That why her ugly lefty mug did show for a photo op until two days later .
suddenly then the number of missing jumped .
the federal aide money is based on that count .
Time will tell...
Shoddy Construction
Ignored Maintenance
Sink Hole
The lawyers are going to have to get creative. The association has some insurance but the owners will be suing themselves. They can sue the trustees but they won't have much coverage - maybe 10M. Hopefully the association is managed by a very large management company with deep pockets or possibly they can go after some product used in construction,
“How much was spent on maintenance?”
Usually as little as possible as owners want the monthly fee to be as low as possible. When large expenses come along, each owner is assessed an amount based on the square footage of their unit. I did that with a new roof at my association.
As a condo owner, all you own privately is what’s within the walls of your unit.
You own everything else in common and equally with all the other owners. The roof, the pool, the stairways, the decks, the outer walls, the foundation, etc.
Within six hours the pool completely drained out. Early in the morning of the tragedy you could see the pool level dropping
I wonder if we’ll ever know the exact reason.
Wouldn’t be surprised if it’s all covered up b/c of political correctness.
Not nearly as much as you think. Maintaining and operating a building of that size costs a lot of money.. and frankly condo associations are often run by busy body idiots. Much like HOAs..
The difference is when a HOA is run by nincompoops individual homes do not suffer from lack of maintenance and repair due to lack of funds or lack of appropriate oversight
If a condo board is incompetent, well everyone in the building and the building itself can suffer.
I have no idea what happened here... time will tell.
Incompetence? Negligence? Sink Hole?
Where's the deep pocket? There's probably an insurance policy, but by the time it's spread around, there won't be much left. Particularly if it is a wasting policy.
“Obviously you have to adjust for inflation but over forty years that’s a lot of money.”
I served as treasurer of a condo tower of the same size in Florida. Dues were $3200 per quarter per unit (2010), or close to the same as the Champlain Towers. Those dues covered no reserves. Ongoing expenses funded by the reserves were property insurance (huge in Florida for buildings on the water due to hurricanes), liability insurance, flood insurance, D&O liability insurance, property taxes, electricity for all of the common areas and clubhouse, legal fees, tax preparation accounting fees, and pool upkeep. The complex employed a full time maintenance man and two full time helpers to kept the common areas clean and handle minor repairs. Plus dues paid for a property management company to oversee the management and administration (bill collection/payment, oversight of employees, advising the board on a myriad of issues). Add to that the cost of water and cable TV for all units which was included in the dues. Groundskeeping was another significant expense— shrubbery grows fast as does grass in Florida. Trash collection and hauling. In addition routine maintenance - replacing sprinkler heads, exterior lights, touch up painting, caulking, electrical repairs when outlet short out, plumber costs if a pipe in the wall breaks or the sprinkler system has an issue, debris cleanup after storms.
The ongoing expenses incurred to keep a 136 unit condo building operating are significant. Unit owners are only responsible for what is inside the interior drywall of their individual unit. Any electrical or plumbing problems inside the walls are responsibility of the Association. A window cracks in a storm, or due to a bird strike, and it is the Association’s responsibility to repair.
Thanks for the link to the interactive picture. Clearest depiction of what happened. I do recall from one of the videos that the collapse happened in two stages.
Well, one problem with a condo board is there is not a lot of personal liability. If the punt a problem like this and it leads to a disaster, it’s not likely the members of the board are going to lose millions of dollars. If it was an individual building owner or even a corporation owning the property, then they would have a stake in preventing something like this, because they’d be on the hook if they didn’t.
In my state, a condo association or a homeowner’s association is required by statue to conduct a reserve/engineering study every five years and keep an adequate reserve fund. If it does not, any member has standing to sue the association to force it to do so, and if successful, the association must pay the owner’s attorney’s fees and costs.
“Where’s the deep pocket?”
There isn’t one.
That is as much as my mortgage (without escrow), and I think I live in a decent house.
Great pictures, thanks!
My wife and I are nearing retirement and were thinking of looking at a condo, but after reading the information on how those places operate I am changing my mind. Now I am thinking trailer park.
I’m not so sure that that the government authorities would have any involvement with this. If the engineer’s inspection was done for the association, there’s no reason for government authorities to be involved unless the engineer believed there was a risk of imminent collapse.
“That is as much as my mortgage (without escrow), and I think I live in a decent house.”
Your mortgage pays the bank, it doesn’t pay upkeep, your water and sewer, lawn service, heat, A/C, security, etc. etc.
Most people who get on their condo boards do so to keep the fee down as low as possible. Which leads to what you see in this case.
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