Posted on 06/26/2021 5:56:00 AM PDT by dynachrome
My HOA just handed us 1163 dollar assessment to buy the golf courses on our property. Yay for us! I’m just waiting on the date to write the check so I can pretend it never happened. Lol. We have 2800 homes thank goodness.
Looks like one of those situations where if even one major support fails it will cause the ones adjacent to fail, and there then will be a sort of chain reaction. Notice, the side affected was the one facing the ocean.
I do some work with attorneys who have a lot of experience in condominium law. One of them told me about a situation where a condo owner sued the association board and claimed that the financial records he had received were inaccurate and incomplete. What made the lawsuit ludicrous was that he had been given those records before he even bought his condo in the building ... which meant the guy simply didn't do any kind of due diligence before buying into the building and was trying to get out of a bad financial situation. The judge laughed his lawyer out of the courtroom on that one by pointing out that the guy had no standing to sue because he failed to take even the simplest steps necessary to cover his own ass.
Not Covid. The stupid emergency injection potion did it.
They have already.
There were 136 units in the Champlain Towers. That adds up to over $2.1 million per year. Obviously you have to adjust for inflation but over forty years that’s a lot of money.
This same lawyer told me that there are some cases where a condo owner has legitimate grounds to sue on the basis of insufficient capital reserves. The most common situation is one where a condo owner can't refinance a mortgage because the mortgage lender flags the insufficient reserves as a potential risk and does not want to underwrite a loan on the property. This is a case where actual, tangible harm can be demonstrated by the condo owner.
If you have ever had a roof leak you will recognize that water can emerge a long way from where it first went into the the roof.
This is one of the reasons buying into a condo complex is a really bad idea.
A unit inspection will not tell you about all your risks.
And fixes can bankrupt.
I was merely posting what I read.
insurance
Well someone is gonna go to jail for a long time over this
“The lawsuits will be epic in this one.”
Yes, they will sue THEMSELVES into oblivion.
“One of them told me about a situation where a condo owner sued the association board and claimed that the financial records he had received were inaccurate and incomplete. “
I reviewed the books when I bought the Florida condo and knew there were no reserves being accumulated. I anticipated when the developer turned over the building to the association the owners would vote to start accumulating reserves. I was surprised when they did not. After serving a year as treasurer for the board, and doing the research to determine the amount of reserves the association needed, and did not have, I sold my unit. Ten years later the current owners are experiencing significant repair costs and special assessments of as much as $12,000 per year for critical repair needs. One could certainly wonder if the board is deferring other maintenance and skimping on the quality of work, to keep assessments low.
Based on my experience I would not purchase condo in a muti-unit building in Florida or elsewhere. Condo boards often don’t have the knowledge and experience to properly oversee structures and properties of significant complexity. Humans inherently are biased in terms of minimizing economic cost to themselves. Democratic institutions make popular decision, not best decisions. Better to buy an individual housing unit and take care of the repairs and maintenance yourself.
Due to the age of the Florida population, residents have a bias toward short term solutions. Put to a vote, the homeowners will aways vote to pay $10,000 to “caulk” the building (a 3-5 year repair) versus $150,000 for a major stucco replacement and sealing job (a 15-20 year repair). When you are 80 years old, the 3 year repair is sufficient. Even if the board pays for the $150,000 repair there are plenty of unscrupulous contractors who will do a poor job that needs attention in 3-5 years.
“Sounds like there is no effective outside owner to sue.”
People will own condos for years and refer to “the association” as if it’s some entity not connected with them that tells them what to do. They never really understand that they ARE the Home Owners Association and it’s their job to make all the decisions about the entire property.
So, who are they going to blame?
DeSantis, of course.
The way it has been described, I thought it was a rooftop pool. That looks like a ground level pool. Was there maybe a second indoor pool in the top of the building?
Just wait until the Green New Deal forces everybody into high-rise condos near the electric train stations - government certainly isn't going to carry out proper maintenance on the hamster cages at that kind of price and events like this will become commonplace.
I’ve run an association (I owned all the units). That won’t fly. Each condo owner is as responsible for such matters as any other. That’s why if you are going to own a condo, YOU BETTER BE ON THE HOA BOARD.
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