When Considering a Condominium Purchase, Check How Long the President Has Ruled the Roost

If you are looking for a condominium that you’ll feel comfortable with, check how long the current board has been in power. If the board doesn’t turn over, it’s the same names year after year, then add additional caution when purchasing in the condominium or HOA.

I’ve read, and had some personal experience, about too many “lifer presidents” (an example here) that over time begin to treat the board as their exclusive play grounds. Where most elected bodies recognize the threat to good governance elected lifers create – even the President of the United States has term limits – no such measures exist for community associations.

The risk is, and it seems to come to fruition, that over a period of time the basic principles of the board get eroded.

Take for example the board of President Lorraine Walsh, who has held her title for over 20 years at the Deveonwood, Hercules California, condominium. According to one resident the board hasn’t held an election since 2005. Further, though there is a vacancy on the current board and an owner volunteered to fill it till next election – the current board voted down the appointment 4 to 0.

Other shenanigans appear to be happening there as well: holding in camera executive sessions in the middle of public meetings. That’s clearly a method to shut down the meetings.

Often long serving boards tend to use fining as a heavy handed method to enforce compliance, or threaten owners financially if they raise trouble. For the Deveonwood, first time violations carry $350 fines and have been handed out for improper window coverings and poor garden pot locations.

Sometimes I wonder if the property management firms hired by these long term boards are somewhat responsible for the condominium’s or HOA’s decline. If there really hasn’t been an election since 2005 the property management company should resign or make public notice that the board is failing to abide by all rule and regulations. The problem is management companies can fear failing to comply with the board will result in a non-renewed contract. It’s hard to protest the board that pays you. For the Deveonwood, one owner appears to have asked for the record of past elections to confirm when and how the last elections were held, and the management company denied to fill the request.

Condominiums are great places to live, but like any organization they benefit deeply from a regular turnover of the board, and a rotation of the roles. There is nothing scared or amazingly difficult about being on a board, and normally a management company will ensure all the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed. I have yet to see a new board, with none of the old guard remaining, mess up a community.

Condominium Board Fines Resident $4500+ for Flowers

I don’t know if Kimberly Bois, of the Portsmouth’s Atlantic Pointe condominiums, New Hampshire, is the nefarious evil doer her condominium board makes her out to be. I mean, if the board doesn’t stop her green thumb, perennial planting, capers – who knows what seeds of chaos and tendrils of civil unrest she may cause to root in her neighbourhood.

Seriously though, the specific perennials that she’s planted (daisies, irises, lavender, hydrangeas and tulips) may be counter to the by-laws and she may very well have to dig them up. I indicate specific perennials, because this sales video shows numerous colourful swaths of flowers when tooling through the condominium complex. There definitely are flowers there.

What I very much object to, and I think Kimberly has a leg to stand on, is the overbearing and unreasonable process of fining that is going on. On 24 October 2011 the board started fining $25/day, and has since increased it to $50/day.

That is completely unreasonable, and a great example of a condominium board – being judge, jury and executioner – attempting to financially bludgeon an owner into cowed submission. I very much think that Ms. Bois should be legally refuting all demands from the board, and use that in front of every judge as a means to be excluded from any judgement against her.

Boards have a duty and a responsibility to act reasonable, especially given the fact they act as the sole body to enforce and punish for condominium by-law infractions. A board failing to respect the powers they have been granted (and that’s not the power to cudgel owners) needs to be rapped on the wrist, turned around, and sent on their merry way.

It’s especially important, as many boards are filled with “regular joes” who, though have the best intentions, fail to act outside of personal emotion and vendetta. There are significantly too many complaints about the mismanagement of board power. Colorado Division of Real Estate recently found:

What we discovered was that the complaints we received primarily involved the board of director’s failure to follow corporate governance rules and procedures of the HOA; the transparency of the board of directors, particularly as it related to the finances of the HOA; and harassment and bullying of homeowners by the board of directors and management company by arbitrary fining, preclusion from providing input into the associations’ affairs, and verbal harassment.

Ahh, that last point is specifically applicable to this situation. The inordinate and unreasonableness of the fine Ms. Bios has received shows it.

The board needs to get their feelings and their actions pruned.

Condo Loses Court Case, Considers Fining Defendant Anyways

Gateway Plaza Condominium Association, Vail Colorado, has been unsuccessful in preventing the Arthrex company from opening a surgical training centre in their complex.

The complex, a mixed use building, holds 9 residential condos and about 9 current commercial tenants (realtors, a couple marketing/media companies, designers, financial advisors, and some home contractors and an upscale restaurant). The space Arthrex is looking to utilize previously held a medical office with OB/GYN and ear, nose and throat doctors.

Charles Lipton, president of the condo association, in what I can only read as an act of pettiness and donkey-ness, has indicated the board will examine fining the company for every day it runs the surgical training center. This is a classic example of a board looking at its quasi-judicial powers, and the ability to be their own judge, jury, and executioner (as the real courts didn’t award them their court case) to sledgehammer whoever ticks them off or fails to meet their level of decency.

Hey, if you don’t win in a actual, honest to goodness, real court – you might as well utilize your divine right of condominium to correct that!

Arthrex’s cardinal sin – the surgical (note “surgical”) training lab will utilize parts of actual cadavers. Specifically, the training will use human joints in educating surgeons on orthopedic procedures.

It’s not like the training lab is serving Soylent Green. There’s already a restaurant in the complex.

Condominium and HOA Fees vs. Fines

It should always be clarified that there is a very distinct difference between fees and fines for condominiums and HOAs.

Fees are a monthly or yearly amount that are levied to cover the maintenance of the common property – the building, hallways, plumbing, heating, roof and other building envelope issues. For HOAs it may be to maintain the streets, signage, and landscaping. In both cases the levy is set out years in a budget, it is approved by the board, and the costs are shared between owners based on a formula (usually equally or based on a unit’s percentage of the square footage).

Fines are the option of the board to impose on owners that violate any of the bylaws or quasi-official rules.  They are intended as a means to encourage compliance of the owners with the corporation or HOA rules.

When I talk about how important it is for Condominiums and HOAs to collect the money owe to them, and I support all legislative rules to ensure the organizations are paid what they are owed – I’m talking about the fees. It’s important that the condominium or HOA always be correctly funded as to their budget for the maintenance of the common property.

When it comes to collecting fines for by-law infractions, well, I think they can be collect at the bottom of the barrel. There are a bunch of reasons. The easiest arises from the ease that board use in levying them and the lack of any appeal or challenge to them. The board is judge, jury and executioner when it comes to applying fees. It’s a condo Star Chamber.

It’s truly sad that there are so many boards that use fines as cudgels on their neighbours, and more importantly, to make life unbearable in condominiums and HOAs. It’s especially noticeable that more and more HOAs have rules “for the board and loyal owners” and ones for “new and disliked owners”.

It’s scary – Stepford HOA scary.

Condominium Corporation Forecloses on $4.70 Outstanding (Plus $3000 Lawyer Bill)

In 2009, Geeta Ramcharitar of the Venetian Village condominium, in Melbourne Florida, had a $4.70 outstanding sum owed to the corporation. It’s not clear why the sum was outstanding, or why the board simply didn’t write off less than a fiver in debt, but the debt existed.

Instead of resolving the issue – the corporation requested their law firm to start a collection process. By the middle of 2010 the law firm had billed about $3000 to collect this fiver. The corporation was then able to retain a court hearing to foreclose on the unit to collect outstanding amount, interest, fines and lawyer fees. The good news is the judge threw out the foreclosure and the amount owning.

The board of the condominium should literally be slapped. Multiple times. In order to collect on $4.70 they wasted a huge amount of people’s time – including mediation and court time – and a lot of people’s money. In essence, the board made a very very stupid decision (they are there to make decisions in the best interest of the condominium) – and should have written off the amount a long time ago. For good measure the lawyer should be slapped too – for padding her income on such a frivolous request.