I live in a condo association in MA with 47 units. The board is comprised of 5 unit owners. Each unit owner pays $150 condo fees per month. Prior to 2004, I was on the condo board.

In August 2004, I wrote a letter to the board concerned regarding the lack of maintenance that has been done on the units and condo community as a whole. At the beginning of the spring season, it was indicated to me by a board member that the fence would be fixed and painted. I received no response. I then wrote similar letters in October, December, and May.

The condo fees have been increased, yet the board decided to drastically reduce the landscaping services, ignore the rotting fence, continue to allow the condo’s to deteriorate, and not communicate to unit owners regarding the work the board is doing or has planned for the near future. As a Unit Owner, and an owner of the Willow Park Condominium Trust, I have a vested interest in the maintenance of the property. The current rate of deterioration is drastically decreasing the value of all the unit owners’ investments.

I have indicated to the board my intention to paint Thompson's Water Seal on the porches that were replaced two years ago as no one on the board has indicated it would be done. Under Section 183A of the MA state condo law, unless the by-laws otherwise provide, whenever the common areas and facilities shall require emergency works of repair, replacement or maintenance, any unit owner may undertake the same at his expense and recover his reasonable costs as a common expense.

A member of the condo board called my house and indicated that if I do so, I will be help personally responsible should anything happen. Could anyone please comment if this would be the case?

Regards,

Mary

Well I think the board member is saying that any repair you do is not covered under any type of master insurance policy that covers common areas, only repairs authorized and undertaken by the board. You have insurance on your unit, but it is not for common areas or exteriors.
If you believe that the condo board is committing waste, I suggest going to a consultation with a real estate attorney and consider suing them for waste. You will need to get specific to sue the board for waste as this is a case where they are not good, but I am not sure they are horrible enough to be guilty of waste either.

One thing that is not commonly known, is that if you take legal action against a Board or management company is: that if you win, and you receive a judgement including attornies fees the bill can result in a "assesment" against the homeowners. If the fees or judgements are more then what they have saved in their accoutns then they can bill the costs back to the homeowners as an assesment. There is a web site that was set up for members of associations that report on these types of situations, and sometimes even what action was taken and the results. It is www.ahrc.com. I hope it is ok for me to post this here. Good Luck Greensboro NC

I live in Country Place Condo in Northville since 2003. When I moved in, assc. fee was $215.00. This year they raised up to $273.92 plus they asks $1600.00 assesment which is another $273.86 for 6 months. It means my assc. fee is $410.00 and it is not a luxury condo. This is insane.

All they do is ask money for their unwillingly service. Last year they painted my building include garage door and this year they changed my garage door and guess what? They painted again. I asked Mr. Herriman why they didn't removed the garage door and put a new one then paint. Surprisingly he said he has no answer for that. My beleive is he is taking advantage of us because many elderly lives in our condo and they don't attend the meetings and they pay whatever they ask for even they don't like it.

Now I will start petition to get rid of them and hire some other company or maybe people who lives here we can handle all together. We are tired of their unplaned desicions. It's like they are just learning this job however with our money. They have no experience or they don't care.

If you have any comment or anything to help me, I apreciate.
Thank you

Yasemin

Here is the problem, the management company is supposed to have to run all maintenance issues through the board of directors, so when you vote those people in you are giving them permission to make decisions for you. Now like on my property, the people on the board are people who have lived in the community for years and therefor already have established relationships with their neighbors so getting on the board is all but impossible. Being on the board is the only way you can exact any sort of change.

I even went to far as to hire and attorney in order to help me with an issue regarding a rule being added to out convenants concerning commercial vehicles. I believed that since the rule was not in place when I moved in that I should at the very least be "grandfathered", the other issue was that orur convenants said that no new rules can be added unless there is a 70% agreeance from the rest of the community.

Unfortunatly, the type of attorney you need in this situation is also the type of attorney who represents Associations. So after speaking to no less then 10 attornies who all refused to help me becuase they had a conflict of interest as every single one of them was on retainer for various properties. (We have a lot of Association neighborhoods here). Heck, one of the ones I spoke to was even on the City Council and was also a HOA attorney.

Good luck, I hope you can find a way to get on the board and make a difference. I would suggest a petition. If you could find enough people to bacd with you then they could vote you on. It will take a lot of knocking on doors, so don't give up.

BTW, here is a good link to a site dedicated to overthrowing HOA's
http://www.ahrc.com/