Condo Association Management Blog

How is that going to help your association? 
 
The liability coverage is to cover not only the officers (who nowadays in most documents are held harmless) but primarily the Association for accidents and other items, including directors decisions. The fact is, if someone were to get injured because of an item that was not maintained, such as the balconies, it is my opinion that the Association coverage most likely would not apply because it was not properly maintained. Usually, the liability coverage comes into play over civil suits. In other words, you would have to sue your Association. And if you sued, you could not also file a claim. There is no basis to a claim as of yet, in my opninion. An insurance agent would better explain it, and you should contact the Association's agent or your own. 
 
It would be far better to get invlolved and start the process of repairing the items that immediately need it, begin the process of enforcement of your documents and get some other owners involved and replace the board members who are not acting in the best interest of the Association and are, accroding to the few examples you gave, putting the Association at risk. 
 
You may need to discuss this with a qualified real estate attorney. The other item may be to meet with your board, and rather than being confrontational, be open to volunteering and helping. Find out what the reasons are. Most often, it boils down to money and not wanting to make the unpopular choice of an assessment. 
 
It's easy for outsiders to point out that you should be part of the solution and not the problem. I don't know what the problems are. Neither of us knows why some decisions were made and others were not. You can spend a lot of time and energy finding out, or you can move forward and put your Association, where you live with a lot of hard work, team work and consensus building, toward a good foundation for the future.

Just a thought - you municipality has code ordinances - our Condo Boards for the past couple of years have continually ignored our requests to repair many items causing continuing repairs at an increased long term cost to us.  
 
 
 
Check to see what might be violations and call the city to cite the Board - no one may like doing it this way, but code is code.  
 
 
 
Also check to see if your city has passed the International Building Code - our Board is refusing to remove and replace the fireproof drywall in areas in our storage lockers (limited common area) where they have continually ignored water leaking in from the outside into these limited common areas.  
 
 
 
Finally, they are fixing a couple major leak areas where the wood and deck membranes are rotted away totally.  
 
 
 
Per our Bylaws - the Board is responsible for these repairs - but they deny it. They say their attorney said the Bylaws are written loosely and can be interpreted however they want.  
 
 
 
These breaches now leave numerous holes in the drywall in a number of our storage lockers, the Board is now violating our fire codes - and they are about to be cited and will now have to repair. Sad, most owners are in agreement that the Board has to repair the drywall and are willing to chip in and pay for this, but the Board has taken the stand in writing that they won't repair the drywall. This leaves the lockers open to the beams and deck membranes. And breaches the firewall protection that our ordinance requires.  
 
 
 
This is really a no win situation. Individual retaliation is always the Boards best revenge - and I'm sure we'll receive another fine ourselves for something stupid - like seasonal decorations on our deck or flowers on our deck. We will get fined and if we don't pay, they will put a lien on our property. You can't win with crazy.

A current Board member recently forwarded an email to a third party (HOA current property manager) that was sent to me on 1/8/2009 from the president of the former property management company. That company's services were terminated by the Board late last year. The email was copied to the HOA Board (four individuals).  
 
 
 
The email is offensive, insulting and an ad hominem attack on my character. It is patently without foundation and was sent in the wake of repeated conflict between the property manager and me over critical maintenance items (specifically water leaks) that had been largely ignored for days. The email was intended to intimate. 
 
 
 
I consider the email to be potentially defamatory in nature, particularly since it was forwarded to a disinterested third party (defamation by publication). While I am loathe to commence civil legal action against the HOA, I will insist that this Board member be held accountable for his actions. 
 
 
 
Any assistance in this regard would be greatly appreciated. I live in California.

The President of our condo association recently contracted locally to have trees on the street perimeter of our building trimmed. There seems to have been no input from the condo owners with regards to this decision which definately created a visual blight on the property. Any suggestion? We sublet the unit we are in however the owner was not contacted either.