Condo Association Management Blog

Can you answer these questions? 
 
There are a ton of fly by night contractors who constantly scam people with shoddy work. Do you think she was part of the scam? 
 
How did the treasurer initially contact the contractor? Phone book? Friend of a friend? She had to have some kind of contact number. 
 
You authorized her to get a contractor. Your message states "I told her that she could get a contractor." Were the other board members involved in the decision of letting her get the contractor?  
 
 
 
 
 
 

That is one nasty picture you posted. May I ask how long that was left go until it was finally fixed. How about a picture of the fixed ceiling to compare wth. As far as finding the contractor that did fix it "Good Luck" We had a similar problem with spouting in front of 2 units. The guy was a real air-head who kept trying to fudge it instead of fixing properly. After 2 years of fighting with the board to get this fixed, they finally decided to fix it after (that would be me) said she was taking this to a lawyer. I grew tired of their games and finally the gaes ended in my getting it done properly. Sometimes when you let someone run the ssociation (and that she did rather slyly) you get to know WHY she should not be there any longer. If more people were involved this stuff should never happen. Remeber you as the members are the ones that vote these kind of people into your organization. Going management will probably not be our best soulation, but at least I will see where our money is going. Just a few more days and the old woman that controlled us will be leaving for good!

As to whether or not she was involve, I do not know. I would say probably not though. As far as the picture goes, that is not from our building - the editors of the blog here must have inserted it for dramatic effect. The inside of the unit that was damaged by the leak waqs repaired and looks good. What is the issue the roof repairs. She would have been authorized to get a repair person anyway, as she was a memeber of the Board, I only reminded her that she needed to get the information from the contractor - and she failed to do that. I would love to threaten legal action, I just do not know who to threaten it against since the contractor is unknown. That is why I figured the last resort would be to sue the ex-Treasurer for failing in her role as a fiduciary of the the Association 
 

Yes, we add photos to most blog articles. Feel free to send photos with blog questions to info@condoassociation.com and we will post photos too.

No where in your post does it say that you asked the former board member for help with the contractor you hired. She had to have contacted the contractor somehow! Did you advise her what had happened and what was her response? 
 

So - after about a week of back and forth, turns out she found the contractor through Service Magic. After another Board member tried to contact SM to find out who this contractor is, she was told that the contractor is not in their database anymore. The former owner/board member has been somewhat helpful in at least providing us with her initial correspondence with Service Magic -however, since she does not live here anymore, I think she believes this is not her problem. We have begun the complaint process with Servide Magic, I do not know how that will end. Just as a cautionary - this contractor came up as a "Verified" which per their service agreement, means that SSN, contractor's license, insurance, etc... were all supposed to have been checked by Service Magic before that "Verified" rating was posted. However, in the fine print, they basically state that regardless of what they were supposed to do, they are not responsible for anything... Pretty much defeats the purpose of using their service if they do not actually check anything out.

Kris 
 
It looks like the ex board member did due diligence. The board member was duped by a thieving contractor. It happens a lot in this country. I personally feel the board member did not break fiduciary duty and suing her would be overkill. 
 
 
http://www.servicemagic.com/ 
Is this SM web site? 
 
Ask Service Magic to look in their backup database for the contractor information.  
 
Let me know what happens. Feel free to email me victor six six at P T D dot net. use the number 6 instead of the letters. I don't want the spam bots to get my email address thats why I write it that way. 
 
Victor