COMMENTS
Your board and PM negotiated an agreement with a snow removal vendor. The terms may only include what the vendor is currently plowing. You should call your PM again or if you know someone on your board try to talk to them. If you can try to talk to the snow removal vendor.
Keep a record of all your attempts to fix this issue and keep taking pictures you may need them in case you fall and have to file a health clam.
How do you calculate the amount the HOA needs to have in reserve? We are a relatively new building with 8 units and when we bought our condo our HOA fees included a management company. All of us decided to self manage, but the board wanted to keep our HOA fees the same so we could build up our reserves. We all agreed to this, but over a year has gone by and we are still paying the same HOA fees. I believe we should have a healthy reserve for our safety and for re-sale purposes, but not too much that we pay for future owners issues. Is there a formula to know how much a reserve should be?
The size of a reserve fund should be based upon an engineering study whuich determines the most likely life expectancy remaing for the more costly components of your uassociation. Your heating andf air conditioning system, your roof, your parking lot--all those components which must be reoplaced at some point. You should hire a competent engineering firm to make this determination for yourselves and then FUND IT>
FAST and QUICK..Do as I did..it worked within one day here in New Hampshire! Call your local Fire Inspector. Mention the
term, "there is no means of egress", (eventhough Property Mgmt company says it has properly allowed room for emergency vehicles,) "no means of egress" means how can people safely escape from a fire in the building, how can fire fighters enter the building, how can ambulance personnel remove a person from the building on a stretcher! When calling Fire Inspector ask him to stop by and take a look! Mine did and quick as lightening the property management came immediately as Fire Inspector called THEM! My property mgmt company was angry with me, (they called me asking why I didn't call them first, instead of me calling the Fire Inspector..my reply to them was, "Would you rather have the Fire Inspector call you or would you like someone to slip and fall and be sued." They backed off big time and have been here everyday in our 128 unit condos continuing to clear off premises from roofs, ice damns, sidewalks,
parking lots, buildings!
Hope this helps!
Marie and Scott..pls post on a different topic. Your comments are not relevant to snow removal issue.
Many Thanks.
Marie can you start a new blog discussion. Your posting on top of a different subject! It can get confusing when there are two different subjects on the same blog.
My post was a mistake. Please disregard.
Melinda....
Good job. What you have most likely don by calling the fire inspector is cost your Association more money. Once you start calling organizations such as these, they often find other "issues" which they want immediately resolved, and which you condo fees are utilized to do. If this is an unbudgeted expense, you still pay via a special assessment.
Your PM and Board represent the Association, not the typical PM you may be used to if you rented previously. In a situation where you rented in an apartement rental complex, a private individual owned the units, the property, etc. In the situation of a condominium, the owners own the property, so therefore whenever you do things such as this, you are costing yourself unnecessary expenses.
Why would you want to do that?
CondoWhinerHater..your name is so applicable..what you have presented in your comments is that 'they will find other issues',
including 'special assessments'
not true, not valid..fire code violations ARE fire code violations, so be it. I own my condo and have for over 20 years!
I don't understand what your board is doing about this. Ask what is in the snow vendor contract. Maybe they are only doing what they have agreed to do in writing. My snow vendor will only do parking lot plowing when the snow is so many inches deep and will only do sidewalks when the snow is so many inches deep (I do not know the depth.) Any less than that and then we have a caretaker that does our sidewalks and snowblows in front of our detached garages. Can the association hire someone to do the sidewalks? Does the association own its own snowblower? We've used a lot of Ice Bite this year. Have you sent your photos to your board? and to PM? Request that your PM responds to you in writing and ASAP (although they usually only talk to the board.) In my documents it says the association is responsible for maintenance and the health and safety of all occupants. If someone slips, falls, is injured, there could be a big disability access lawsuit. Oops, there goes the savings. I had a back sidewalk that was overgrown with shrubs to the point that you could barely walk down it. I complained. The board said there was no money to remove or replace the shrubs. I wrote to the city for advice. They said they had no jurisdiction over property governed by bylaws, but mentioned the part about a possible lawsuit due to disability access. I passed that on to the board, and those darn shrubs were either trimmed or removed promptly. There is a product out there by Toro, and it is an electric shovel - plugs in with a cord. Only weights 13 pounds. Works well with powdery snow that is not too deep. Amazon.com
Our condo have private street which is plowed along with driveways and sidewalks. No mention in by laws of owner being responsible for removable of any snow including decks, Now have received letter from PM advising us to shovel deck do to the enormous amount of snow this year. Shouldn' t the assn be responsible for decks as well?
Melinda....
Any building new or old has some issue which can / would be considered a fire code violation. Why is that? Because the codes in each location change frequently, without notice to boards/managers, etc.
The more owners whine and call their local municipalities, the more they are going to piss off the municipalities who will go through your building floor by floor and find some code violation (fire, code, etc) they can write up the building for, which, in turn becomes a higher cost to you when it must be repaired usually in less than 30 days and these items are not budgeted for. These projects also serve to distract management from other issues which may be important to the entire community.
You have owned your condo for over 20 years..but have you served on the board?
I would also wonder how many other owners have problems with the snow that you mention. If it is only you, how would the membership's interests be served by removing snow from areas that you only have a problem with....and what would the additional costs be, and why should the majority pay for it?
a deck is a limited common area. That classaification makes sbnow removal your personal problem.
For CondoWhiner. The posters who visit are looking for valid advice. They do not need to see your constantly carping remarks about how stupidf they were to buy into a condominium. You add absolutely nothing of any value and I for one would apprecioate you posting elsewhere.
Scott, and other's looking for valid advice, just ignore comments from CondoWhiner..I happen to agree with you, Scott. I second that, have him post elsewhere.
Oh, did I hurt someone's feelings?
Whatever happened to freed of speech.
Many of the comments on this site are not looking for advice, they are only here to whine -- about ridiculous crap.
They whine about the situation they created by purchasing a condo with many times the only defense "oh, I didn't know" when they are provided with condo docs, laws, rules, etc and still claim I don't know.
I will not stop posting here because under the US Constitution I have the right to freedom of speech. As far as I know there no use restrictions that posts can only be made to ask or give advice and if there were many of the comments here would be deleted...especially those of the condo whiners.
As is your norm-you completely miss the point. It is not a free speech issue but rather one of loose lips that offer no help to the poster requesting same but rather you react to inflate your own ego and simply confuse the situation. Most participating can well do without your biased caustic remarks. We all know you think you made a mistakew so just leave it at that.
Scott, just check out condowhinerhater.com ,the link he posted. You won't be surprised why his comments are positioned the way that they are..property management company.
People, people, CondoWhinerHater just wants attention and this is the way he/she uses to get it. Don't pay attention and just provide the blog poster with any helpful comments you may have. That's the reason for this website anyway.
We are a smalll and self managed HOA. I love this site for info! It is sad to see a thread get taken over by a malcontent since most posts are very helpful and constructive. Granted, freedom of speech - start your own malcontent blog. Other blogs I belong to have Moderators to remove malicious attackers and they censor only the worst of comments - not viewpoints. Maybe a comment allowed but a train of arguing that goes no where - maybe consider editing that.
is snow removal state law or must it be in bylaws? anyone knows? Cause i live all yr round in condo at shore, and president refuses to pay snow removal for us all yr round residents who live here. is this violation to state laws?
hey Susan we are a small self managed association too. I wish that people would accept the fact they are homeowners so if you need to use a shovel and can't hire a few kids do dig you out and throw some salt. People love to bitch and bitch and bitch and what they don't realize is you opted in to something you didn't fully understand.