I have lived in these condos for 15 years. During that time I've made some requests for repairs that have been ignored. Example--the front door needed painted. I requested that for years my requests were ignored. Then, at an annual meeting they advised us that we were responsible from then on for any painting on the outside, including front doors. Shortly after that I received a letter that my door needed to be painted immediately or they would have someone do it and bill me. I argued that they were responsible because I had made the request for several years. It didn't help. In 15 years I have paid approx. $28,000 in fees. Few of my requested repairs have ever been done. However, they keep adding more and more repairs as our responsibility. It seems when they get so many requests, they decide we need to handle those.
A hill behind mine was grass to the top when I moved in. It's just dirt now because of the erosion. They deny it's erosion and because it's part of the "Common area" I have no right to complain and they don't have to do anything. Our group of condos were the first or second ones built. All of the other groups have gotten new roofs and nothing for us. The fee goes up every year. About 7 years ago we found out that the management company had stolen all of our reserve money of $400,000. No one on the board had ever bothered to check what was happening to the money. Since that time we have recouped that money, plus bring us current. And yet they keep increasing our fees. Something does not seem right here. We get the budget each year but for the most part we have a problem in seeing any of the repairs listed were done.
One last thing. I was going through a refi through Make Homes Affordable. The told me not to pay the fees until everything was finished and they would include the back fees in the loan. I got the refi but they did not include those fees. Before I could even question that....they had sold my loan and the new mortgagor wouldn't do anything. I had told the Board and Attorney at the initial refi. They were fine. When I found out it wasn't included I advised them and sent the current monthly fee and said it would take me time but I would catch up. The next thing I received was notification that they were foreclosing on my condo. From that point no Board member would talk to me and the phone numbers available for the Attorney was simply a recording that "you have reached xxx Law office" thank you for calling." I hounded them and finally they said they would agree to work with me on the payback but they tacked on over $7,000 in attorney fees. The back fees are close to being paid in full but the atty fees keep growing and growing. Something just doesn't seem right to me.
I would love to hear your opinion. Ohio.
