My wife and I are unit owners in a 2 unit building that is 100% owner occupied and has 50/50 interest in common areas. We just moved in about a year ago and shortly after moving in we received a hefty list of recommendations from our master policy provider. The home is 100 years old and the list was long but the major issues were peeling paint, pretty much around the entire house, some issues with the neighbor's deck, and some tree pruning. We only addressed one of the many issues (the tree pruning) and have since lost 2 insurance policies due to not fulfilling the recommendations. We were able to get another insurance policy under the promise of improvement but we are sure that after another inspection we could lose insurance again at which point we will need to get Mass Fair Plan insurance, which may violate the insurance requirements of our trust.
So after all that, our issue is actually with our neighbor. We want to paint (as that is a common area and his deck is not) in order to help avoid further insurance issues but he claims that he cannot afford it and will not agree. We offered him a 12 month payment plan with deferred payments for his half of the paint job and he still refused. Frustratingly, he put money (~$5000) into his deck instead, replacing parts to improve aesthetics but not fixing the structural problems outlined in the recommendations.
So our question is, do we have any grounds for legal action to force him to pay for painting? Sorry for taking so long to get to the question. There are much more frustrating details that I would be happy to share, like the $1300 drone he bought to play with on his new, unstable deck while telling us he is broke
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