Living in a Condominium

Brandon9000 wrote:

Miller wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

Miller wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:

...

Best thing to do is sue the Trustees. Condo owners often win these lawsuits.

I have no desire to pay a lawyer thousands of dollars, even if I can recover the money when I win the law suit. That's my point.

Then obviously, you have a different means of handling this situation. What is it?

In the end, by keeping up the pressure on everybody, I got them to agree to make the repair, although it hasn't been done yet. However, it seems as though one has no real recourse when being cheated if one isn't willing to endure the expense and trouble of suing.

Since the repair work will be paid for by condo fees, you'll end up paying for it, at least a fraction of it...

Actually, though, my real question had been to find out what I could do if I were elected to the association board, and the management company simply refused to obey anyone except the two members they had a prior relationship with, or a couple of members dominated the board by disregarding the association rules, e.g. meeting privately without the other members, etc. It seems that if one isn't willing to sue them, they can do anything they please. I should make it clear that I am not presently on the association board, but have been wondering how effectively I could oppose policies I disagree with if I were.

Brandon9000 wrote:

Actually, though, my real question had been to find out what I could do if I were elected to the association board, and the management company simply refused to obey anyone except the two members they had a prior relationship with, or a couple of members dominated the board by disregarding the association rules, e.g. meeting privately without the other members, etc. It seems that if one isn't willing to sue them, they can do anything they please. I should make it clear that I am not presently on the association board, but have been wondering how effectively I could oppose policies I disagree with if I were.

Ah, that's a much easier question to answer. If there are five people on the board, and the two numbskulls are outnumbered by three reasonable people, then, if the management company continues to follow the directives of the numbskulls, the board majority should simply fire the management company and hire another one. End of problem.

You are in Florida? That's Condo Heaven - and there are oodles of state regulations governing management companies AND Condos and their Boards. Just Google Florida Condo Laws

But first - you must get ahold of YOUR CCR's and bylaws and any other governing documents and study them.

If the pipes running between the floors are under the jurisdiction of the Association, how was it that an Owner got billed for it? Something's not right.

You should be able to request a sit-down with the management and a board member and get all your questions answered.

And . . .don't be so confrontational. You are simply trying to figure out the Association's rules that YOU have to live with.

PS - at your next Annual Meeting, get yourself nominated for the Board or at least on a Committee. You need to get into the trenches of condo governing a while before you bash the Board.

You aren't very familiar with what my situation was.... Please don't correct peoples' handling of their personal affairs until you have some idea of what their situation is.

Brandon9000 wrote:

You aren't very familiar with what my situation was.... Please don't correct peoples' handling of their personal affairs until you have some idea of what their situation is.

Well, to be fair, no one is very familiar with your situation. But then that's always the case when you ask for advice on these types of boards. We can only base our advice on the information that you give us. If there's something that will help us give better advice, it's your responsibility to divulge it. It's rather churlish to criticize people for failing to understand the situation when you haven't done a good job of laying it out.