Problems with the condo property management?

[tryst_one]

Last December my bro-in-law put up xmas lights outside our condo as a present for our kids, this is what he did for a living then, a few weeks later he fell of the roof a house they were working on and broke his foot, needless to say he does not do this kind of work anymore, so our light were left out for a few months after Xmas. The property management then hired another company to remove our lights and sent us a bill later.
Due to our busy schedule and negligence, we did not pay this bill on time, which ended up with another charge on the next invoice. Long story short, the property management put a caveat on our condo, we have tried to contact members of our condo board as we would like this resolved and be done with but they have not responded to email requests to contact us.
The property manager told me that is the only way to get ahold of the condo board is through him. It is his company that put the caveat on our condo, the lawyer he works with suggested we pay off the amount we owe(which has now accumulated to close to 1k) which is what we are going to do and speak to the condo board and see if they can do anything. Has anyone gone through something like this? Anyone know of another way I can speak or get ahold of the condo board members aside from knocking door to door? Thanks for your feed back.

[Weapon_R]

Yes, the solution might be surprise you so sit down before you read this...




Pay your bill.

[The_Rural_Juror]

Originally posted by tryst_one

Due to our busy schedule and negligence, we did not pay this bill on time,

Originally posted by Weapon_R

Pay your bill.

[tryst_one]

Originally posted by tryst_one
the lawyer he works with suggested we pay off the amount we owe(which has now accumulated to close to 1k) which is what we are going to do

I apologize if that was unclear, we are going to pay the bill, I was hoping someone has suggestions on how i can get ahold of the condo board.

[Xtrema]

Show up at the next condo board meeting? They must have one yearly.

I don't think you can talk your way out of it. Board isn't going to pay for one owner's mistake.

[dannie]

There is a way to find out who your board is. The current condo board is registered on the condo title yearly. The problem with going to them is that they are going to tell you to deal with the management company. They wont answer your questions. That is why a management company is hired.

Now, with that being said, there are guidelines that they have to follow before they can simply take the lights down and charge you. So I would suggest reading your by-laws thoroughly. The majority of calgary condos have the same set of rules. It should say that a letter should be sent out to you and you will be given 10 days to remove the lights or contact the management co to set up a time to remove them. If you dont pay attention to the letter, then they can come out at take it down at your expense. So, read your bylaws and if this is the case with yours and you didnt receive the letter, I would contact the management company and ask why that bylaw wasnt applied.

[cloud7]

So they are charging you late fees for not paying? is that why it is now $1000? I would negotiate to have the original amount paid and call it even.

[Kloubek]

ok... a lot of speculative answers here.

I have been on a condo board for about 10 years now.

First, they should have given you a written notice, telling you that the lights had to be taken down. This is standard practice, and you could probably fight them on that alone.

If you DID receive a notice, and simply did not take them down, then they are in their right to charge you whatever amount as per the condo bylaws.

The best way to work this out is to get a copy of those bylaws. Try to find a part which indicates they give you written notice before action. Find out what the specific rules are in the bylaws regarding Christmas lights. Find anything in the bylaws which would make their case invalid. Simply sending out a newsletter or something to TELL people that lights are not allowed is not enough; there must be specific rules on it for them to fine you, and specific details on how much to fine and interest to be paid.

It is true, however, that all issues should go through the management company and not the individual owners themselves. Unless you're friends with the condo board people, trying to get issues resolved directly through them is not likely to be very fruitful.

[dannie]

^ Thanks for the back-up

[Clever]

This is my cousin's thread, I remember him talking to me about this since he was working in the patch he didn't get a chance to take care of it. He told me about the light and we were going to take it down on the weekend after he received a notice about the lights, so yes he did get a notice. There was also an issue with what the amount they wanted to charge him in the beginning and he requested for an updated invoice with the proper amount. He did not get the invoice, there was also some phone calls and email correspondence between him and the manager, but that never resulted to anything. I still say go knock on your neighbors door.

[extm88]

You may be able to negotiate somewhat however due to neglect of contacting them right away when getting the bill may hurt you a bit.

Best of luck.

[Clever]

Just out of curiosity when someone puts a lien on your house does that affect your mortgage? Reason being is that someone from my cousin's bank called them and told them that their mortgage is in danger because of the Caveat.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Clever
Just out of curiosity when someone puts a lien on your house does that affect your mortgage? Reason being is that someone from my cousin's bank called them and told them that their mortgage is in danger because of the Caveat.

You can`t sell until that`s cleared up. Complicate things and may prevent you from getting HELOC or on mortgage renew.

By-law is on their side. Just pay it.

[revelations]

---------

[Clever]

Originally posted by Xtrema


You can`t sell until that`s cleared up. Complicate things and may prevent you from getting HELOC or on mortgage renew.

By-law is on their side. Just pay it.

I find it odd that someone from my cousin's bank called them saying that their mortgage will be compromised if they did not pay it right away. From what I know they paid the invoice last week. They are just waiting to hear from the Board of Directors to hopefully get some fees waived off and get some money back.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by Clever



I find it odd that someone from my cousin's bank called them saying that their mortgage will be compromised if they did not pay it right away. From what I know they paid the invoice last week. They are just waiting to hear from the Board of Directors to hopefully get some fees waived off and get some money back.

May be your cousin didn't have much down payment and the mortgage is close to the price of the home.

But mortgage company has "dibs" if it ever come to foreclosure before lien owners that comes after so I'm not sure why they're being such asses about it.

May be someone work in the biz can enlight us.

[Kloubek]

Originally posted by extm88
You may be able to negotiate somewhat however due to neglect of contacting them right away when getting the bill may hurt you a bit.

Best of luck.

I agree with this. You never know - they may show leniency. But the fact is, if they sent out a notice it should have been adhered to. Some boards don't dick around when it comes to infractions. I'm trying my best to de-ANALize mine.

[Clever]

Originally posted by Xtrema


May be your cousin didn't have much down payment and the mortgage is close to the price of the home.

But mortgage company has "dibs" if it ever come to foreclosure before lien owners that comes after so I'm not sure why they're being such asses about it.

May be someone work in the biz can enlight us.

That could be it, but I did not know they can do that.

Originally posted by Kloubek


I agree with this. You never know - they may show leniency. But the fact is, if they sent out a notice it should have been adhered to. Some boards don't dick around when it comes to infractions. I'm trying my best to de-ANALize mine.

His wife was pretty stressed over it, she doesn't even want to put any Christmas lights this year, shitty for the kids.

[tryst_one]

we paid the bill last week and today i received an email saying that they discussed the situation with the board and they are not going to waive off any fees, there goes $900

im still going to find out what my other options are as $900 is a lot of money for a single income family and that is really hard to swallow specially this time of the year.

Kloubek, thanks for the advice and if you have any other suggestions please pm me.

and thanks to all that responded as well.

[tryst_one]

Originally posted by Xtrema


I'm not sure why they're being such asses about it.

i don't know if this has anything to do with it, but we just found out yesterday that this property management is leaving and that the condo board is in the middle of looking for new management. the only reason we found out is that no one has come out to shovel our walks and driveway. they're probably trying to squeeze out as much money as they can from the condo owners before they bail.