Condo woes
Where do I start?
Okay, 6 units. We've got one guy who hasn't paid his condo fees since May 2009. The developer, who owns the last unsold unit hasn't paid his February fees, plus some unpaid fees from last year.
Add to that the fact that he, as the sole Trustee (and therefore the one in charge of collecting fees and paying bills), didn't pay the water bill since 2007, payed most of the other bills consistently late (thereby adding on late charges), and didn't make sure everyone payed their condo fees, we have a bit of a problem.
On top of that, even though the condo docs clearly state there shall be no less than 4 Trustees, we still only have the one. He kept putting off our requests to be part of the Board. Of course, it's up to the Trustees to elect Treasurer, President etc so you can see where this is going. Our annual meeting is tomorrow and he's in Florida. He still hasn't told us when he'll meet with us, although it clearly states in the docs the Trustees need to inform all Unit Owners in writing at least 7 days before the meeting to change the date. Which he hasn't done.
So, we're meeting anyways and plotting our coup. The docs state a majority of Unit Owners (which I believe 4 of 6 constitutes) can remove a Trustee. I'm pretty sure we'll be signing that proposal.
I went to the Courthouse today and picked up a small claims form so we can sue our upstairs neighbor for the condo fees. Of course, the Trustees are the one(s) who actually have to file, so we have to wait until we can get at least 3 other people on the Board. Suing him should be pretty easy, as he absolutely has not paid his fees and we can prove it. Getting money from him is a whole other thing... he's unemployed right now. Honestly, I'd prefer it if the bank took his place and kicked his sorry ass out. He's not paying anyways, at least then he wouldn't be mooching our heat (when we have it).
We may have to take the developer to small claims too. As far as we can tell, there's about 12 condo fees we can't find. He says, he sometimes paid bills "out of pocket", which I now assume means he paid them with his condo fees. Too bad he never told us that. We'll be asking him to prove it, and/or prove he paid his fees. It's ugly.
We need to get this joker (the developer) to meet with all of us so we can lynch, I mean, discuss a solution. The fees need to go up (he'll say no), the missing fees need to be paid (good luck getting money out of either of them), he'll need to give us proof of his paying his fees and the bills (again, good luck getting it out of him without a court order), we need to elect at least 3 other people as Trustees (that we might be able to force him to do without too much trouble), we'll need to do an assessment (again, I know he'll balk at that), and we'll probably all have to pre-pay a few months worth of condo fees to try and pay down some of this debt (again, I'm sure he'll balk).
We know he's trying to stall until he sells the unit, then screw leaving us with a big pile of flaming poo on our steps. It totally sucks.
And to top it off, we ran out of oil today. 200 gallons is about $500. We have about $400 in the account, the insurance for the building is due this month... you see how this goes.
Yeah, my life is awesome. Not.
Okay, 6 units. We've got one guy who hasn't paid his condo fees since May 2009. The developer, who owns the last unsold unit hasn't paid his February fees, plus some unpaid fees from last year.
Add to that the fact that he, as the sole Trustee (and therefore the one in charge of collecting fees and paying bills), didn't pay the water bill since 2007, payed most of the other bills consistently late (thereby adding on late charges), and didn't make sure everyone payed their condo fees, we have a bit of a problem.
On top of that, even though the condo docs clearly state there shall be no less than 4 Trustees, we still only have the one. He kept putting off our requests to be part of the Board. Of course, it's up to the Trustees to elect Treasurer, President etc so you can see where this is going. Our annual meeting is tomorrow and he's in Florida. He still hasn't told us when he'll meet with us, although it clearly states in the docs the Trustees need to inform all Unit Owners in writing at least 7 days before the meeting to change the date. Which he hasn't done.
So, we're meeting anyways and plotting our coup. The docs state a majority of Unit Owners (which I believe 4 of 6 constitutes) can remove a Trustee. I'm pretty sure we'll be signing that proposal.
I went to the Courthouse today and picked up a small claims form so we can sue our upstairs neighbor for the condo fees. Of course, the Trustees are the one(s) who actually have to file, so we have to wait until we can get at least 3 other people on the Board. Suing him should be pretty easy, as he absolutely has not paid his fees and we can prove it. Getting money from him is a whole other thing... he's unemployed right now. Honestly, I'd prefer it if the bank took his place and kicked his sorry ass out. He's not paying anyways, at least then he wouldn't be mooching our heat (when we have it).
We may have to take the developer to small claims too. As far as we can tell, there's about 12 condo fees we can't find. He says, he sometimes paid bills "out of pocket", which I now assume means he paid them with his condo fees. Too bad he never told us that. We'll be asking him to prove it, and/or prove he paid his fees. It's ugly.
We need to get this joker (the developer) to meet with all of us so we can lynch, I mean, discuss a solution. The fees need to go up (he'll say no), the missing fees need to be paid (good luck getting money out of either of them), he'll need to give us proof of his paying his fees and the bills (again, good luck getting it out of him without a court order), we need to elect at least 3 other people as Trustees (that we might be able to force him to do without too much trouble), we'll need to do an assessment (again, I know he'll balk at that), and we'll probably all have to pre-pay a few months worth of condo fees to try and pay down some of this debt (again, I'm sure he'll balk).
We know he's trying to stall until he sells the unit, then screw leaving us with a big pile of flaming poo on our steps. It totally sucks.
And to top it off, we ran out of oil today. 200 gallons is about $500. We have about $400 in the account, the insurance for the building is due this month... you see how this goes.
Yeah, my life is awesome. Not.