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If you are involved in the administration of a condominium, a director, officer,
property manager, attorney, or committee member, chances are very good that
you have encountered unhappy co-owners on more than one occasion. Your success
and reputation will often depend on how well you handle these individuals.
These situations can become very stressful and while most do not result in
legal proceedings, some do, usually to the detriment of all concerned. Our
legal system is not well designed to deal with such situations and, therefore,
it is very important to develop a successful strategy for dealing with unhappy
co-owners. Because many of the problems are avoidable, it is wise to develop
a strategy before they arise and spiral out of control.
Obviously, co-owners become dissatisfied for many reasons, both
legitimate and otherwise. These owners will express their concerns
in a variety of ways, including making complaints at annual meetings
and/or board meetings, sending complaint letters, threatening lawsuits,
and circulating recall petitions, to name just a few approaches.
Less obvious are the instances where the emotions are vented by
the withholding or late payment of assessments and by rules violations.
It is helpful to consider why these situations arise in devising
your strategies to deal with them. First of all, it is always important
to remember that many co-owners are having their first condominium
experience and they are discovering that condominium living may
not be for everybody. Many freedoms enjoyed during a lifetime of
traditional single family home ownership are curtailed in a condominium
setting. Those coming from an apartment rental situation find that
they are no longer as anonymous and some have difficulty accepting
the fact that the association is not a surrogate landlord who will
be responsible for every problem that arises. On top of this, there
exists the myth of condominiums as a carefree lifestyle, as advertised
by so many developers. As we are all aware, condominiums do not
run themselves and if all co-owners expect a carefree existence,
there is bound to be trouble.
The specific battlefields usually involve repairs, snow removal,
lawn care, rules enforcement and/or the finances of the association.
The vast majority of these situations are avoidable if there is
good communication between the board of directors and the membership.
The members need to be constantly reminded that the directors themselves
are co-owners who share the same interests and concerns. Further,
everyone needs to bear in mind that decisions made by the board
may not be readily understood by the co-owners, since the co-owners
did not invest the time the directors did in formal and informal
directors' meetings, study sessions, and discussions with property
managers, accountants and/or attorneys.
This information gap can be dealt with in several ways. First
of all, intelligible and complete minutes of all meetings should
be available to the membership. Secondly, it is wise to have a
monthly newsletter that contains enough information to enable co-owners
to educate themselves, if they take the opportunity to do so. If
the association is very small, a quarterly newsletter can suffice.
Making part or all of the directors' meetings open for attendance
and/or a limited question and answer session with the co-owners
is very useful. Truly confidential discussions can be reserved
for executive sessions. Limiting co-owner comments to a particular
portion of the meeting will also prevent unnecessarily long meetings.
You can head off many questions by taking the time to prepare
well organized and reasonably detailed management and officers'
reports for presentation at membership meetings. If there is a
special problem confronting your association, such as a developer
dispute, special assessment, or document amendment proposal, consider
calling a special informational meeting. Although the Condominium
Act of most states only re-quires the single annual financial statement
(the contents of which are up to the board of directors to determine),
consider more frequent statements and evaluate their content from
the point of view of the co-owner who has not participated in the
budgetary process directly.
A less obvious communication solution involves co-owner dissatisfaction
with maintenance or repairs. Have an organized work order system
using written requests and an established follow up procedure.
Include the co-owner requesting the service in the determination
of whether the work order has been satisfactorily completed. You
might consider publishing the number of work orders received and
processed within a given time frame to show the co-owners the magnitude
of the task and your methods of organizing it.
Rules enforcement issues, if the subject of a book could fill
a library. Suffice to say, it is critical that the rules be under-stood
by the co-owners, which means that the board of directors or manager
should make copies readily available - - including the master deed
and the bylaws. Any problem areas can be highlighted in newsletters
to minimize the citing of violations. Every association should
develop a welcome package for new residents for the same purpose.
If a violation is reported, urge the complaining party to discuss
the matter with the alleged violator before the association becomes
involved. Bear in mind that the property manager and directors
are not police officers and that violations of the law should be
reported to the proper authorities. Condominium restriction violators
should receive a polite initial notice identifying the problem
and requesting compliance. These first contacts should not come
from the association's attorney and all concerned need to keep
an open mind so as not to prejudge the situation. If you have a
fine procedure, re-member that the threat of a fine is usually
far more effective than getting embroiled in levying and trying
to collect such fines. After all, the object is bylaw compliance,
not revenue collection.
Lastly, be aware that co-owners have made a large real estate
investment in their community and are entitled to voice their opinions,
critical or otherwise. Organizing a forum for the expression of
these opinions can help you carry out your duties and minimize
emotions. A proper response to most com-plaints would be to thank
the party for expressing themselves, explain the association's
relevant policy and, if appropriate, indicate how the board intends
to follow up on the complaint. Not all complaints require follow
up and some people can never be made happy. In those instances,
simply thank the person for expressing their view and go on to
another matter. Having a good plan and following it will help you
minimize unhappy co-owner confrontations and help avoid destructive
and expensive court battles down the road.
Association Times' Staff Writer
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