Property Inspection

Started by LindaL • 5 replies • 2555 views

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LindaL (Colorado)
Posts: 58

Posted:

Our association relies solely on the Management Company for everything, including inspection of property. Recently, due to deferred maintenance we encountered alot of dry rot on our wood trim. Is the Management Company legally liable, or the Board of Directors... since they give authorization to the Management Company.

I'm requesting an inspection of the drainage problems. I'm quite certain the manager will do a cursory inspection and say there's nothing wrong. If I then get another inspection and find out that there is a problem, who would be liable?

I know I ask alot of question, but I appreciate the feedback.

Linda

EdR (Texas)
Posts: 170

Posted:

LindaL:
Are your's condos or individual homes?
EdR

LindaL (Colorado)
Posts: 58

Posted:

Condos

KathyS (California)
Posts: 145

Posted:

The association will be liable. The management company acts on the instructions of the Board. If the Board delayed any inspections, you can blame them but they probably won't be held responsible either. If there is a huge expense involved to replace the trim and you don't have enough money in the reserve accounts, you will probably be looking at a special assessment.

Regardless, the work needs to be done now.

LindaL (Colorado)
Posts: 58

Posted:

That exactly what I thought and is why the Management Companies don't give a crap, knowing they aren't held accountable or liable. However, since this work has been deferred for five consecutive years in spite of my requests, how can the Board NOT be held liable? AND how can they deny a professional inspection? If they deny this, wouldn't that put them in legal jeopardy?
Linda

MarnaR (California)
Posts: 27

Posted:

LindaL,

The answer to that would most likely be found in the exclusions of your D&O policy. I'd give you an example of what ours covers and excludes, but my property management company conveniently left that information out of our new board member packets - along with neglecting to provide us with a copy of their contract.

She had the nerve then to complain that we're requesting "a huge amount of information" from poor overworked her. I'm sorry, what are we paying the MC for, again?

Sheesh. Okay, frustrated tantrum over.

Anyway, if you can establish that the board has been willfully ignoring you, perhaps based on a personality conflict (I saw that happen here for years), I would bet that the D&O policy would exclude that sort of behavior. I'm fairly certain that the BOD is held only to "reasonable man" standards with regard to their liability. So, if you can establish that a similarly situated reasonable board would have acted differently, they would be held PERSONALLY liable. As it is, the association might take a hit if homeowners decided to sue, but unless the D&O policy's terms exclude such behavior by the board, they won't be liable. I hope that makes sense.

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