HOA politics may have been part of it, but it was probably simpler. It was going to cost a lot of money, and people tend to fight large assessments.
The bigger HOA failure sounds like 40 years of poor maintenance. There are reports of a similar building nearby that was maintained, and it shows none of the same problems.
If a condo block will need work costing $100,000 per unit after 40 years, what's the proper way of financing that?
Does the HOA start saving up for it from year 1 by charging a hefty management fee? Do they rely on every homeowner being able to come up with $100,000 on demand? Do they just assume they won't be around in 40 years so it's someone else's problem?
I've never really heard a satisfactory answer to that, which is one of the reasons I don't own a condo.
It doesn’t have to be a heft fee if planned for. Docks are a known quantity where I live so planning is normal. 40 years ago did the HOA know they need to save for maintenance and repairs? What about 20 years? There is another building nearby that is exactly the same as the building that collapsed, but their HOA kept up with proper maintenance. That other building seems like it’s in great shape for a 40 year old building.
It will be interesting to see what happened here. Was the HOA so negligent over such a long period of time that it was just too hard to catch up (100k assessment is hard for most people)?
But at the same time for a single family home, it is not unusual to invest 100k in a remodel if the location supports it on a 40 year old house. A condo should operate similarly although the scope of changes you can make is different obviously.
Jokes aside, this is a horrible tragedy. It would be interesting to know if they had earlier warnings as well and if that didn't contribute to ignoring the problem as there were no major consequences.
It would be interesting to know when in 2018 that the report was finalized as that would be around the same time as the FIU bridge collapse.
Seeing things like this makes me very wary to have joint ownership as the majority can hold the minority hostage on things like repair.
And what could you do in this situation? Sell your unit? If it collapses in 6 months to a year and kills the person you sold it to, what is the morality of that decision?
The engineer in 2008 warned that the damage would increase "exponentially." The engineer from the 2018 report was put in charge of overseeing the repairs in 2019; and it seems like the repairs were planned, moving slowly. How much of this 3 year delay is because of HOA politics?
There was some indication that the damage was potentially worse than it appeared:
>Also, when performing any concrete restoration work, it is impossible to know the extent of the damage to the underlying rebar until the concrete is opened up. Oftentimes the damage is more extensive than can be determined by inspection of the surface.
Does this letter demonstrate negligence by the engineering firm? If the damage was that bad should the firm have contacted the city? Did the residents contribute to the delay?
A haunting quote:
> A lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by. But this is where we are now.
The letter from April:
https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/miamiletter0628...