Yeah, but that’s not the point.
Right, just clarifying because I was confused and had to read it a few times.
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According to WaPo, the residents had approved a major assessment (100K–300K per unit) and were setting up the collection process per a resident’s choice between lump sum or monthly payments.
Given the amounts involved, COVID, and the allegedly unclear communication given early on to the residents, I’m not surprised it took them a couple of years to finally start collecting money.
No one wants to believe that their building will actually go from “needs major structural repairs” to “imminent danger of collapse.”
It went straight to Murder Tower.
Humans often have to learn things the hard way and it regularly takes several if not dozens, if not thousands of cases to lead to modified behavior.
I don’t foresee any significant changes coming from this except perhaps a flurry of lawsuits related to other properties where nothing is actually fixed or changed.
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the way they did it by charging residents a one time fee is also really stupid. someone who lived there for 30 years and sold in 2019 paid $0 in repairs while the person who bought in 2019 is now on the hook for $100k in repairs. just take out 15-20% of every monthly HOA fee and put it into a fund solely dedicated for building repairs. I’m sure that’s the way its actually supposed to work but the fund got mismanaged to hell and ended up in someone’s pockets instead.
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just checked and HOA fees on Miami condos range anywhere from $600-$1000 a month per unit. I guess that’s not high enough to be able to do basic maintenance on a building.
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Here’s an interesting post from r/catastrophicfailure from a structural engineer who also faults the original report and the way the info was presented: https://old.reddit.com/r/CatastrophicFailure/comments/oafkv5/my_treatise_on_the_champlain_towers_report_from/
Cliff’s notes:
I blame the report itself as a contributing factor in this massive loss of life.
Note that I don’t technically fault the engineering that was performed. I am no building or concrete expert by any stretch of the imagination, but they seem to hit on the major problems identified above.
The problem is how the report is organized and how the critical information is presented, a disconnect between the engineers and the intended audience, and a failure to point out possible consequences and risk.
Yes, they absolutely should have been keeping a substantial major repair fund. But too often these get pillaged for vanity projects or other less important “fixes”.
I would be surprised if the percentage of condo HOAs with proper emergency funds was even in the double digits.
I think the lack of emergency repair funds has to do with keeping the monthly condo fee down more than spending it on vanity projects. With no regulation setting out minimum reserve funds, of course a bunch of people are going to do the minimum and hope for the best. Especially if a) you might sell the unit before any of the reserve fund is used anyway and/or b) if you don’t live there and rent your condo, your motivation to invest in the building is severely curtailed.
What this building needed wasn’t basic maintenance. These sorts of completely unexpected and unpredicted repairs tend to be funded by special assessments made on thop of HOA fees.
Except they aren’t unexpected or unpredictable. On their own, buildings fall down, eventually. See the first few episodes of Life After People.
Major design flaws are generally unexpected and unpredicted.
Where’s Donald Rumsfeld when you need him?
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That should factor into the purchase price though.
Hahaha meanwhile real estate agents are advising clients to bid MORE than ask.
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Yeah it definitely is not though. There are about 9 circles of irrational real estate pricing hell and condo reserve funds don’t even make the list.
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Sure condo boards generally like to skimp on maintenance. But I think part of the problem was they didn’t understand there was a real risk of the building falling down. It’s not clear to me if that should have been evident from the 2018 report and wasn’t properly conveyed, or couldn’t have been known without further inspection and testing.
I may or may not know of a condo in my town where all of the money got stolen by the person managing it and the condo owners collectively voted/agreed not to go after them publicly in any way because they were afraid bad publicity would lower unit prices.
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Cheaper than new rebar
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Say you live in a high-rise within a block or two of these towers - there’s no way you’re comfortable living there now, right?
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