Blog

Does your association and the board have a duty to investigate and bring appropriate claims for defects?

By Ritchie Lipson, Esq. Senior Counsel Kasdan LippSmith Weber Turner LLP

 

ZIMMYTWS/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

THE MARYLAND COURT of Special Appeals recently issued an opinion in Greenstein v. Council of Unit Owners of Avalon Court Six Condominium, Inc. finding that an association can be sued by its unit owner members if it fails to take timely legal action against a developer for defects.

In the case of first impression concerning duties of board members when confronted with construction issues within the common elements of a condominium, the court held that the board has a duty to initiate litigation against the developer for construction defects, and its failure to do so within the statute of limitations can result in liability to the individual owners.

The Maryland court held: "The duty to maintain, repair and replace the common elements creates a concomitant obligation on t...

By Michael T. Kennedy, Jr., Berding & Weil, LLP and Lisa Esposito, ACT Construction

INEVITABLY, EVERY MANAGER and every condominium community will face some large scale repair/reconstruction project of common areas. Whether the association is repairing construction defects or reconstructing deteriorated building components in an aging community, the board, with the manger’s guidance, can make decisions and select partners that can either make the process much easier or much harder. Each project has its own unique challenges, but many of the best practices and pitfalls are similar, whether the manager and board are facing repairs after resolving a construction defect claim on a newer building; long planned repairs which have been planned for (saved for) in reserves; or newly discovered dry rot or other issues caused by deferred maintenance, lack of previous inspections or simply previous boards that procrastinated necessary repairs.

WHEN IS IT TIME TO TAKE ON THIS PROJECT?

Repair p...

By Leanne Anderson-DeMattei, CCAM, CMCA, AMS, PCAM

THE WEATHER CLEARED up enough to fly for a few hours and all pilots desperate for air time fired up their engines and tried to get off the planet. I was practicing short field and soft field landings, no flap landings, slip landings, short approach landings and power off landings at Livermore Airport. The airways were crazy busy that day. (Livermore is the training airport for Oakland and San Francisco air traffic controllers, and there was a new controller on the radio that day for the longer runway.) I was on short approach for my third landing when he gave the go-ahead for a Cessna on the ground for an immediate departure on the same runway. I keyed the radio to advise the air traffic controller that I was on short approach and I confirmed that I was still cleared to land. The air traffic controller calmly asked the Cessna to hold short and then he confirmed my landing status, "cleared to land number one." A little later, the sam...