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By Andrea O’Toole, Rachel Miller, Tim Stauffer and Mary Prados Peterson

By now, most have seen the awful images of the collapsed Champlain Towers which resulted in nearly 100 deaths, countless injuries, property damage and unanswered questions about how this could have happened. While not every case of deferred maintenance has such catastrophic results, the Bay Area is not without its own examples. Six people died following a 2015 balcony collapse in Berkeley. That tragedy resulted in legislation affecting apartment buildings and, subsequently, condominium buildings. The protection of human life and avoidance of injury should be primary goals in determining why, when, and how community associations undertake maintenance, repair, and replacement. At the same time, protection of the property, and the association members’ significant investment in it, is also a key objective.

The authors of this article – a structural engineer, a community...