what with residents who do not respect the rules

[HIRAM]

Hi All.

We are in our condominium development working on a revision of the rules.
Can you tell me how do we deal with residents who do'nt respect the rules ?

Is there a procedure for dealing with owners and other residents who don't abide by the condominium rules ?

Thank you so much for your input.
.:

[Ken]

Hiram,

We have just gone through a major revision of our rules. The goal was to make good rules even better.

There are things that you can do. You can collect a financial penalty, you can take them to court and charge all legal costs to them, if they refuse to pay maintenance fees you can cut off services to the apartment, etc. PROVIDING this is all spelled out in your rules in advance.

Remember that for a resolution of the assembly to be a rule that it must be approved by 75% of the total number of votes available in the condominium. In other words, if you have 20 voting units in the condominium, the proposals must be approved by at least 15 in order to have a rule.

[LatinoRican]

As Ken says, every condominium must set their own rules approved by the assembly of owners. Penalties for different faults must be published and distributed among the residents before their implementation including cutting off utilities (electricity and water) services. Where I live, some residents parked wherever they felt like it, so the police were called in and the cars ticketed. Illegal parking soon stopped being a problem. Some people would hang their laundry out to dry on their balconies. They were penalized financially. People soon stopped this activity. Some residents had pet dogs that urinated and defecated on balconies on the upper floors. These excrements fell to apartments on the floors below and monetary penalties also had to be undertaken to eliminate this problem. If the owner refuses to pay, a lien is applied to his/her apartment and in any future transaction that the owner wishes to do with that property, the lien must be paid in full.

[HIRAM]

Thank you so much.
Can you give me a hint about penalties ?
We are here working also on a revision of our condominium rules.
Your experience is very helpfull for us.

[Ken]

Hiram,

Re financial penalties, put in what you think makes sense. US$50 a day for every day there is a violation has a nice ring to it. Or make it more if you think the offense merits it.

Also, put into the rules that if it is necessary to take an owner to court for violating the rules, that all the condominium's legal expenses will be charged to him. Important to get this in the rules if you can.

If you are talking about non payment of maintenance fees and assessments, besides a procedure spelling out when fees must be paid for and steps you will take leading up to putting a lien on the property, also include that services will be terminated. The threat of going to court doesn't bother some, but if the lights are turned off and the water is turned off in the apartment, it gets their attention in a hurry. But do not do this if it is not in the rules.

[newuser]

Originally Posted by Ken

....... if the lights are turned off and the water is turned off in the apartment, it gets their attention in a hurry. But do not do this if it is not in the rules.

Ken, can you please tell us why it is necessary to have it in the rules to shut off a units water if they do not pay their mantenance fee and the mantenance fee is used to pay the water bill?

Thanks

[LatinoRican]

I can not answer for Ken, but cutting off either an apartment's water or electricity for non-payment of maintenance fees sends a powerful message both to the apartment's owner and other owners. It says that the Administration is not going to comprise the well-being of its residents for a few deadbeats that feel that they are 'above' the rest and do not have to pay maintenance or can pay when they feel like it. Remember that the maintenance fee is used to pay employees, waste disposal, landscaping, electricity and water for common areas, security, repairs, and the list goes on. As I live in Puerto Rico, the Ley de Condominos provides that the Administration can suspend electricity, water or both to an owner who is two months behind in his maintenance fee. There must be some similar law in DR.

[Ken]

A few years ago, there was an owner in the condo where I live that didn't pay his fees, ever. The Administrator cut off services to the apartment and the deadbeat had the administrator put in jail. According to Fabio, the lawyer who advised us on the preparation of revised rules that includes the provision about cutting off services, the only way this can be done legally in the DR is by having it in the rules.

I believe it because he was the lawyer who, at that time, was representing the deadbeat and who put the then administrator in jail for cutting off the services to the apartment without having anything in the rules that permitted him to do it.

If where you live has a law that allows this, great. But this is not the case in the DR.

I agree with LatinoRican that it send a powerful message. I think it is the best thing you can do to force deadbeats to pay. At the time we had the problem with our deadbeat, the only thing we could do was take him to court. That cost money and the owners had to pay. Far better, in my opinion, is cutting off services. But just be sure you have this in the rules if you live in the DR.

[Sharlene]

I live in a small 'gated' community and we're currently reviewing our rules etc. There is a woman who is trying to 'take over' the administration at the moment and she's asked for copies of all owners' cedulas or passports for a meeting to be held on Thursday. However, the current administrator, who is going to fight 'tooth and nail' to keep her job has said to me that there's no reason why she should request this information. I'm not happy about giving out personal information to anybody and am not willing to do so.

I just wondered if this is normal procedure? When condo rules are being reviewed etc, do the owners normally have to give cedula or passport details?

Also, we're provided with 'transparent' accounting and it appears that there are some residents that just do not pay their maintenance or electric for months on end and owe huge amounts of money. I gather that in order for them to have their services cut off it has to be written into the rules. Would this be as simple as 'cutting off' somebody who lives in an apartment or do different rules apply?

[Ken]

Sharlene, the rules we have been talking about are condominium rules. I don't know about the organization of your gated community and the status of your association. But regarding personal identification, I would think it would be standard practice to have this on file in the administration office. This has nothing to do with revising the rules, but a matter of their being a file on each owner that includes personal information and information about the property he/she owns. We have such files in the office of the condominium where I live. For one thing, this information verifies who the owners are and who are entitled to vote in our annual meetings.

If the woman who is asking for this information is a private citizen, so to speak, and has no official standing, I see no reason why you would give her your personal information any more than you would give it to me if I walked up and requested it.

With respect to cutting off services, I believe in the DR that this can't be done anyplace without some solid basis for doing so. Hopefully Fabio will see your question and respond to it. If he doesn't, because it is mixed in with other things, I suggest you start another thread with that question about cutting off services to people who don't pay in your gated community.