Excerpt:
November 23, 2009 - By David Schultz
Photo courtesy of David Schultz
There's no heating in Monique Townes' Southeast D.C. condo building. For 10 days, it didn't have hot water. And the trash collection stopped months ago.
"So the trash is open and all you see is just bags of trash sitting there," Townes says. "On a warm day, there's an aroma of trash."
The property manager here is Charles Jenkins, a Virginia-based developer who recently declared bankruptcy. He converted this building into condos three years ago but could sell only half the units.
Ward Seven Councilwoman Yvette Alexander calls Jenkins a slumlord and wants the city to take legal action.
But Jenkins says he can't afford to make repairs. His residents stopped paying their condo dues.
"I've been short on money or whatever out there," Jenkins says. "But it wouldn't have been [that way] if they had paid their condo dues."
The condo owners say they stopped paying dues only after Jenkins stopped responding to their complaints.
Go HERE to continue reading or to view a recording of the radio program.
8 Comments:
Is this Urban Architect's building? I was wondering when I heard the story this morning.
Classic chicken and egg. He'll get into BIG trouble with the lack of heating soon enough, though...
Nope not Urban's spot. :)
He actually will not get in trouble with the lack of heating. These are conds that are owned by people, not homes that are rented--the laws are different. Only apartment buildings can actually get penalized for no heat. Technically, the gas company can't turn off the heat after the temperature drops below a certain temp in the district, but if the heat was never turned on due to lack of maintenance on the mechanical system, then the homeowners are out of luck. Take it from one condo homeowner who is without heat at this very moment, due to a boiler issue that the association cannot afford to fix. I've got absolutely no legal recourse, even though I've got a $1500 credit to my condo fee account, pay my mortgage on time, and have never missed a payment to any of the utility companies. Like I said in my post on my blog, condo homeowners drew the short end of the stick....
If you guys take the folks to court who arent paying their condo fees cant you get a judgement and then garnnish their wages - assuming they are working? At this point I would put the hammer on folks super hard. I cant be cold.
Seriously though. I know this wouldnt make you popular but has the association thought of just shaming folks into paying their fees? I would so print out a list of who was delinquint and by how much and would put it on every door in the condo with a note that this is why there was no heat, trash pickup or whatever. I would even put their faces on it so the paying neighbors would know who to be mad at and I would do it every week until they made some payments or payment arrangments. I would even hire an outside collection agency.
The Association is suing those who don't pay. But court takes time. I looked into my filing a personal suit against delinquents, for the pain and suffering they have cost me personally, but a civil suit costs money, lots of money. Just by me hiring an attorney to compel our old mgmt company to let me see our financial records (a given right via DC law), I spent $4000--and we never made it to court. Can you imagine what a lawsuit would cost me as a homeowner? I'm not rolling in dough like that.
As far as publicly shaming delinquent homeowners. You can tell other homeowners who the delinquent ones are and by how much, but privacy laws come into play, and posting a listing on the bulletin board or in the hallway is a violation of rights, because renters, the postman, complete strangers could see that, and thats not legal--its called defamation of character, and a few other things. Believe me, we've consulted our attorney, and tried to be as creative as possible.
Regardless, everyone knows who the big time delinquent homeowners are. It doesn't matter though because delinquent homeowners come to the meetings and scream just as loud and admit they don't pay (some I think are proud of it...)...
Garnishing wages and freezing bank accounts, we've done it all. But the trick is to find their bank accounts with money in them (in order to freeze them)...and garnishing only works if they have a job...and in this economy...well thats not as easy as it sounds. Mortgage companies play a huge role, and they are becoming twice as bad as the actual homeowners....
Thank you all for your comments but this reporting didn't tell you half our story and I don't think there is even enough time for me to tell you now. But we were paying condo fees and were not being rendered service. Then we stopped due to lack of communication between us and the owner. We are not an association the owner still out weights us in owenership. So, he is still responsible. Also the lack of heat came from his lack of construction (cutting corners) that apparently could not have been inspected by anyone in DC. Washington Gas took our master gas meter because it was literally a bomb or it looked as if you guys put the gas lines in. (Not to mention we all bought thinking that there were individual gas meters and then got the surprise after we all purchased) There is so much more to our story beyond this 90 second segment. But somethings are changing in or favor. About 80% of the community is litgation with this man as well as DC is starting to step in due to several ugly emails and letters that we sent. DC dropped the ball in some of this too.
Merry Christmas
Monique Townes
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