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 Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2003 6:06 pm Post subject: U.S. housing failures: Have you been HADD? |
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Rampant housing failures throughout the U.S.:
Have you been HADD?
| Quote: | That's the slogan at Homewners Against Defective Dwellings (HADD), a U.S. homeowners national advocacy association. The mailing address is in Arizona and there are contact names in both Texas and Missouri, so this website is truly nationwide. There is lots to read here about construction defects and bad builders, but we are especially fond of the links suggestively named Worthless Warranties and Predatory Lending.
We weren't able to find references to leaky buildings other than a few outdated COLCO news releases, but we note here the new discussion group at Yahoo which HADD launched recently in response to a flood of complaints about toxic mold. Click here to join. Sign HADD's petition to Congress for residential consumer protection legislation here. |
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| Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2003 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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California's Homebuilder Right-to-Repair Law
| Quote: | For a fairly recent article on California's 2002 statute, The Homebuilder Right-to-Repair Law, click here. The article says the new law was enacted in an effort to prevent a tide of litigation over defective new housing and encourage new construction there. The state's building industry (who's that, exactly?) told the reporter that insurance adds about $20,00 to the selling price.
There are also clickable articles on Texas and Washington law suggesting construction fiascos there, too.
We dislike the appalling lack of proper attribution and authoritative tracking that so colors Realty Times material with realtor bias, but we are getting the message from these stories from Findlaw that faulty housing is certainly not just a B.C. problem. |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Jan 06, 2005 1:40 pm Post subject: |
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Statutory changes in California residential design standards shift burden from consumers to design professionals
We found this excellent article recently, Abolition of Standard of Care in Residential Design? by Joel Halverson, an attorney with the California firm, Severson & Werson, published in the J. Profl. Issues in Engrg. Educ. and Pract., Volume 30, Issue 1, pp. 60-69 (January 2004). Here is the precis available at the firm's website:
| Quote: | | California Civil Code §§895 through 945.5, also known as SB 800, has dramatically changed the legal landscape for residential construction projects in California. The law sets forth new, legislatively defined, actionable defects; a detailed prelitigation repair process; and available damages and defenses. This paper examines the impacts of the law on design professionals and concludes that the law appears to have supplanted the standard of care for design professionals in connection with residential construction—meaning that their services may now be measured against codified standards instead of against the performance of their peers. Alternatively, rather than supplanting the standard of care, the law may have the practical effect of shifting the burden of proof from homeowner claimants to the allegedly negligent design professionals, thereby requiring the defendant design professional to show that their services comply with the standard of care in order to escape liability. In either event, the playing field has changed dramatically for design professionals. This paper suggests ways in which design professionals might tailor their practices to best position themselves for claims which are sure to arise out of SB 800. |
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editor
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| Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 4:06 pm Post subject: |
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Multi-unit housing failures so commonplace:
Rehab construction now a lucrative new area of law
We were disappointed but not surprised to find this riff under Housing Law and Finance at the Foster Pepper law firm in the Pacific Northwestern U.S. recently:
| Quote: | Multi-Family Housing—Governmental Purpose Bonds
FP has extensive experience providing housing authorities legal guidance as they finance the acquisition, rehabilitation, and/or construction of their multi-family housing projects. (emphasis added) We are familiar with the advantages of seller financing and turnkey projects, and with various federal programs and agencies, including the Section 108 loan program, the HOPE VI program, the VA surplus property program, and other HUD and FMHA programs. |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:08 pm Post subject: |
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Designing the Exterior Wall
An Architectural Guide to the Vertical Envelope
Hardcover
By UBC Associate Professor of Architecture,
Linda Brock
| Quote: | During a similar time frame, Seattle experienced its own "leaky condo" crisis, with one headline reading, Condo dwellers lament: when it rains, it pours in. Many attributed the failures to a building boom that created a shortage of skilled workers. Others blamed synthetic stucco or EIFS. Face-sealed barrier wall EIFS can be a problem if water gets into the wall, as it then has no path to get out. But EIFS was not the only cladding that was failing. In an information survey of 74 multifamily buildings, conducted by the City of Seattle in 1998, 96 percent of the respondents reported that their building leaked. Again, as in Vancouver, the only clear message was that water was getting into the walls.
The survey conducted by Seattle's Construction Codes Advisory Board noted that 100 percent of the 53 structures constructed after 1984 reported leaks. The buildings were predominantly condominiums but also included apartments and townhouses. Over 70 percent of the structures were of wood framing, and 19 percent had concrete or steel frames. EIFS was the most widely used cladding (26 percent) with wood siding (23 percent) and stucco (20 percent) following close behind. The source of the problems correlated with the findings of deficiencies noted in the 1996 Survey of Building Envelope Failures in the Coastal Climate of British Columbia. (footnotes omitted)
...While the problems in Seattle were not seen to be as pervasive as those in Vancouver, they nonetheless demanded attention.
...In 1999 CMHC conducted a study comparing the Seattle and Vancouver failures.
...The condos that did not leak were contrasted with the problem buildings. The nonleaking buildings had:
. Less wind exposure.
. "Significantly larger" roof overhangs with fewer parapet walls.
. Flashing on a greater number of openings and penetrations.
. Fewer "architectural features and details," with a greater percentage of the details flashed. The Seattle control building was noted as having "clean and simple" architectural forms, with decorative elements detailed to shed water, while the problem building had, for example, improper detailing of stucco at horizontal trim such that a bathtub was created at the bottom of the stucco panel.
It is apparent that the designer may have influenced the success of the control buildings and contributed to the problem buildings' failures...While the wind speed or direction cannot be changed, the approach to the design of the cladding on those elevations with higher exposure can be modified. The study noted that some details -- such as saddle connections at the intersectiuon of balcony and walkway and of low walls with the exterior wall and penetrations and openings in the exterior wall -- were problematic for all buildings in the survey. Furthermore, these details were not included in the building plans; typically, there was no indication as to how they were to be "made, flashed, and terminated." This was left to the contractor to determine in the field. (footnotes omitted) (emphasis added) (From 11.3 Seattle: "When it rains, it pours in" in Chapter 11, Wood-Frame Construction: Designing for the Climate and the Future, at p. 315-316) |
How energy-saving provisions contributed to Seattle's LEAKY CONDO CRISIS:
| Quote: | The energy crisis of the 1970s produced building and energy codes that changed how the exterior wall worked - vapor retarders were required, air infiltration was limited, insulation minimums were increased, and interior spaces were ventilated. The first requirement for a vapor barrier in Seattle appeared in the 1974 amendment to the Seattle Building Code, and by 1977 the Seattle Building Code included provisions for limiting air infiltration. Wall components also changed as new products, such as building wraps and rigid board insulation, became available.
To try and determine the scope and problems in Seattle and how they might be solved, the Seattle Department of Design, Construction, and Land Use (DCLU) partnered with Washington State University Cooperative Extension Energy Program and the Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL). One outcome was a study conducted by the ORNL's Building Technology Center (BTC) to determine the effect of these code changes and new wall components.
...This study started a debate in Seattle as to whether walls should be breathable, or vapor-open, that is, all the components should be highly permeable, with the idea that drying can occur to both the interior and exterior of the wall. This excludes using components such as polyethylene and peel-and-stick and encourages the use of more permeable gypsum sheathing over plywood or OSB. It also means that the air barrier system must be vapor permeable. While a vapor-open approach may make sense in temperate climates, such as Seattle and Vancouver, with minimal vapor drive, a buildig envelope specialist should carefully review the design -- nothing is worse than a de facto vapor retarder in the wrong place. (From 11.3.1 Tackling the Problems in Seattle at pgs. 316-317) |
| Quote: | More on the contributing role of similar provisions in B.C.'s LEAKY CONDO CRISIS described at length in The Leaky Condo Boondoggle by whistle-blower Ken Dextras, a New West engineer.
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2007 1:24 pm Post subject: |
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When Maintenance Is Not Enough
Construction Defects, Worn Out Systems and Components and Other Surprises
By California construction attorney Glenn H. Youngling
Prepared for a 1995 conference on *community associations similar to B.C.. *strata councils.
| Quote: | As a general rule, there is no higher duty required of community associations than to properly care for the buildings under the association's control. In a condominium complex, the duty is pervasive through nearly all of the project improvements. In a planned development, the association is typically responsible for all exterior building systems such as roofing, stucco and siding. In either case, the CC&Rs and the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act (Davis-Stirling Act) require the Association to anticipate what maintenance, repair and replacement will be necessary over the life of the project. That work must then be funded and performed as required to keep the project in good repair.
When the buildings are found to have significant defects, fall into disrepair and/or insufficient funds have not been earmarked and accumulated, something has gone wrong. (emphasis added) How a board should address this problem depends on many complex factors, but certain principles will help guide the way toward a realistic plan of action. The purpose of this article is to provide you with those principles, as well as an understanding of how they should be applied. It is important to stress at the outset that the following principles should be applied nearly simultaneously. (emphasis added)
Examine whole building systems.
Build the right team of professionals.
Consider all funding options.
Identify applicable statutes of limitation.
Communicate with your membership.
Examine Whole Building Systems
... It is extremely important that the association maintain good communication with members. One difficulty is the lack of full information at any particular point in time, especially early in the problem evaluation process. It is often not fully appreciated that informing members of what you do not know can be as important or more important than telling them what you do know. The following could be used to provide you with a structure for your communication memo to owners:
1. Tell them what you know.
2. Tell them what you don't know.
3. Tell them what you are doing about what you don't know.
4. Tell them when you expect to have sufficient information and when the association is likely to act on the information.
As an example and in greatly abbreviated form, such a communication might look like the following:
| Quote: | | The Association has received complaints from many owners about leaks. Temporary efforts are underway to stop active leaks, but the Association does not know what the underlying problem may be or how widespread it is. The Association has retained an architect to investigate the waterproofing systems. The Association has retained counsel to advise it of what legal rights it may have and how long litigation will remain a funding option. A report from the architect is anticipated in about ninety days. Thereafter, the Association will examine the recommendations and it hopes to act on them at that time. To report a leak, please contact the manager. If you are offering your home for sale, you should consult with your real estate agent regarding appropriate disclosures. The Association will periodically provide you with additional information as it becomes available. (emphasis added) |
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| Quote: | | Providing accurate general information in a timely manner is important to building community and forming the support necessary to see through whatever problem is facing the association. Also, with many associations being targeted by disgruntled buyers for nondisclosure issues, consistent and accurate communication will serve as the best defense against those lawsuits. |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Jun 07, 2007 10:48 am Post subject: |
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Mother Jones
Magazine Subscription
Prime Suspect
Cleveland is on the front lines of a housing boom gone sour. So how are the bankers, brokers, and speculators still generating massive profits?
By Alyssa Katz
October, 2006
| Quote: | ...These days, the neighborhood (East 76th Street in Cleveland's Slavic Village) is barely hanging on. A freight train leaves slowly across the rails at the dead end of East 76th, but another noise clanks louder: a scrap yard around the corner chewing aluminum and copper late into the evening. Raging development in China is driving up scrap prices; at Jack M. Levine & Sons on East 79th Street, copper fetches more than $3 a pound and aluminum about a dollar. That's one reason why, all over the neighborhood, houses stand plundered of their heating ducts, wiring, and siding, looking naked in the winter cold. Of the 20 houses that stood on the Andersons' block when they moved in, only 11 are still occupied; of the remaining nine houses, six have been boarded up in the last two years by banks foreclosing on the owners. One has since burned down; the others have had their siding pried off, row by row, and carried away in shopping carts. Only one house has been spared - it is clad in worthless vinyl.
... But while Ohio's home crisis is most acute in Cleveland, the rest of the state is catching up fast. Ohio had 16,000 foreclosure filings a year in the mid-'90s; today there are more than 60,000. Five percent of mortgages in the state are either in foreclosure or close to it; nearly 39,000 Ohio homeowners have fallen at least two months behind on their payments.
...In Cleveland, as elsewhere, the real estate market is rife with investors who flip houses for a profit and often target first-time buyers. The sellers send the buyers to independent mortgage brokers, who get paid once they close a deal. "The primary incentive for brokers is fees, and if you make the loans, whether they perform or not, you've 'earned' your fees," says Prentiss Cox, a law professor at the University of Minnesota who until last year led a multistate investigation of subprime giant Ameriquest Mortgage Co. "That gives the brokers tremendous incentives to close the loan, and very little to make sure those loans are in the best interest of consumers."
The more loans the brokers sell, the more fees they make. To keep the fees rolling in, some brokers work with appraisers who are willing to wouch that a home is worth whatever a seller claims it is - often twice its value, or more. Unlike most states, Ohio does not require appraisers to be licensed.
"We have $20,000 or $30,000 houses selling for $80,000 and $90,000," says City Council member Anthony Brancatelli, who represents Slavic Village. "The appraisal is fraudulent, and the lender puts money in their pocket." (emphasis added) (-- pgs. 90-92) |
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| Posted: Tue Jan 20, 2009 10:30 am Post subject: |
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Vanity Fair
Magazine Subscription
Eloise Sheds a Tear
Israeli billionaire Isaac Tshuva and his C.E.O. Miki Naftali’s plan to put condominiums in the Plaza hotel hit a New York nerve. How dare they mess with the magical home of the Oak Bar, the Palm Court, and Eloise? Ultimately, the developers’ 181 apartments were nsapped up, sight unseen, for record prices – but their troubles were just beginning. Evgenia Peretz investigates the bitter accusations and lawsuits that are turning a fantasy into a nightmare.
January, 2009
| Quote: | ... With every hole they opened, ancient concrete came crumbling down. Steel beams were discovered in the most unexpected places. It wasn’t long before the project devolved into a change-order maelstrom. The walkouts, the lawsuits, and the finger-pointing began. (emphasis added)
The first to walk was F. W. Sims Inc., a Long Island air-conditioning company, which is now suing El-Ad, claiming it is owed $3.7 million for original contract work and change orders. “They didn’t finish the job!” says Naftali. “They claim that they will not finish the job unless we will pay them extra money.… So now you’re looking at yourself and you say, ‘O.K.—excuse my French—I’m in deep shit. He’s blackmailing me!’” An attorney for F. W. Sims says, “The only extra money F. W. Sims has sought is for the extra work that [El-Ad] directed it to perform.”
Next to go was the architectural firm the Philips Group, which had been hired to work on the retail space, and which has essentially charged the same thing as Sims. “They put people that didn’t know what they were doing!” counters Naftali. “And then, all of a sudden, they started to ask for change orders, O.K.? Hundreds of thousands of dollars when—hello?! You need to design for me. You didn’t design the space. This is not a kindergarten.… We have to pay millions of dollars to fix their mistakes? It doesn’t make sense.” El-Ad is now suing them, claiming it had to re-do TPG’s railings, badly installed lighting, “unsightly” ceiling drop, and a koi pond that was not properly waterproofed. TPG answers that the heap of unforeseen problems with the building was the responsibility of no one but El-Ad. ...
The lawsuits, the walk-offs, the phone calls from retail real-estate brokers and contractors wanting to know where their checks are, none of it could have happened at a worse time for El-Ad, which, like many real-estate developers, is being hit by the downturn in the economy. Construction of its Plaza Las Vegas casino-condominium-hotel-mall, the property for which El-Ad paid $1.2 billion, is now on hold until the spring of 2010. The Carlyle on Wilshire, El-Ad’s luxury condominium in Los Angeles, has sold only 10 units out of 78. (emphasis added) A year ago, El-Ad had a high bond rating with Standard & Poor’s Israeli partner Maalot. Four months ago, the rating was removed from Maalot’s Web site, reportedly at the request of El-Ad after Maalot added the company to its “watch list” for a possible downgrading. (El-Ad claims its rating is still AA.) Delek Group, the backbone of Tshuva’s fortune, has tumbled dramatically on the Israeli stock market. After all this, it seems like Naftali is hurting. “I invested my best three, four years trying to put [the Plaza] together, and believe me, I take it personally,” he says. “I go over there and I see many things that I’m not happy with, either the service or whatever. This is not still good—I take it really personally, because I want it to be perfect.”
Naftali deserves credit for doing some work that may not be so readily visible. The state of the building when El-Ad bought it “was horrible,” he says. “Sixty to 65 rooms were out of order because of water leaks. The Palm Court on a rainy day? They put buckets over there to collect the rain.” The company spent $30 million repairing the roof alone. ...
According to an inside source with knowledge of the materials used in the hotel rooms, instead of Italian marble for the bathroom floors and walls, El-Ad used low-density marble from China (about 50 cents a square foot). The crown moldings in the rooms aren’t actually wood or plaster; they’re fiberglass and run from $2 to $7 a foot. (High-end crown molding can cost $70 a foot, and real plaster molding many multiples of that.) The so-called mahogany closet is in fact just a thin layer of mahogany veneer over industrial particleboard. “The developer was looking for ways to save,” admits a designer with Gal Nauer Architects. The carpet in the hallway on the penthouse level was cut and cobbled together—a practice known as “patch-n-match.” (The interior designer of the renovation and hotel representatives stand by the materials used in the project.) (emphasis added)
Some of El-Ad’s other residential condominiums haven’t gotten high marks, either. According to Michael Chaney, the board president of 224 West 18th Street, an El-Ad condominium known as Campiellos, the residents have discovered sewage pipes held up by a stack of bricks, unprotected live electrical wires within walls, buckling oak floors, and guardrails too short and not up to New York City’s building code. (El-Ad says it is reviewing the problems at Campiellos.)
And so, when some of the new Plaza residents first laid eyes on their apartments, the reactions were like Extreme Makeover, Home Edition—only the total opposite. ...
For the other residents of the Plaza, the man now known as “the Russian in the penthouse” has become a lightning rod. On the one hand, many see his complaints as echoing their own, and are sympathetic. One unhappy resident, whose inability to ever see her apartment in advance has left her with what she considers a lemon, says that El-Ad’s behavior has been “diabolical.” “Look what they did to those Russian people.… Why didn’t they just say the penthouse is the [former] servants’ quarters?” The owner of the penthouse next to Vavilov’s, a hedge-fund manager, is suing El-Ad for essentially the same reason.
Was a pattern of concealment emerging? In early November, another lawsuit popped up—this one from the penthouse buyer at another El-Ad building, called the Grand Madison, on Fifth Avenue at Madison Square Park. The case was curiously similar to Vavilov’s, with the buyer claiming that he was led to believe the yet-to-be-built penthouse would have magnificent park views, and that what he got instead was a view of an “ugly and unsafe” eight-foot-eight-inch parapet wall surrounding the terrace. Like Vavilov, he claims he was never allowed to view his apartment, and the parapet did not appear on a floor plan. (El-Ad dismisses the case as “baseless” and copycat, and points out that, even though the buyer might not have been allowed to see the apartment, the parapet was there to begin with and could have been seen from the street.) (-- pgs. 123-126) |
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editor
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| Posted: Wed Jan 21, 2009 11:03 am Post subject: |
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Vanity Fair
Magazine Subscription
Profiles in Panic
With Wall Street hemorrhaging jobs and assets, even many of the wealthiest players are retrenching. Others, like the Lehman Brothers bankers who borrowed against their millions in stock, have lost everything. Hedge-fund managers try to sell their luxury homes, while trophy wives are hocking their jewelry. The pain is being felt on St. Barth’s and at Sotheby’s, on benefit-gala committees and at the East Hampton Airport, as the world of the Big Rich collapses, its culture in shock and its values in question.
By Michael Shnayerson
January, 2009
| Quote: | Nowhere is the downturn more dramatic, though, than downtown, where new condominium towers by cutting-edge architects vie for a market that’s almost vanished overnight: young Wall Streeters with bonuses to throw at sleek, overpriced apartments in Richard Meier–knockoff buildings. For the developers, it’s proved a game of high-stakes musical chairs. Those who got their buildings up by early 2007 have sold many of their units by now. Those who started selling after Bear Stearns’s collapse, last March, are struggling, as the Web site StreetEasy confirms. And for those just getting started, good luck.
In the financial district itself, hotel impresario André Balazs embarked on the 47-story William Beaver House in 2006. StreetEasy’s Sofia Kim suggests the name was meant—or at least interpreted—as a naughty wink to hard-partying bachelor traders. With the Tsao & McKown–designed building due to open this month, 209 of its 320 mostly one- and two-bedroom units have sold at top-of-the-market prices—from $900,000 to $6 million. But the rest are either for sale or being held in reserve. That’s a lot of unsold units. ... (-- pgs. 75-146) |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Mar 05, 2009 4:27 pm Post subject: |
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Massachusetts forces a buyout at fair market value
When repair costs exceed the value of the condo investment:
| Quote: | From: editor [mailto:editor@bccondos.ca]
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 2:09 PM
To: Stephen Marcus
Cc: 'editor@bccondos.ca'
Subject: Re: Buying out the dissenting minority after a special repair
levy
Hello Braintree Brains,
We're a consumer advocacy website in British Columbia, Canada at http://www.bccondos.ca, and we're fascinated with the provision in the Massachusetts condo scheme that allows for the buyout of a dissenting
minority. We have a leaky condo debacle that's costing us millions each
year as more and more of us learn that our bldgs weren't built to code. We'd like to know how the buyout operates, whether people like it, etc. Could you recommend a few cases or websites? We do have some U.S.
resources at our local law libraries, but it would be most helpful if we
had a bit of a headstart. We'd also like to know what MA condo owners
fight about the most.
Thanks,
Editor@bccondos.ca |
Braintree replies:
| Quote: | From: "Stephen Marcus" <smarcus>
To: "editor" <editor>
Cc: "Richard E. Brooks" <rbrooks>; "Janet Aronson" <jaronson>
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 10:10 AM
Subject: RE: Buying out the dissenting minority after a special repair levy
Answering your last question first, in Massachusetts unit owners fight about pets, pools, parking, rentals, insurance claims especially in mid rises and high rises--I think what people in condominiums fight about everywhere.
As to the dissenting minority buyout provisions found at Section 17 and 18 of our condominium Act relating to rebuilding and improvements, I am aware of only one instance where the amount of the work exceeded 10% of the value of all of the condominium units in the condominium and, my understanding is that no unit owner applied to Superior Court to be bought out in that case. I will ask my partners if they aware of any case law on the issue but I do not think so. Those provisions of our condominium act were written in 1963 so I assume it was an offshoot of the original FHA Model Act that was the law in many of the states for their first generation statute.
I do have my concerns about the buyout provisions in practice - namely, where would the funds come from to buy out the dissenting owners? Presumably from the other unit owners, who would likely not have the financial wherewithal to achieve that result. During the early 1990s when our economy was very bad and some condominiums were failing there were a few condominiums that actually obtained a 75% vote to terminate condominium status and return to apartment building status.
Hope this helps but let me know if you have any follow-up questions. |
Same question to a Mass. condo community leader:
| Quote: | From: "Barry Kort" <bkort>
To: "editor" <editor>
Cc: <bkort>; <editor>
Sent: Tuesday, August 12, 2003 10:11 AM
Subject: Re: Condo outreach
We picked up your site in an effort to learn more about the Massachusetts condo legislation as it pertains to special repair levies. We're particularly interested in the minority buyout feature. We wonder how it actually plays out and if people are liking it. Can you recommend a good condo homeowners site?
I am unfamiliar with anything called the 'Minority Buyout Feature.'
Our condo just had a special assessment of around $20,000 per unit to
cover the cost of major repairs. In our case, everyone managed to come
up with the payment and no one was foreclosed.
I don't know of any good condo homeowner's site.
Good luck with your fight.
I lost the fight.
Barry |
More about those Massachusetts buyout provisions:
| Quote: | PART II. REAL AND PERSONAL PROPERTY AND DOMESTIC RELATIONS
TITLE I. TITLE TO REAL PROPERTY
CHAPTER 183A. CONDOMINIUMS
Chapter 183A: Section 17. Rebuilding following casualty loss; partition upon disapproval; repair or restoration upon approval; purchase from dissenting owner
Section 17. (a) Rebuilding of the common areas and facilities made necessary by fire or other casualty loss shall be carried out in the manner set forth in the by-law provision dealing with the necessary work of maintenance, repair and replacement, using common funds, including the proceeds of any insurance, for that purpose, provided such casualty loss does not exceed ten per cent of the value of the condominium prior to the casualty. (emphasis added)
(b) If said casualty loss exceeds ten per cent of the value of the condominium prior to the casualty, and
(1) If seventy-five per cent of the unit owners do not agree within one hundred and twenty days after the date of the casualty to proceed with repair or restoration, the condominium, including all units, shall be subject to partition at the suit of any unit owner. Such suit shall be subject to dismissal at any time prior to entry of an order to sell if an appropriate agreement to rebuild is filed. (emphasis added) The net proceeds of a partition sale together with any common funds shall be divided in proportion to the unit owners’ respective undivided ownership in the common areas and facilities. Upon such sale, the condominium shall be deemed removed from the provisions of this chapter.
(2) If seventy-five per cent of the unit owners agree to proceed with the necessary repair or restoration, the cost of the rebuilding of the condominium, in excess of any available common funds, including the proceeds of any insurance, shall be a common expense, provided, however, that if such excess cost exceeds ten per cent of the value of the condominium prior to the casualty, any unit owner who did not so agree may apply to the superior court of the county in which the condominium is located on such notice to the organization of unit owners as the court shall direct, for an order directing the purchase of his unit by the organization of unit owners at the fair market value thereof as approved by the court. The cost of any such purchase shall be a common expense. (emphasis added) (From the General Laws of Massachusetts website accessed March 5/09)) |
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editor
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| Posted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:38 am Post subject: |
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The New Yorker
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The Ponzi State
Florida's foreclosure disaster
By George Packer
Feb. 9 & 16/09
| Quote: | By 2005, the housing market in Florida was hotter than it had ever been, and the frenzy spread across all levels of society. Migrant farmworkers took jobs as roofers and drywall hangers in the construction industry. Nearly everyone you met around Tampa had a Realtor's licence or a broker's licence or was a title agent. Alex Sink, the state's chief financial officer and a Democrat, said, "When the yardman comes and sayhs he's not going to mow your yard anymore because he's going to become a mortgage broker, that is a sure sign that something is wrong." Flipping houses and condominiums turned into an amateur middle-class pursuit. People who drew modest salaries at their jobs not only owned a house but bought other houses as speculators, the way average Americans elsewhere dabble in day trading. Ross Bauer, a manager at a Toyota dealership in Tampa, told me that between 2000 and 2007 he bought and sold half a dozen properties, in a couple of instances doubling his money within two years. "Looking back, it was right in our face," he said. "That's a heart attack. It's not normal."
Jim Thorner, a real-estate reporter in the Tampa office of the St. Petersburg Times, said, "There were secretaries with five to ten investment homes - a $35,000-salary and a $1 million in investments. There's no industry here, only houses." When Thorner went to buy a new house, in 2005, the customer ahead of him in line at the sales centre said that he intended to turn his property around in six months and make $50,000. It was not an outlandish plan. Home values around Tampa 28 per cent that year. "I'm telling you, it was the Wild West," Alex Sink said. "And Florida has always been susceptible to the Wild West mentality. If it's too good to be true, we're going to be involved in it. ...
... According to an investigative series in the Miami Herald, oversight by the state's Office of Financial Regulation and its commissioner, Don Saxon, was so negligent that more than 10,000 convicted criminals got jobs in the mortgage business, including 4,000 as licensed brokers, some of whom were engaged in fraudulent deals. Until the rules were recently changed, felons in Florida lost the right to vote but could still sell mortgages. ... (-- p. 84) |
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Apr 23, 2009 12:12 pm Post subject: |
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From Architects/Engineers at Condos Link Reviews:
New York Times Magazine
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Questions for Felix Rohatyn
The Builder
The former banker talks about how to remake America's infrastructure, why the nation's economy is worse than New York's in the '70s and the appeal of being an engineer.
By Deborah Solomon
Feb. 8/09
| Quote: | We should point out that you’re the investment banker credited with solving New York’s fiscal woes in 1975 and saving the city from bankruptcy. The New York City crisis was less dangerous than the current situation. Maybe for the first time in history, the U.S. is faced with doubts about its destiny. In less than 50 years, we have gone from the American Century to the American Crisis.
What do you make of President Obama’s $800-billion-plus stimulus package? I totally support Obama, but I would argue in favor of a greater amount of infrastructure investment and probably fewer tax cuts. There should be less concern about rapid liquidation and greater emphasis on long-term investments.
The emphasis now seems to be on shoring up levees and making repairs to crumbling structures instead of building new ones. Repairs are very important, as is new construction, and there should be a mix of both. If we have a major nuclear program in the next 25 years, for instance, then we have to do something about the infrastructure that goes with that, from creating an energy grid to dealing with nuclear-waste disposal.
Are you concerned about the number of students who have forsaken engineering for business school?
They’ll go back to being engineers after they’ve discovered that business school doesn’t make them millions of dollars. They’ll see the stock market doesn’t do them much good, so they might as well do something constructive. (emphasis added)
Which country do you think has the best infrastructure? France has a very good infrastructure. You get on the train in Paris to go to London, and two and half hours later you’re there, and you haven’t even felt a vibration. ... (-- p. 20) |
Bold Endeavors
How Our Government Built America, and Why It Must Rebuild Now
Hardcover
By Felix Rohatyn
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editor
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| Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:00 am Post subject: |
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Seattle
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Home Options
A condo or single-family house doesn't appeal? Puget Sound-area residents are exploring alternative housing options
By Diana Wurn
July, 2008
| Quote: | It's no accident that so many new condo advertisements picture sophisticated people gathered on a rooftop laughing, mouth agape, as they inhale their Brie and Chardonnay. The image suggests that where you live can open up a multitude of social connections and new friendships - and who doesn't want that? New forms of urban communities are sprouting up that encourage residents to be part of something that's less isolating than the suburban two-storey house on a cul-de-sac.
Cohousing
Members of these communities often chuckle when people confuse their community with a commune. The concept - which usually involves joint ownership of land, but individual homeownership - originated in Denmark in the early 1960s. It's caught on in a big way here; the Cohousing Association of the United States (cohousing.org) lists more than a dozen such in Washington (most in the Puget Sound area), with more being formed. The goal of cohousing is to create a community where residents participate equally in the design and management of a living space, often with optional shared meals and common areas. Shared values are often a characteristic. Odysseus Levy, a 45-year-old member of the Winslow Cohousing Group, calls this type of community " a return to the past." A resident for seven years, he appreciates the trust that has developed among his neighbors and knows he can rely on other residents in an emergency. (-- p. 76) |
From Cohousing.org - Legal Questions:
| Quote: | How is home ownership legally structured in cohousing communities?
Most cohousing communities in the U.S. are structured as condominiums or planned unit developments (PUDs). In the “lot development model,” residents jointly own the common property and facilities, and are the sole owners of the lot on which they build their single-family detached house. Sometimes residents in attached townhomes own just the land directly under their homes (the footprint), or perhaps the footprint plus a small back or front “private” yard. ...
How is the community managed?
Residents manage the community through a homeowners association. Committees carry out the work. Most cohousing communities make decisions by consensus, and although many groups have a policy for voting if the group cannot reach consensus after a number of attempts, in practice they rarely or never find it necessary to vote. |
Our review:
| Quote: | As a leaky condo consumer advocate with a law degree, I can tell you that anytime property is owned collectively, owners can expect major problems. While many cohousing concepts sound civilized and good on paper, what would happen in the event of housing failure/the need for major repairs? How would repair costs be shared under such complex ownership schemes, one wonders? In addition, I see that some complexes also permit rentals - an entirely different contractual arrangement altogether with different obligations and expectations among the parties. How could such an arrangement NOT breed the same contempt it does among condominium owners?
I would STRONGLY advise consumers to approach cohousing with extra caution and PUH-lenty of legal advice! |
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editor
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| Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2009 11:55 am Post subject: |
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It Happened on Washington Square
Hardcover
By Emily Kies Folpe
Replete with photos, maps and illustrations
| Quote: | Where Life Was a Joy to a Broth of a Boy
The archetypal Greenwich Villager of this period was John Reed, a dashing young poet and journalist born in 1887 in Portland, Oregon. After graduating from Harvard and traveling in Europe, he shared quarters with three college classmates at 42 Washington Square, one of the old houses across from the southwest corner of the park. Walter Lippmann, another college friend, but far more conservative, would sometimes drop by. Reed's downstairs neighbor was Lincoln Steffens, one of the young man's inspirations and a friend of his father's. Steffens had met Reed's father, a U.S. marshal, while investigating a case of timber fraud in the West. As the journalist recorded in his Autobiography, the elder Reed had asked Steffens "to keep an eye on his boy, Jack, who the father thought was a poet." Steffens complied with pleasure, recounting how he liked it "when Jack, a big, growing, happy being, would slam into my room and wake me up to tell me about the 'most wonderful thing in the world' that he had seen, been, or done that night. Girls, plays, bums, I.W.W.s, strikers - each experience was vivid in him...Jack and his crazy young friends were indeed the most wonderful thing in the world." Reed encouraged Steffens to move to the Square after his wife died, thinking it would cheer him. Steffens in turn helped the younger man by introducing him to editors, publishers, and his muckraker friends.
One of Steffens's friends published Reed's first volume of poetry, entitled The Day in Bohemia or Life Among the Artists, which Reed dedicated to his mentor. His lighthearted verses about friends and activities in the "Quartier Latin" include the lengthy poem, "Forty-two Washington Square" with its memorable lines:
But nobody questions your morals,
And nobody asks for the rent, -
There's no one to pry if we're tight, you and I,
Or demand how our evenings are spent.
The furniture's ancient but plenty.
The linen is spotless and fair,
O life is a joy to a broth of a boy
At Forty-two Washington Square!
Other lines of the poem, however, reveal Reed's emerging sensitivity to injustice and hint at the radicalization that would define his life:
There spawn the overworked and underpaid
Mute thousands; - packed in buildings badly made, -
In stinking squalor penned, and overflowing
On sagging fire-escapes...
(From Radicals and Real Estate, pgs. 255-256) |
The Day in Bohemia or Life Among the Artists
Hardcover
By John Reed
Keywords: Washington, Square, real estate, radical, fire, injustice, buildings, badly made, Bohemia
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