R.R. from Hartford County writes:
Dear Mister Condo,
I recently was advised that our Board has started to address and extremely large repair required by the state. It has been mentioned in the Condo Minutes but no formal acknowledgment or assessment has been determined. I would like to run for the hills without telling the buyer and sell my unit before the news if official. Can I do that?
Mister Condo replies:
R.R., special assessments are very official and legal levies placed against the unit owner of record once ratified by the Board and the association. Once levied, they are the responsibility of the unit owner of record at the lime the assessment was levied. As a unit owner, you would receive notice and a payment date or payment schedule depending on how the assessment was levied. A “mention” in the Condo Minutes about an upcoming assessment is not the same as a levy of assessment. You would need to reveal (and pay off) an assessment as a term of your sale. You are not bound to reveal the possibility of an assessment. However, if the assessment has been announced and ratified and is not revealed to a potential buyer, you would very likely be sued for the assessment by the new buyer. If you are using an attorney for the sale, you would do well to explain what is going on and make sure you don’t set yourself up for that to happen. Good luck
Yes.
In addition, not doing so reflects poorly on you. It is a duchy thing to do to the person buying your unit.
How would you feel if you purchased a unit and then x number of weeks later find out there was a Special Assessment in the works for months or years.
If the jurisdiction I live in the purchaser would be allowed to sue you for failure to disclose, and in some cases force you to purchase the unit back (which would also entail paying their legal bills as well as your own).
Do not be a jerk.