A.G. from Weld County, Colorado writes:
Dear Mister Condo,
I live in a 2-unit condominium. Two weeks ago, both my neighbor and I discovered our crawl spaces flooded with nearly 3 feet of water. I called the HOA management company to notify them of the flooding to both units and that the repair was made to the leak. Oddly, the representative for the management company told me they were aware of the leak and thanked me for calling. I couldn’t figure out how they were already aware of my leak so I called the Department of Water & Sewer and discovered that the water company suspected a water leak in July due to excessive usage. The leak went on July, August, September, October, and November. I was amazed when I learned the HOA management company made payment of $1,344.00 in September, 1,780.00 in October, and $2,370.00 in November for unit alone but never notified us that we might have a leak due to the excessive water usage! Instead did nothing and continued to pay each bill without question. The HOA has a monthly water budget of $1,450.00 for the entire complex. What can I do?
Mister Condo replies:
A.G., the good news is that the water leak is now fixed. The bad news is that unless the management company was obligated to report the increased use of water by your and your neighbor’s unit. The leak has cost the association significant money and I imagine you will ask the management company to alert the Board immediately if there is a spike in water usage. Should they have caught it and alerted the Board? Sure, but unless they were told specifically to do so, their job is to make sure the bills get paid so the utilities don’t get turned off. A more experienced property manager might have handled the initial spike differently but I don’t think they did anything wrong here. Be sure to instruct the management company to alert the Board in case of any unusual expenses because it would be beneficial to the association to correct any problems sooner rather than later. All the best!