Interunit issues are inevitable in every condo association. But property managers can’t step in immediately once these things happen.
Here are the steps that every property manager should be aware of when they encounter interunit issues.
What are Interunit Issues?
Condos come with neighbors and shared access to resources, including walls, floors, and ceilings. This means that if anyone in the condo is having an issue, it’s likely you’ll hear about it.
If you have neighbors beside you, above you, or below you, things are going to happen. Noise, water damage, or even kids. Anything that might cause disturbance to your neighbors can be an issue.
How We Help Resolve Interunit Issues
Property managers are faced with many responsibilities; mediating between owners to resolve interunit issues is one of them.
By applying the following steps, you can at least start the resolution process between units owners and ensure a satisfied condo association.
1. Coordinate with unit owners
As your management company, we ask the unit owners to try to resolve things themselves first. It is not our job to act as counselors or parents. We are not the police at the end of the day.
That being said, we will step in if unit owner issues cannot be resolved. For example, we have had situations where we learned there is a leak occurring in a unit above, slipping and damaging the unit below.
We will send an email to the owners to come together, hoping that they can coordinate and cooperate. We can even provide vendors to help investigate and solve the issue.
But if one unit owner refuses to respond to emails to deal with the issue or admit they are at fault, that’s when we take the next step.
2. Send a violation letter
Violation letters will more or less be a request or demand, allowing us to be able to go away and be able to fix that issue.
Violation letters will more or less request or demand the other party to take corrective action. If the demand is an ending point, it could be in writing.
3. Get the attorneys involved
Almost every single set of condo docs that I have seen does say that the condo association, the management, and the board of trustees can get involved when there is an issue.
As your management company, we have to step in when they are causing damage in the common areas, or to other units.
When attorneys get involved, they will send all legal letters and start getting fines and violations. I have seen unit owners spend time, energy, and thousands of dollars in fines when it would have caused them a lot less money to allow access.
And as a proactive property management company, we try to explain the necessity of being a good neighbor and being able to work with other people before we ever get to legal situations. We also show them pictures of the damages so they know the gravity of the issue and have it resolved.
Getting unit owners involved is very rare. It gets to the point where we have to get legal and technical, but that is typically how we deal with interunit issues. Try to speak with the unit owners, help them deal with the problems themselves, facilitate the vendors if necessary, and only get involved if and when the unit owners do not cooperate with each other.
The Boston HOA Guarantee
If you are looking for a proactive property manager to help you solve interunit issues for your condo association, please think of Boston HOA Management.
