Condo Water Damage

Ultarune

Hey, I've made a couple of threads about home searching and ownership here before, and got great advice and bought a condo back in October 2009. About 4 days ago, water starting leaking out of my window frames and ceiling over about half my living room floor. I'm on the 6th floor and the highest floor in the building, so I'm guessing the roof of the structure itself (its a refurbished old city hospital) failed and is seeping into my unprotected ceiling and walls, hence coming out of the window frames. The board of trustees or whatever their title is came to my condo and encouraged me to pursue the seller of the unit for compensation for the damage since I'm still within my 1 year warranty. Both the seller and the condo association people are sending roof specialists to my home this morning to take a look at the problem.

The overall damage is water damage on two window frames, presumably the wall between them, the ceiling above them, and the hard wood floor is warped and bloated. In addition, mold is starting to grow on the ceiling, which pisses me off the most. I'm figuring that the seller will claim the roof of the structure failed and that is the condo association's fault, and that the condo association will say it was a failure of the unit and the seller is at fault. My real estate broker suggested I contact my insurance company, but friends advised me that since I'm definitely not liable for anything that happened, I should try to keep the insurance company out of it in order to prevent an increase in rates, or documentation of water damage when it comes time for me to sell this place, I'm 26 and this is my first home purchase and I really don't want to lose value.

Any advice or suggestions? Thanks for any help.

JHunz

If you keep your insurance company out of it, just remember that you'll have to do everything that they would have done for you. If you think you're going to get the runaround from the condo association and the seller, you really ought to call them. This is because they will pay you, and then you will have the money and no liability, and you won't have to deal with all the shit of figuring out who's really liable, getting them to admit it, and getting them to pay.

Also, if you're still living there you might want to move out for a bit. Living with mold is serious business.

Deebaser

Call your Condo association ASAP. If you plan on going after the seller, you will likely need an attorney.

Phisti

I am in no way providing legal advice...

That said, the immediate damage and the source of water infiltration suggests the roof of the building has failed. Depending on the type of roof the failure could be over your unit, or pretty much anywhere over the entire building. Considering you have owned the condo over 9 months and water has not infiltrated until now the previous owner likely had no knowledge of the problem.

Even if the damage has occurred within the 1-year warranty from the home sale the water infiltration is not the previous owners problem. If this were a single family dwelling it's a totally different story but since this is a shared property, and the roof is a common building element it sounds to me like your condo association is being cheap and doesn't want to dip into it's reserve fund for repairs.

Basically call your condo association... the roof isn't yours, and it isn't the unit's previous owner's, it part of the overall building envelope and what the association is supposed to maintain with your condo fees. The condo association should also pay for the damage to the interior of your unit as it was the result of their lack of maintenance.

Dr. Frenchenstein

good luck if you have to go after the seller. I had a similar issue with my house and sued the seller. He dicked me around for months, and i paid tons of money to my lawyer. eventually he agreed to settle, and then stopped making the payments after the first one. Currently i am getting a judgement against him for violating the settlement, and putting a lien on his house. however, i doubt he'll be paying me anytime soon...

like people have said, it sounds like the condo's issue, not the seller's. i'm not sure how the warrantee works for condos, but mine didn't cover any structural stuff. It was the electric, appliances, plumbing, water heater, etc. if my house fell down, it wouldn't cover shit.

Your insurance might try and say it was a preexisting condition, and not cover it. that's what mine said when i brought up to them what was going on.

good luck man!

Ultarune

Thanks for the advice thus far. The seller was a firm that had renovated the building, they sent out a roof specialist the other day who said it was a roof issue and thus the condo association's responsibility. The condo association's roof specialist isn't coming until tuesday, and when I asked if it could be done sooner, and this was after the results of the seller's roof specialist were sent to them, the condo association guy said "best I can do" in a really curt one sentance e-mail, so I suspect they are pissed and going to give me the run around, which is what I initially feared when they came over the first time and tried to push me into going after the seller.

My mom told me not to involve my insurance company, since I will have my rates increased and the water damage will be on record and effect the future resale value of the unit, but I'm fucking frustrated and bored of dealing with these people already. Is my mother wrong, or at least outdated in her approach, I sure would love to hand this whole mess over to a company with attack dog lawyers that can just handle this shit for me, but I don't want to lose house value.

Killgrimage

Resale is already affected, insurance company or not. If you try to resell, an inspector is going to walk in and figure out there's been water damage, and thus the buyers will demand lowering the price/compensation somehow before they sign the agreement of sale. You have insurance, use it, that's what it's there for.

Ultarune

Killgrimage wrote: »

Resale is already affected, insurance company or not. If you try to resell, an inspector is going to walk in and figure out there's been water damage, and thus the buyers will demand lowering the price/compensation somehow before they sign the agreement of sale. You have insurance, use it, that's what it's there for.

That is a very good point and also lame as shit. Do I have any recourse against the condo association for lowering the resale value of my unit, or is this just one of those, hah, you lose, moments in life?

In addition, I have a hard wood floor entrance, a tiled kitchen, and then the same hard wood floor for my living/dining room. It is reasonable to expect them to replace the undamaged entrance in order to match the damaged living/dining room floor, right? Also, what are the rules/tact about upgrading through an accident? Say my condo association agrees to pull out all my hardwood floors and replace them with a comparable wood that costs, say (I'm pulling this number out of my ass) $3000. I don't like the hardwood floor of my condo, its soft as shit and constantly dents and tears upon standard use, I'd love to have a more expensive hardwood floor, say one that costs $6000. Could I cut a 3k check to my condo association to make up the difference, or could I covertly cut the hardwood installing company a check for 3k and ask them to install the nicer wood rather than the replacement?

Thanks again for the advice.

Kakodaimonos

Ultimately if it's a failure in the roof, the condo association is going to have to fix it. Ultimately, you're going to end up paying for some of it, since it's your association fees that are used for these sorts of issues.

If it's still leaking, I'd call them up and ask them what they're planning on doing to stop the immediate issue. If it's not raining and you're not getting new water in the condo, I'd let it go just so you don't piss off the association any sooner than you have to.

It's time to dig out your association agreements and find out just what they agreed to do and what the process is.

And the insurance thing isn't something to worry about. What your insurance is going to probably do is go after the condo association's carrier for the damages.

Something you can do in the short term is find a dehumidifier you can borrow or buy and start running it in the areas that got wet.