I wrote several times about Oceanside Inn. My fascination with this condo-hotel stems from the fact that it is the least expensive of the best condo-hotels, has solid good management, which bought the commercial space - the first floor - from the developer, and therefore has vested interest in the property and long term goals.

For a few yearsI thought that the stars really alligned for this to happen. Well, like it often happens in life, nothing is forever.

The weakness that I failed to notice (I actually did not even know about it) was that the Board of Directors consisted only of 3 people. Of course, condo-hotels, where people often live out of state present difficulty to run. It is not uncommon that the Associations are trying to keep the Boards small, but 3 people is really too small. I think the prevalent number in the area is 5, which is also not very representative, and is not a guarantee of being impartial and smart, but 3 can easily turn to be a recipe for a disaster.

That's what happened. The management company was wearing two hats serving as a rental management company and the manager for the association. To us, agents whho do practically all resales there, they were doing a darn good job. However, two members of the Board had different vision. When the management company, that is also paying their association fees, suspected improprieties in the way the money for repairs were spent, and questioned the quality of work performed, they were haphazardly fired as association Manager, and this was done without consulting the owners, with only 2 member decision, without even securing the vote from the 3rd director, who resigned immediately after learning about this unilateral decision.

The management company interpreted this as a declaration of war by the Board. They responded with the letter threatening to close operations and block the whole first floor from the operations on April 1, 2008. The irony of it is that the developer has sold the commercial space to the Management company some couple of years ago, and this is the same developer who is very unhappy with the management company.

This put everyoneat risk of losing their investment. Given the the unexpected and dangerous turn, one would reasonably expect those 2 directors take the situation seriously and back off. In reality the opposite happened. The president expressed relief that the management compnay would ceize the operation, and the Assocaiton would have a chance to bring better companies to do the job.

This is really an unfortunate situation. This Tuesday is the election day. I got the proxy from one of my clients, who want me to represent him at this meeting, so, I will keep you posted on how the things evolve.

Jon Zolsky, Daytona Condo-Hotel guru
www.DaytonaCondohotel.com