Another "Inconvenient Truth"--Condominiums Are Extremely Risky for Most Purchasers!!!!

This post is certainly not written out of self interest. I am a Massachusetts real estate attorney with over 40 years of experience assisting Realtors, and Buyers and Sellers, in entering into real estate transactions. I represent some Condominium Associations. I have written many sets of Condominium Documents. I am knowledgeable about Chapter 183A, the enabling law which permits the formation of Massachusetts condominiums.

Having said all this, I still run into sometimes insurmountable problems, not only trying to get Buyers and Sellers in and out of Condominium purchases, but in day-to-day issues between either fellow Unit owners or a Unit Owner and the Trustees or a Unit Owner and the Management Company, which in many instances takes over "the whole show", if you will, and only informs the Trustees, which pay its not-small fees, by the by, of operational decisions affecting the Condominium after they are made..

Just to give you some specific examples of frustratng situations, I am listing some areas of concern I have experienced in the past few years:

     1. While the Condominium Trust clearly makes this an affirmative obligation of the Board of Trustees, the Condominium President says that the Trustees are "too busy" to give the Unit Owners a Budget every year. The common area fees have stayed the same for 8 straight years.

     2. The Condominium Trustees refuse to spend the money necessary to do recordings at the County Registry which indicate who are the "record Trustees" of the Condominium. I have an attorney on the other side of a deal in this Condominium, who will not accept a "no liens certificate" because it is not signed by the Trustees "of record".

     3. I recently encountered a situation where the Condominium Trustees enacted a provision which made Unit Owners who were selling their Units pay "in full" a Special Assessment when the Unit is sold. Unit Owners who stayed in the Condominium were permitted to pay on a monthly "extended basis"

Believe me, these incidents only scratch the surface.  "Arbitrary and capricious" have become so much a part of my daily dialogue, that I am sure they will be chiseled somewhere on my headstone. I have written other posts about the downright "tyranny" of Condominium Trustees toward their fellow Unit owners. The concept of the "Worst and the Dumbest" too many times take place in the choice of Condominium Trustees, because successful people soon tire of the endless 4:00 AM phone calls regarding "no heat" or "a leak in the ceiling"

I have recently written a post in my Topkins & Bevans Blog (http://blog.topbev.com/?p=10)  concerning some "due diligence" steps which a Buyer can take to level the playing field. While I hope you find these helpful, they surely will not solve all the problems I have articulated above. I continue to ponder how things can be done differently, and better. Any ideas any of you have on the subject would be much appreciated. !!!!!