Condominium fee change has residents in an uproar

Article Courtesy of The St. Petersburg Times

By Sheila Mullane Estrada

Published November 14, 2008 

SOUTH PASADENA — A change in the way condominium maintenance fees are charged — switching to an equal division of costs from a previous formula based on unit size — has Bay Island residents in an uproar.

The Bay Island complex, incorporated in 1971, includes 17 buildings with 713 individual units ranging in size from about 650 square feet to more than 3,000 square feet.

The new fees, which will go into effect in January, will affect smaller condominium owners the most by raising some fees more than $100 while lowering fees by several hundred dollars on larger units.

"This is grossly unfair," said Marie Dahm, a member of the board of directors who was opposed to the change and is urging residents to protest.

Dahm is organizing residents against the new fees into a group of Bay Island Owners Against the Resolution. She said the group will protest the board's action at Thursday's meeting.

"Since the passage of the resolution, things have gone haywire around Bay Island," says Jack Scheich, a member of the complex's board of directors, in an e-mail distributed to residents. "Did our Board really think that the small unit owners would roll over and play dead? A gross miscalculation."

Bill DeLisi, who has lived at Bay Island since 1978, says "the only fair way" is for residents to be charged maintenance fees based on the size of their units.

Mark Von Patton says he was "scammed" when he recently bought a condominium unit and was not told the maintenance fee structure might change.

At issue is whether the board had the right to abandon the prior practice of levying fees based on the size of each condominium. The new fees are largely based, instead, on an equal division of costs among the total units.

On Oct. 21, the complex's Sun Island Association (SIA) board of directors approved a resolution that drastically changed how maintenance costs were charged to unit owners.

After the meeting, SIA president Lou Ippolito sent a letter to residents defending the board against charges that they had acted wrongfully.

"Bay Island has struggled for several years to determine the correct manner to allocate common expenses," Ippolito wrote. "No one engaged in any secret activity or self dealing. There was no conspiracy to deprive owners."

Ippolito said the resolution was recommended by the association's attorney to address prior confusing bookkeeping methods.

"This condominium community's board of directors have found a way to make decisions that will harm many of its residents who least can afford it and provide no recourse for them except through the courts," Dahm said.

Dahm recently paid for an independent legal opinion that appears to bolster her argument that any change in the method of levying fees must be approved by the unit owners before it can go into effect.

The legal opinion also cites the state's Department of Business and Professional Regulation denial last April of the association's request that it review "ambiguous" statements in the condominium's original documents and rule on how common expenses and shared operational costs should be levied.

The agency answered that the association's question was "more properly addressed by a court."

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