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."
|