Senior Life Magazine, March 2005 editionSenior Condo Purchases, Part Five: A World Of Scary Stuff

Senior Life Magazine, March 2005 editionSenior Condo Purchases, Part Five: A World Of Scary Stuff By Donie Vanitzian BA, JD, Arbitrator(c) 2005 Vanitzian Condominiums and townhouses are deceptive facades of worry free idyllic living. Many sales agents are unaware or unwilling to jeopardize their “sale” by painting a true picture of what really goes on in their Venus Flytraps of “affordable” living. It is only after the purchase that unwary buyers realize fees, and other costs, escalate quickly and can rise beyond their means. Without unlimited funds, or a friend or family member with the tremendous stamina, generosity, money, time, intellect and know-how to fight for your interests, purchasing this type of property is a risk. In this environment one cannot afford to be lazy or apathetic about protecting one’s interests or expect “others to take care of them.” All too often, dissatisfied owners become scared of the consequences of standing up for their rights. Instead, they opt to live inconspicuously under the jackboot of an oppressive association. Unless you have the courage to stand up and be counted, particularly senior owners, who are most at risk don’t buy residential deed-restricted property. No owner wants to believe that bad things will happen to them, so they are usually unprepared. Never in a million years did the following owners expect to be faced with the outrageous examples described below.They’re spending your money For millions of California titleholders “workplace theft” occurs inside their homeowner association. Recently, owners at one development who were denied access to association books and records, and never bothered to audit the accounts, lost over $340,000. It turned out that several days a week the association manager was seen dropping as much as $500 on tips, drinks and lap dances at a local topless club. In fact, he was spending embezzled association dues belonging to several hundred owners. Similar fraud on a grand scale has increasingly been uncovered, but only after millions of dollars have gone missing from thousands of California titleholders. Some of those indicted by a Federal Grand Jury serve time, but the money is gone forever. Individuals spending the money often played the socialite at community functions, hosted luncheons, sponsored fundraisers, took fantastic vacations and turned into instant property moguls, while those they stole from scrimped and saved to pay for medications, doctor bills and mortgages. Although no one likes to think of it this way, the truth is that it was the apathetic owners who allowed management to levy bogus fines and late charges, use association funds for personal cars and shopping sprees, and lie about the management company’s financial health (until it filed bankruptcy). And the damage can add up quickly. More than 110 associations recently lost millions, and during a surprisingly short period of time.Dead bolts and alarms won’t protect you As an example of what owners are up against, California court documents revealed that one association had 24-hour security guard patrol and gates, and every house had an alarm system monitored by association security. Yet, one owner, herself a doctor and senior, while in the process of moving out with her elderly mother, despite the fact that she took extraordinary precautions in securing their personal belongings (in addition to the house alarm, she had separate deadbolts installed on closets, and every door inside the house including a “silver closet” was connected to a private alarm system), on the same day, after the owner left, the association manager had a locksmith change the house locks and gave security guards copies of the new keys. The manager’s excuse to the court was concern that the elderly owner might “strip the property and damage it.” Returning to remove her belongings, and finding that the locks had been changed, the owner phoned management explaining her need to get her things but that she was locked out. The manager said, “Call your attorney, make an appointment.” The owner drove to the management office and requested an appointment, but the manager refused, saying, “That’s unacceptable, contact your attorney.” At trial the manager did not remember ever talking to the owner, using the excuse, “the attorneys were handling it.” The manager denied telling the owner that she could not get her belongings out of the house, but admitted the owner’s appointment request was refused because, “security couldn’t accommodate that time of the morning.” The manager did confess that the owner could have come anytime Monday through Friday, between 9 and 5, without an appointment. Employees testified the board and management knew the owner’s personal property remained inside the house, but the board “decided to change the locks anyway.” Finally admitting she knew some “things” remained in the garage, the manager claimed she was unaware property “of any value” was inside. When the owner arrived at the house, a security guard unlocked the front door, finally letting her inside. Hidden keys to locked closets were lying openly on a living room bar. Her valuable rugs, pre- Columbian pottery, and priceless Navajo blankets and serapes were missing, as was an expensive urn containing her father’s ashes. She opened the dead-bolted and alarmed closets to find that all her heirloom Tiffany and gold and silver items were gone. Even though the association interfered with the owner’s possessions, the judges claimed they did it to safeguard the house, saying, “There was simply no evidence of how the owner’s personal property disappeared.”Excuse: We’re just the agents Often, harassment techniques are used to invade an individual’s privacy. One owner suffered from a congenital cardiac condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, resulting in neurological impairments and multiple strokes. But that wasn’t convincing enough for the board to let him park in a handicapped parking space closer to his unit. He was forced to sue the management company and board for retaliation, intimidation and invasion of privacy for refusing disability accommodation. His name was forged on items, causing him to be billed for unauthorized purchases. He received anonymous threatening and offensive letters, his condo door was spit on, trash was dumped on his car, his tires were punctured, his handicapped parking sign was defaced, and pornographic pictures were left on his doorstep. After plowing snow into his assigned parking spot, the board fined him for overnight parking in a handicapped parking spot. Threats and humiliation escalated when Nazi swastikas were placed on his car and anti-Semitic signs and placards with his name were found lining the building hallways. The management company’s defense, “We’re simply the agent for the association and can’t be liable for violations,” was described as preposterous by the judges. The “board of directors in concert with the management company intentionally ignored this disabled homeowner’s requests for a more accessible parking space,” the court said, “We hold agents, as well as the association liable” for such violations.Excuse: We were just following orders When an owner suffering from Tourette’s Syndrome was victimized at the hands of his association and management company, judges hearing the case said that the “Property Manager did more than follow the Association’s orders, it threatened Mr. and Mrs. Marthon with fines and told Mrs. Marthon she could stay only if her husband left. It issued notices of violation, hired and encouraged expert witnesses to secretly test Mr. Marthon’s disability, sent letters purporting to terminate their rights as unit owners, and then distributed an intentionally deceptive story of this lawsuit to enrage the other owners against the Marthons, all of which are discriminatory acts against the Marthons.” Shamelessly, the management company advanced a “Teflon defense,” using the excuse that it was free from blame, and protected from liability, because all of its actions were taken at board direction. The manager’s excuse, “I was only following orders,” was rejected as a sort of Nuremberg Defense. The court recognized that, “Not only did the Manager avoid speaking up, it did not even question the legality of actions taken against these owners.”I hear you knocking, but you can’t come in When Robert Cunningham bought his association home, he was elderly, single, living alone, and suffering with Hodgkin’s disease. Threatened by letters about his housekeeping inadequacies and tortured by constant reminders to pay association attorney fees of more than $34,000, in response, Cunningham sued his board for violating his right to privacy. His board threatened him with litigation to gain entry to his home and force him to throw out personal belongings it called “debris.” They wanted to inspect his home to “prevent undesirable effects” and “maintain property values,” so Robert opened the door and let them in. They ordered him to clear his bed of all paper and books, remove newspapers, cardboard boxes and magazines from the floor around his bed, dresser, living and dining rooms, not use his downstairs bathroom for storage, and change interior lighting. Part of their letter read, “The Association suggests that all outdated clothing that has not been worn in the last five years be removed and/or donated to the Salvation Army or similar organization. This would allow the upstairs bathroom to be used for what it was designed for. Any other remaining clothes could be stored in a walk-in closet. Books that are currently shelved, and which are considered standard reading material, can remain in place.” Outraged, the judges seriously doubted when Robert purchased his home he contemplated an association “would ever tell him to clean up his own bedroom like some parent nagging an errant teenager. Here, we have a clear cut case of a ‘nanny state,’ nanny in almost a literal sense of the association going too far.”Knock, knock. Who’s there? Vera Armstrong Cherry never expected to answer her front door and be met by two unannounced ambulance workers that heavily sedated her, forcibly strapped her to a gurney, and carted her off to a county psychiatric institution. No one told her where she was going, but they left her two children alone in the house without their mother for five days. Vera’s crime? She felt patriotic on Election Day and flew her “Missing In Action” flag alongside the American Flag in honor of her missing husband who had been shot down over Vietnam in 1967. But since she flew it from a flagpole belonging to her association, someone in authority at the association authorized the action to have Vera declared “5150” (grounds for detention due to a mental disorder). The Public Defender filed a writ of habeas corpus to get Vera released. She cries because her children’s college fund of over $75,000 was depleted due to this incident, “They say I am crazy because it’s a good way to discredit me.”The cat’s meow Out of 1300 residents, it only took one neighbor nosey enough to peer into someone else’s unit and allegedly spot ailing, housebound kitties, to jumpstart a costly litigation nightmare for the unit owner. After the stressful ordeal stole precious years of her life, and tens of thousands of dollars, Natore Nahrstedt was ordered to sell her condo and move because she refused to get rid of her kitty cats. According to her lawyer, Joel Tamraz, “Mrs. Nahrstedt carried the kitties everywhere, their little paws never, not once, touched the common area … ever!” In what has come to be known as “the famous cat case with the famous dissent,” California Supreme Court Justice Armand Arabian memorialized his disagreement with the court by quoting Albert Schweitzer, “There are two means of refuge from the misery of life: music and cats.” Justice Arabian found the court’s siding with the association and its rendition of the facts, as reflecting a “narrow, indeed chary, view of the law that eschews the human spirit in favor of arbitrary efficiency.” In his view, “the resolution of this case well illustrates the conventional wisdom and fundamental truth of the Spanish proverb, ‘It is better to be a mouse in a cat’s mouth than a man in a lawyer’s hands.’” That warning is not lost on Corkey and Noni Eley of Leisure World, Laguna Woods. Flanked by lawyers’ threats, runaway costs, unaccountability with no statutory protections for owners, when asked if they had any advice for seniors wanting to purchase a condo, the sisters immediately chime in, “Don’t.”