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Article Courtesy of The Miami
Herald
By TOLUSE
OLORUNNIPA
Published
March 31, 2011
A
Miami
couple is suing the condo board at Parc Vista Condominiums, saying the
association has failed to fix hurricane-damaged roofs and caused
homeowners to walk away from their properties.
Rainy days are a bane for Adrian and
Beatriz Sanchez, a
Miami
couple embroiled in a lengthy legal battle with their condominium
association over a leaky roof.
When a storm hits, the couple must cut
off the electricity in half of their two-bedroom loft, bring out buckets
to catch the droplets, and mop up pools of water after the rain.
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Their
watery predicament is the result, they say, of the brutal
2005 hurricane season, a stalled insurance claim, and a
condo association board that has been “grossly
negligent” for the past six years.
“The
situation is beyond livable,” Adrian Sanchez said of his
condo, which now has moldy walls and discolored ceilings.
“It’s gotten to the point where we can’t continue
living this way. The association doesn’t really care.”
Problems
involving condo associations, property damage and
insurance companies are not new in hurricane-prone
South Florida
, but they have been exacerbated in the past few years by
the region’s high foreclosure rate ,
rigid unemployment problem and an avalanche of
negative equity.
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Adrian and Beatriz Sanchez say they have been living under a leaky roof since hurricanes hit Parc
Vista Condominiums in 2005. They are suing the association board.
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According
to the
U.S.
2010 Census, there are nearly 250,000 vacant homes in Miami-Dade and Broward
counties — 13.7 percent of all properties — a side-effect of the
region’s foreclosure crisis.
At
Parc Vista Condominiums in Southwest Miami-Dade, where the Sanchezes live,
badly damaged roofs have helped push up the default rate. Eight of 12 units
in their building have been abandoned, they said.
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Adrian
Sanchez says some of those defaults could have been avoided
if the condo association had done a better job of handling
the post-hurricane insurance claim and getting the roofs
fixed.
Here’s
what happened, according to the Sanchez lawsuit:
Less than
two years after Parc Vista was converted from an apartment
complex to condominiums, hurricanes Katrina and Wilma lashed
the 43-building property at 14001 Southwest 93rd Lane,
causing severe damage to many roofs.
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Adrian Sanchez shows the water damage on the ceiling of his condo. ‘I really can’t deal with this much longer,’ he said.
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The condo
association waited almost six months before filing a claim
with its insurer in 2006, Aspen Specialty Insurance, and
then allowed the claim to linger for years without an
answer.
In the
meantime, the association assigned a no-bid contract to Fort
Lauderdale-based Taylor Roofing to perform repair work, even
though engineers surveying the property found that many of
the roofs — including the Sanchezes’ — needed to be
completely replaced.
Nearly six
years after the hurricanes, the insurance claim is still
pending.
Aspen
took issue with the lateness of the claim, and the Sanchezes
continue to deal with the side effects of a broken roof.
Late last
year, they decided to file suit, after Beatriz Sanchez went
into what emergency room doctors described as
“anaphylactic shock” and stopped breathing due to the
amount of mold in the property, the couple said.
A
representative of the condo board declined to comment, and
referred questions to the association’s attorney. An
attorney representing the condo did not return calls seeking
comment. Espinosa has included e-mail messages that show
that the condo association was aware of the leaky roof, but
months went by without a resolution.
Adrian
Sanchez, a special education teacher at
Southwest
Miami
Senior High School
and Beatriz Sanchez, a special education teacher at
Archbishop
Coleman
Carroll
High School
in
West Kendall
, have remained current on their $1,500 monthly mortgage
payments and their $344 monthly maintenance fees, even as
other unit owners have allowed their properties to go into
foreclosure. They paid $177,000 for the property in 2005 and
say they cannot afford to rent elsewhere and pay their
mortgage.
Their suit
names the condo association, the insurance company and
Taylor Roofing among a long list of defendants.
Andrew Gold, an Akerman
Senterfit attorney representing Taylor Roofing, called the lawsuit’s
inclusion of his clients “frivolous,” because the roofing company did a
lot of the preliminary roof work without being paid and did not become
involved until well after the hurricanes struck.
Taylor
is also suing Parc Vista for unpaid
services, further complicating a messy situation that likely will not be
solved before the next hurricane season.
As summer approaches with
the promise of frequent rain and potential for tropical storms and
hurricanes, Adrian Sanchez said his stress level has gone through the roof.
“I really can’t deal
with this much longer,” he said. “I don’t care anymore, I’m just
tired, and that’s a sad place to be.”
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