Article Courtesy of  The Miami Herald

By DONNA GEHRKE-WHITE

Published March 5, 2006

In Miami Beach, Nelson Martinez would like to have decent water pressure for a shower and windows that completely close.

Manuel Blanco wants the leaking roofs and crumbling stairs fixed in his Kendall condo.

''It's getting worse,'' Blanco says. "They promise but they don't deliver.''

Like many South Floridians, they're facing a growing problem in condo living: the difficulty of persuading often reluctant neighbors to pay to fix deteriorating buildings.

Last year's hurricanes revealed the cost of not keeping up with maintainence. While Hurricane Wilma damaged some new condo buildings, it wreaked much more fury on older buildings that hadn't been well maintained.

''It's either pay now or pay later. But paying later has a lot more human misery. People are put out of their homes,'' says Gary Rogers, director of development for Lauderdale Lakes, where scores of people were left homeless when Wilma seriously damaged their condo units.

But owners pressing for repairs say they face daunting circumstances: ineffective government agencies, often hostile boards and management companies, plus mostly apathetic owners who don't want to get involved -- and don't want to pay more for repairs.

Cyber Citizens for Justice, a statewide, grass-roots, community association group, receives scores of complaints from residents who say needed repairs aren't being made.

''This is one of the biggest problems owners are facing. They often don't really have a say how their money is used or spent,'' says Jan Bergemann, president of Cyber Citizens.

The owner-activists say they often get the runaround when they ask the government for help. State and local agencies refuse to intervene, they say. Or local agencies may allow boards to take years to make repairs.

Indeed, the state's assistant condo ombudsman, Bill Raphan, admits, "There's no quick answer.''

COMMON PROPERTY

The state requires condo boards to maintain and repair common property, says Kristen Ploska, spokeswoman for the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), which oversees condos. A condominium's documents spell out what is considered common property. Typically it is the building's structure, pipes, parking lots, landscaping and amenities. The state can cite and fine associations for violations.

Often, complaining owners run up against a ''gray area,'' Raphan says. The condo board agrees there's a problem but wants to fix it later.

Raphan recommends that owners who believe their buildings have a safety issue contact their city or county's building or code enforcement division.

Municipalities will investigate reports of potentially unsafe structures that have serious roof, plumbing, electrical or structural problems. They also will investigate violations of local codes.

Rogers, of Lauderdale Lakes, saw the difference between good and bad maintenance firsthand after Wilma when scores of families were forced out of their homes in Hawaiian Gardens, a huge 39-year-old condo complex of 44 buildings.

Many condos, he says, ''suffered tremendous damage.'' Aging roofs were ripped open, units flooded.

But amid the destruction Rogers says he noticed a couple of buildings that suffered little damage. Their associations had put on new roofs that kept the storm out, he says.

''The new roofs held up surprisingly well,'' says Dean Decker, the Lauderdale Lakes building official who went up on every condo roof after the storm.

He and Rogers would like to see more condo boards and owners educated about their buildings' maintenance, including snowbirds who are there only a few months a year.

''They should be more involved,'' agrees Miami Beach senior building inspector Andres ''Andy'' Villarreal.

He recommends that associations let owners know when major common elements, such as a roof and plumbing, are expected to need replacement and to start planning how to pay for it.

State law requires associations to collect reserves for future repairs, but also allows owners to vote not to collect the reserves, which many buildings do.

Donna Berger, president of the Community Association Leadership Lobby (CALL), a group of Florida community associations, says one of the reasons that condo boards don't do more repairs is that, while some owners are demanding repairs, others complain about spending money.

Martinez, who owns a one-bedroom unit at the waterfront South Beach Bonne Vie condominium, says he and others in his 30-unit building have phoned, faxed, written and attended board meetings to complain -- with no luck. Water pressure remains low, for example. ''Like a drip,'' says owner Danny Reynolds, who lives on the fourth floor. "It's awful.''

CHIPPING WALLS

Meanwhile, Martinez's walls are beginning to chip off at spots near his 39-year-old awning windows, where he says rain has poured in at times, especially after the recent hurricanes.

Board president Joseph Bravo says the board realizes the Bonne Vie needs new windows. But right now other repairs have priority, Bravo says. In 2005, the board approved three special assessments, which totaled $1,477 for Martinez's unit. The monthly maintenance went up about 20 percent, from $344.56 to the current $410, Martinez says.

To stop some of the leaking, Bravo says, the board is having its painting company return to do a better job of sealing the window frames.

And to increase water pressure, Bonne Vie's board hired a plumber to replace the building's original water pumps. But the plumber has to wait until the new ones come in.

''There are a lot of things to be dealt with,'' Bravo adds. "It's never ending.''

In the past, he adds, ''a lot of things were let go.'' The board is now playing catch-up.

In Kendall, Blanco, who co-owns his Village of Kings Creek unit with his elderly mother, says state officials and his condo board have been unresponsive to his complaints. Most owners at the massive 1,067-unit condo complex near Dadeland Mall aren't clamoring for repairs, he says.

After one fed-up owner passed around a flyer complaining about the leaking roofs, the board promised repairs would be started in December -- just before the board election.

Blanco ran for the board as a reformer trying to get repairs. But his neighbors didn't rally around him, and he was defeated.

Three months later, he says, owners are still waiting for the promised repairs to begin. The board was scheduled to hire a roof engineer to plan the work in February. But the meeting was canceled because not enough members showed up for a quorum.

Board president Astrid Buttari and other board members will not comment, says property manager Mireya Villaverde. ''The attorney told us not to talk to reporters,'' she says.

Now Martinez acknowledges the irony that, seven years earlier, he helped recall a board that voted for a $700,000 special assessment to make repairs.

That was a mistake, he says.

Unfortunately, he is not alone. Many owners balk at paying, says Lauderdale Lakes' Rogers, who has had elderly residents tell him they don't care about repairs because they will be dead before the work is needed.

Often younger owners are just as resistant because they don't realize the importance of maintaining condos, adds assistant condo ombudsman Raphan.

Nevertheless, Rogers recommends that the state require inspections at least every five years, at least of roofs. Rep. Juan Zapata, R-Miami, and Rep. Rene Garcia, R-Hialeah, are co-sponsoring a bill in the Legislature that would require condo boards to hire an engineer or architect to check every five years on the structural and electrical safety of a building. The report would be provided to owners upon request.

However, CALL's Berger remains skeptical of any proposed new law.

''No amount of legislative tinkering is going to convince some owners that this maintenance needs to be done,'' she says. "They'll push it off to another day for other owners to pay. Isn't that what we see with the federal deficit?''