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Building Collapse in Miami Beach

Weren't building repairs/retrofits scheduled for within the next few months? (I thought I read that in one of the articles.)
 
mlm said:
Not a lawyer, but I’d expect the inspection was disclosed at a public board meeting. Short of burying the report or seriously botching the repair effort I doubt they’d be liable. I’d also expect they would be carrying some sort of professional insurance to cover BS lawsuits.

The real liability would seem to be with the city who received the report and has the power to condemn properties.
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You seriously think the city has more liability than the owners/HOA? No way!

It's the city's obligation to force people out of the building? Maybe they could have done so, but why would they have liability for not doing so when the owners themselves failed to fix the problems, and failed to move themselves out to safety?
 
Exactly what I’m saying :laughing

HOA is run by the owners (possibly volunteers) who wouldn’t possess expertise in interpreting the inspection results. The city on the other hand should have staff that would understand the severity of the issues. The city also has the power to condemn the building.
 
mlm said:
Exactly what I’m saying :laughing

HOA is run by the owners (possibly volunteers) who wouldn’t possess expertise in interpreting the inspection results. The city on the other hand should have staff that would understand the severity of the issues. The city also has the power to condemn the building.
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It is not the responsibility of the City to inspect every building every year. As long as the building was built to spec and passed inspection when it was constructed, they may be under no obligation to look at it ever again. Depends on the local building code.

:dunno
 
Eldritch said:
It is not the responsibility of the City to inspect every building every year. As long as the building was built to spec and passed inspection when it was constructed, they may be under no obligation to look at it ever again. Depends on the local building code.

:dunno
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From what I saw in the Article
- inspection report was sent to the city in 2018
- building was built in 1981 and city requires re-inspection every 40 years
- city signed off on repair permit as part of 40 year inspection

Right now the city has ordered reinspection of similar structures. What do you think they’d do if any come back similar? They were provided the information, have the experts, and are clearly demonstrating the responsibility. If nothing else you can guarantee the HOA lawyer will use the cities non-action as justification that the HOA acted reasonably

And to be clear. My disagreement is with Berto’s claim that the HOA board members would be held personally liable. Not a lawyer, but this suggests no.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclop...d-members-personal-injuries-the-property.html
 
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mlm said:
From what I saw in the Article
- inspection report was sent to the city in 2018
- building was built in 1981 and city requires re-inspection every 40 years
- city signed off on repair permit as part of 40 year inspection

Right now the city has ordered reinspection of similar structures. What do you think they’d do if any come back similar? They were provided the information, have the experts, and are clearly demonstrating the responsibility. If nothing else you can guarantee the HOA lawyer will use the cities non-action as justification that the HOA acted reasonably

And to be clear. My disagreement is with Berto’s claim that the HOA board members would be held personally liable. Not a lawyer, but this suggests no.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclop...d-members-personal-injuries-the-property.html
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I think that the HOA board being gone after personally is more likely than the City being found responsible, but what I expect is a quagmire where no one really gets put on the hook, the City settles for an undisclosed amount out of court and some new building inspections standards are heralded as a solution.


:dunno
 
Eventually they have to make the tough decision to abandon the search and take down the rest of the building
 
I guess the "good" news is that this time of year many of the "winter only residents AKA Snow birds" are not there as when you walk by a building like that on the beach at least 1/3 of the units have hurricane shutters drawn and the owners are not there.

Anxious Residents of Sister Tower to Fallen Florida Condo Wonder: Stay or Go?

The partly collapsed Champlain Towers South scared people who live in Champlain Towers North. But no one has ordered them to evacuate — yet.

Champlain Towers North was built in 1982, a year after Champlain Towers South. Its mandatory 40-year building recertification is due next year. Naum Lusky, the president of the condo board, said the association had begun to work with inspectors ahead of that date but now would accelerate efforts in light of the South tragedy.

He emphasized that the board in that building has addressed aging building problems as they have come up in order to avoid the kind of major repairs that had been identified as necessary in the South building before half of it came down. He accompanied the town and county inspectors on a tour of the building on Saturday and said no big problems were apparent.

“This building is spick and span,” he said. “There is no comparison” to the sister condo.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/us/miami-building-collapse-neighbor-evacuations.html
 
Coming form 20+ years in grocery chain maintenance: Bottom line, building repairs cut into profits.
Also, the folks at the top usually have very little working knowledge of buildings so they often see repairs or upgrades as only negatively affecting the bottom line and thus their compensation.
I was always fighting for the stores while being told there was no money in the budget, maybe next year.
Meanwhile the company President was out buying the SF Giants...
DT
 
mlm said:
Not a lawyer, but I’d expect the inspection was disclosed at a public board meeting. Short of burying the report or seriously botching the repair effort I doubt they’d be liable. I’d also expect they would be carrying some sort of professional insurance to cover BS lawsuits.

The real liability would seem to be with the city who received the report and has the power to condemn properties.
Click to expand...

Maybe. Though I am not sure that's going to happen. The city is not responsible for making sure every building is up to code. It's responsible for forcing owners to do so. And that report was three years old, and the building association had started work on the remediation.

In the long run, blaming the city for the shortcomings of the owners is terribly counter productive.
 
afm199 said:
Maybe. Though I am not sure that's going to happen. The city is not responsible for making sure every building is up to code. It's responsible for forcing owners to do so. And that report was three years old, and the building association had started work on the remediation.

In the long run, blaming the city for the shortcomings of the owners is terribly counter productive.
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This. ^^^
 
I’m not blaming the city. I’m saying the city is likely more of a target than an individual officer of the HOA.

edit/add:
The HOA as an entity is absolutely liable, but assuming board members are term-limited volunteers, I don't see them responsible short of malfeasance. I'm finishing up a term on a volunteer board which is why this attracted my attention. In my case the typical terms are 2-3 years and the continuity issues alone would make something like this challenging. Seems HOA was underfunding repairs for years which might explain the delay getting repairs started.
 
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my little social club pays like $3k a year for board of directors insurance. the idea is that policy gives some protection to a board member’s personal assets (eg a home), and perhaps makes participation on our board open to more than judgement-proof members. :laughing

be kind of suprised if the board of this HOA didn’t have a similar policy. I’m no legal eagle, but suspect everyone is going to be sued, anyway? :dunno
esp any organization that would generally and routinely insure against the reasonably foreseeable consequences of their routine business decisions (like deferred maintenance :toothless).

my lawyer friends tell me the trick in life isn’t so much getting a judgement,
it’s collecting on one.
 
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mlm said:
The HOA as an entity is absolutely liable, but assuming board members are term-limited volunteers, I don't see them responsible short of malfeasance. I'm finishing up a term on a volunteer board which is why this attracted my attention. In my case the typical terms are 2-3 years and the continuity issues alone would make something like this challenging. Seems HOA was underfunding repairs for years which might explain the delay getting repairs started.
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The real question is whether the residents will have any judgements or fines levied against them. I've heard more than one horror story where the HOA gets slammed with something awful and divides it up among the residents to pay it off.
 
berth said:
The real question is whether the residents will have any judgements or fines levied against them. I've heard more than one horror story where the HOA gets slammed with something awful and divides it up among the residents to pay it off.
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The HOA Board is elected by the Homeowners. :dunno
 
mlm said:
I’m not blaming the city. I’m saying the city is likely more of a target than an individual officer of the HOA.

edit/add:
The HOA as an entity is absolutely liable, but assuming board members are term-limited volunteers, I don't see them responsible short of malfeasance. I'm finishing up a term on a volunteer board which is why this attracted my attention. In my case the typical terms are 2-3 years and the continuity issues alone would make something like this challenging. Seems HOA was underfunding repairs for years which might explain the delay getting repairs started.
Click to expand...

I was on a volunteer board on a non profit.To my amazement, they did not have director's insurance. I informed them that my tenure would be extremely brief if they did not provide it. Board members are legally liable for their duties, as paid or volunteer workers.
 
D&O policies also vary. Good ones cost money and many HOA's aren't getting the correct/ better polices. If EVER on ANY BOARD, make sure to read the D&O policy.

D&O polices usually don't cover gross negligence, but that is a pretty high bar to cross. In the end, BARF's a pretty smart group. I haven't seen the media focus on HOA's as yet.
 
An interesting parallel to this is the local Millennium Tower fiasco. Lots of lawsuits, and IIRC no work (for over 2 years) was done to fix the situation until there was clarity on how it would be paid for. The difference in the Tower case is that it was a relatively new construction as was the neighboring Trans Bay Terminal construction. I followed that case pretty close because I used to work across the street and always wondered about the risks of digging a giant hole next to a tall building.
 
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