Condo Media - October 2012 - 31

violating the community’s one-pet rule
because her two dogs combined fell
under the specified weight limit for
pets and so should count as only one
dog. Another owner, whose dog was
grandfathered when the community
banned pets, quietly replaced that dog
and others as they died over the years
with identical dogs of the same breed.
Kansky calculated that the original pet
“would have been about 30 years old.”
7. They think owners rule.
This has less to do with a sense of
responsibility than a sense of entitlement
— a belief that owners can give orders
to and demand services from managers,
board members and outside vendors.
“They view management staff as their
employees and managers as some sort of
indentured slaves,” Shapiro says.
These owners, who tend to preface
conversations by saying, “You work for
me,” often operate like “roving superintendents,”
notes Daniel Polvere, a
partner in the Massachusetts law firm
MPD Law. Although they have no
authority, they instruct maintenance
staff and outside contractors, criticize
and sometimes harangue them, and
often impede their work. Polvere, who
says he has occasionally filed criminal
harassment charges against particularly
aggressive and offensive owners, advises
boards to adopt a rule prohibiting
residents from harassing or otherwise
interfering with contactors or staff
members. It is best for boards to enact
this rule, he suggests, before they are
dealing with the problem.
8. They think owners should have a
say in and vote on everything.
In fact, Brady says, “owners vote for
very little,” and he thinks that’s generally
a good thing. Owners vote to
amend the documents; they vote for
improvements (adding something that
wasn’t there before), but not for
repairs; they vote to elect board members
and can vote to remove them. But
they don’t vote on the contractors the
association hires or the contracts the
board signs, Brady notes, “they don’t
generally vote on the budget and
issues related to it,” and, he suggests,
owners definitely should not vote on
assessments. Boards should make those
decisions, he says, because they have
“a fiduciary duty to maintain the property,”
impelling them to approve
expenditures that owners, given the
option, might reject.
Boards might want to solicit owners’
input and advice on less critical issues
— for example, whether to repaint the
lobby or resurface the swimming pool,
Brady agrees. But he doesn’t think
owners should vote on these issues
either. He uses the pool resurfacing
question as an example.
“Most owners don’t swim and so
wouldn’t consider resurfacing the pool
a priority,” he explains, so they probably
wouldn’t attend a meeting to vote
on the question. Swimmers, on the
other hand, would likely turn out in
force, representing a majority at the
meeting with sufficient votes to approve
an expenditure that most owners
wouldn’t support. Boards should make
these decisions, Brady says, because
they can approach the issues more
objectively, with a broader view of the
needs of the community as a whole.
9. Owners don’t understand the
relationship between the services
they want and the fees required to
pay for them.
McBride describes this affliction,
widely shared by owners, as having
“champagne taste and a beer pocketbook.”
Economists describe it as the
difference between demand — what
people want — and “effective
demand” — the price they are able or
willing to pay for it. It plays out as
vocal, adamant opposition to proposed
increases in common area fees
or special assessments, and equally
vocal complaints about perceived
declines in maintenance quality or
association services.
10. They think association fees
should never increase.
This is obviously related to the discon-
nect between services and their costs,
but it also reflects the tendency of owners
to focus on their short-term interests
(“What will this cost me today?”) rather
than the long-term interests of the community
as a whole, which returns neatly
to the first item on this list: Owners
don’t understand the fundamentals of
common interest ownership living.
The knowledge gap reflected in this
list isn’t new, nor is it characteristic of
all condominium owners. Some clearly
know more than others and some communities
function better than others as
a result. But the gap between what
owners know and what they need to
know is real, and some industry executives
think it has recently grown wider
and more problematic. “It almost
seems as if someone has been poisoning
the water and turning everyone
into idiots,” one manager suggested.
Many managers noted a decline in
civility and common courtesy — others
bemoaned what they view as a lack
of common sense. How else to explain
the owner who questioned whether
the company the association had
retained to clean dryer vents in the
community had actually cleaned his.
“Did they measure the amount of lint
they removed?” he wanted to know.
Another owner complained to Kansky
after slipping on a spot where snow had
been plowed and sanded but refrozen
overnight. The owner was offended
when Kansky suggested gently that perhaps
the high heels she was wearing
weren’t the best choice of footwear.
“There isn’t any legislation, regulation,
ordinance, bylaw or rule that can
overcome absolute stupidity,” one
industry commentator noted.
But it’s the lack of civility that managers
find most distressing. McBride
thinks financial pressures are partly
responsible for making many owners
less patient, and “more mean-spirited”
— attitudes that are reflected negatively
in their interactions with neighbors,
board members, managers and association
staff. “It’s a sad change,”
McBride says, “disheartening in some
respects and very tough on staff.”
CONDO MEDIA • OCTOBER 2012
31
Condo Media - October 2012

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