Comment by malwarebytess | Hacker News Reader

Comment by malwarebytess | Hacker News Reader

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The letter seems intended to convince residents to pony up for necessary repairs.

The engineer in 2008 warned that the damage would increase "exponentially." The engineer from the 2018 report was put in charge of overseeing the repairs in 2019; and it seems like the repairs were planned, moving slowly. How much of this 3 year delay is because of HOA politics?

There was some indication that the damage was potentially worse than it appeared:

>Also, when performing any concrete restoration work, it is impossible to know the extent of the damage to the underlying rebar until the concrete is opened up. Oftentimes the damage is more extensive than can be determined by inspection of the surface.

Does this letter demonstrate negligence by the engineering firm? If the damage was that bad should the firm have contacted the city? Did the residents contribute to the delay?

A haunting quote:

> A lot of this work could have been done or planned for in years gone by. But this is where we are now.

The letter from April:

https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/miamiletter0628...

Humans are weird creatures. It's hard to believe something so far out of the ordinary can happen until it does happen. Black swan events come to mind. Yes, the building needed a lot of work done but imminent collapse was probably not on anyones mind.

HOA politics may have been part of it, but it was probably simpler. It was going to cost a lot of money, and people tend to fight large assessments.

The bigger HOA failure sounds like 40 years of poor maintenance. There are reports of a similar building nearby that was maintained, and it shows none of the same problems.

> It was going to cost a lot of money, and people tend to fight large assessments.

If a condo block will need work costing $100,000 per unit after 40 years, what's the proper way of financing that?

Does the HOA start saving up for it from year 1 by charging a hefty management fee? Do they rely on every homeowner being able to come up with $100,000 on demand? Do they just assume they won't be around in 40 years so it's someone else's problem?

I've never really heard a satisfactory answer to that, which is one of the reasons I don't own a condo.

Not in the USA, but I've lived in apartment buildings my whole life, and I own the apartment I currently live in. While I haven't seen such an extreme number, I have seen the way expensive repairs are dealt with. It's always decided in a condominium assembly, so every apartment owner has its say and it's put to a vote. For least expensive repairs, it's either an extra fee on the monthly condominium payment, or it comes from the condominium "emergency funds" account (which is then gradually recharged through the monthly condominium payments). For more expensive repairs, the extra fee is spread over several months. For really expensive repairs like your example, I'd expect the value to be financed (borrowing from a bank or similar), and gradually paid back through an extra fee on the monthly condominium payments.

Great question. Not a condo, but my neighborhood has 3 docks that go over salt water. They were built properly to code, but even with proper maintenance, after a certain period of time they will need to mostly be replaced. In order to prepare for this eventuality, the HOA raised fees by ~10% and has already started saving for a decade+ out.

It doesn’t have to be a heft fee if planned for. Docks are a known quantity where I live so planning is normal. 40 years ago did the HOA know they need to save for maintenance and repairs? What about 20 years? There is another building nearby that is exactly the same as the building that collapsed, but their HOA kept up with proper maintenance. That other building seems like it’s in great shape for a 40 year old building.

It will be interesting to see what happened here. Was the HOA so negligent over such a long period of time that it was just too hard to catch up (100k assessment is hard for most people)?

Not in the US. In germany, every HOA has something called "Instandhaltungsrücklage", basically a fund earmarked for repairs and maintenance that gets filled by monthly payments separate from the the rest of the fees. The exact payment depends on the age of the building and gets adjusted over time. I pay 1EUR/month/sqm into such a fund. Over 40 years, that would cover at least half of the sum you mentioned. In this case, costs nearly doubled because required maintenance work was pushed off, so that would have worked out just fine.

We call that a reserve fund here in Canada and there are mandatory reserve fund reviews to ensure they are properly funded.

You sort of need a condo savings account that can be invested where the premiums you pay get invested. You need some laws or state regulations to make sure some minimums are maintained. The gains would then offset a potentially lower selling price since the HOA would have enough money to cover repairs.

But at the same time for a single family home, it is not unusual to invest 100k in a remodel if the location supports it on a 40 year old house. A condo should operate similarly although the scope of changes you can make is different obviously.

A friend of mine had this happen at his condo building, I think the assessment was $150k. The HOA offered financing via an "association loan"

Other stories say there were 136 apartments in the building, so $15M / 136 = $110,294 per apartment. I imagine there were quite a few owners where that was just not possible. So denial kicks in.

HOA politics is a nightmare. Our HOA is trying to re-paint our condo as it had faded out and has been a 1 year exercise to vote for the resolution, get bids, choose vendor, approve vendor etc. There have been opposition in every stage by people who voted no but they don’t want to give up. I can completely understand the desperation in that letter. It was a very well worded letter for one such.

Well, it does look like they were able to save money on demolition costs.

Jokes aside, this is a horrible tragedy. It would be interesting to know if they had earlier warnings as well and if that didn't contribute to ignoring the problem as there were no major consequences.

It would be interesting to know when in 2018 that the report was finalized as that would be around the same time as the FIU bridge collapse.

Seeing things like this makes me very wary to have joint ownership as the majority can hold the minority hostage on things like repair.

And what could you do in this situation? Sell your unit? If it collapses in 6 months to a year and kills the person you sold it to, what is the morality of that decision?

And some people try to push their agenda and make it about climate change. Absolutely ridiculous! "Did climate change undermine Champlain Towers South?" https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/06/28/did-clima...

I can't tell if you're trying to be sarcastic or not, but if not, you should've definitely picked a better link. That link says "climate change wasn't the only reason", not "climate change has nothing to do with this".

I was sarcastic. I guess it's hard to tell.

Even now I'm not sure I understand what part you are claiming was sarcasm.

Only way to use sarcasm online is, making it literal with the help of a closing tag like /sarcasm o </sarcasm> Is like winking your eye after your sarcastic phrase

Sarcasm is a lazy rhetorical tool that doesn’t translate well to the internet. IMO it’s best avoided online.

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