How much stock should one put in that declaration of safety? It is from an "independent" analysis... but who paid the analysts? Or, suppose absolute freedom from bias... how many times have expert opinions of safety been wrong in the face of mother nature. Picture Fukushima.

The risks in a tilting building are many. From a market value standpoint, homeowner value has already been destroyed simply by perception. If remediation is necessary here, homeowner fees could dramatically increase. Tilting buildings often see cracks in walls, malfunctioning elevators and other ills which also lower value. There will be lawsuits here-- you can see all sides rattling sabers with legalistic language and positioning already just from these articles -- and those will carry costs as well. Taxpayers may well be pulled into the fray and suffer as well in these situations.

From a pure safety standpoint, experience dictates that we should discount expert declarations of safety in many such matters. Residents of the tower and the towers' neighbors may do well to heed caution. At the end of the day, it is hubris to expect to predict with any high degree of confidence what might happen here. After all, none of the experts from any side involved foresaw even the current predicament, where no grand act of nature is even involved. The building simply stands there, yet already reacts in unpredicted ways. How likely are the experts then to foresee predicaments in even more complex situations?