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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

The irony here is I've never found my neighborhood HOA problematic. They plan the block party and take care of the landscaping of the neighborhood signage.

My condo HOA experience was so bad I would never again recommend someone buy a condo. They refused to look at a structural issue until I got a lawyer and then refused to let the residents see the engineering report for the building we legally own. (Note: If you ever experience this, get out. There is no louder signal of an unsafe structure than "the engineering report is privileged".)

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Is that legal?!

I would have thought your lawyer would be salivating at the prospect of raking your HOA over the coals. Or at least of mailing a nastygram with all sorts of colorful threats. I suppose not?

It is most decidedly not legal, but they had the largest condo law firm in the Chicago area on retainer who made the statement they wouldn't provide it. (Literally the lawyer I was recommended to use until it turned out... it was theirs.) Their lawyer's own website basically said the HOA can't hide stuff like this from owners.

Which is to say if I had had the time and money for a protracted court drama, I do think a judge would have literally laughed them out of the courthouse, but everyone involved knew the case wouldn't get that far.

One really fun fact I learned from this is lawyers mostly just email each other polite requests with the vague threat of "this could escalate to court" as the grease that moves things. And if one side doesn't think it'll end up in court they just... say no!

There's an agency problem here.

The building could have been perfectly safe but the lawyer wants to "win" so says "fuck you we won't provide the report". The lawyer has no stake in the health of the project, if they are a litigator they just care about "winning".

Alternatively the building could have been about to collapse but the lawyer wants to "win" and doesn't live there so says "fuck you we won't provide it." Same result, different safety profile.

So in Illinois merely refusing to provide the report is illegal on its own. So it's unlikely a condo lawyer did this "just to win" for a safe building. Specifically if you take the HOA to court for not revealing a document they legally have to, and the judge sides with the unit owner, the HOA has to pay the owner's attorney fees.

The issue is HOAs and management companies have warchests for stuff like this, individual owners of partial-buildings generally do not have a lot of money to fund lawyers until the judgment happens.

Maybe you could explain why you think they refused to turn the engineer report over?

Obviously I don't know the details but their lawyer being an adversarial asshole sounds most likely to me.

What other explanation is there? Like... was the board planning to sell their units before people realized the building had problems?

So the HOA was indeed quite concerned with their property values and that a higher assessment impacts sale value. It's also important to note that this HOA covered multiple buildings, and none of the board lived in mine: So their unit was not at risk from the structure, but their assessment price was.

The buildings were approaching an age where more significant/costly maintenance is necessary and I don't think they wanted to have to do those things.

HOAs get lots of hate because many are terrible, but like all things there are good ones and bad ones.

My current suburban HOA is fine. My only gripe with them is when I had to get some outdoor changes approved, I never heard back from them so I had to wait until it was approved by default after no response for X days. Dues are $160/year so I'm not really complaining. Other than that, they maintain the common areas and the only times I've seen them flex their muscles were to pressure the bank to maintain and sell foreclosed homes in the neighborhood to get somebody living there again.

I also used to own a condo in a four unit building and the HOA board was just everyone who lived in the building.

I can imagine some scenarios where portions of the report may be privileged - if there are photos of people's apartments or unique information. But the summary with a list of deficiencies and recommended/required actions should certainly be provided!

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