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?
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?
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!
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.
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.
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?
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.