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Comment by ocdtrekkie | Hacker News Reader

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!

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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.

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