Condo - HOA Requirements in CO Law

[sdebeaubien]

We own (owned) a condo in CO and have had water leak damage several times from an upstairs unit. The first time it happened, we had to fix the damage ourselves, including a repair to the main building supply line. Insurance helped pay for the damage in our unit but we put in over 80 hours of work replacing the carpet and repainting and so on.

The unit upstairs leaked again, starting in Dec. 2008. We called the HOA, they sent a guy out to assess the situation, and they said it was not their fault, but that they would be in contact with the owners upstairs. They contacted the owners, but the leak was never fixed. Our unit is still a mess. Then, while they were (not) getting that leak fixed, a supply line to their dishwasher burst and flooded our unit again!

We called a contractor to assess our damage, and he said we were not responsible for anything, but that the HOA should get the upstairs folks to get everything fixed. By Colorado law he said, the owners have 10 days to fix these types of problems. We contacted our HOA again, and they said they would fix it, but now they have abandoned us.

During the middle of all this, we were in a "resolution" phase for "late" payments of our HOA fees. We _never_ missed a payment to this particular management firm (they are in California). The HOA was previously managed by a Colorado firm where we did miss a payment about 6 or 7 years ago. They never even charged us late fees, they just sent us a letter letting us know we missed a payment (still not sure how it happened) they proved it to my satisfaction - I paid the fee and we went on.

About 3 years ago, management of the HOA changed over to this California firm, and they changed the "late" date for fees from the 15th of the month to the 10th of the month. Fees were always due on the 1st, and I always tried to get the check sent off by the first (there was no way to automatically pay them except to sign up for automatic monthly transfers which we did not want to do). They also had a "pay online" method available but that cost $7 per use so was not a good option either.

Anyhow, we were late on a few payments, they notified us so we started paying extra every month to get caught up. They then charged us late fees for being late! In other words, because the late fees totaled more than a month worth of HOA dues, they charged us for being late because we were late! That is downright mean, especially since we agreed we had been late, and we were paying extra to get caught up.

Then, they slapped a lien on the property right in the middle of all this leakage in our unit, which, since they had been contacted as early as December of last year, they were obligated to followup and make sure everything was fixed. At least, to our way of thinking they are.

We are now at the point where our tenant stopped paying rent and has since moved out. I lost my job, we have a single income now, with Unemployment Insurance. However, we stopped paying the mortgage on the condo, and the HOA fees, because of all this mess, and because we can no longer afford it, and now the HOA is suing us.

Do we have grounds to not pay them? Do we have grounds to sue them for all this mess? What the heck do we do?

The court paperwork they have filled out for the case against us makes it all sound like we are the bad guys. As in all things, what they have written is only part of the truth.

Thanks for any help. We have little money since I have no job right now, and we can barely make our bills (we cannot really even pay all those as you have seen from the above).

-Scott & Cheryl deBeaubien
Aurora, CO

[HomeGuru]

[quote=sdebeaubien;2314932]We own (owned) a condo in CO and have had water leak damage several times from an upstairs unit. The first time it happened, we had to fix the damage ourselves, including a repair to the main building supply line. Insurance helped pay for the damage in our unit but we put in over 80 hours of work replacing the carpet and repainting and so on.

The unit upstairs leaked again, starting in Dec. 2008. We called the HOA, they sent a guy out to assess the situation, and they said it was not their fault, but that they would be in contact with the owners upstairs. They contacted the owners, but the leak was never fixed. Our unit is still a mess. Then, while they were (not) getting that leak fixed, a supply line to their dishwasher burst and flooded our unit again!

We called a contractor to assess our damage, and he said we were not responsible for anything, but that the HOA should get the upstairs folks to get everything fixed. By Colorado law he said, the owners have 10 days to fix these types of problems. We contacted our HOA again, and they said they would fix it, but now they have abandoned us.

During the middle of all this, we were in a "resolution" phase for "late" payments of our HOA fees. We _never_ missed a payment to this particular management firm (they are in California). The HOA was previously managed by a Colorado firm where we did miss a payment about 6 or 7 years ago. They never even charged us late fees, they just sent us a letter letting us know we missed a payment (still not sure how it happened) they proved it to my satisfaction - I paid the fee and we went on.

About 3 years ago, management of the HOA changed over to this California firm, and they changed the "late" date for fees from the 15th of the month to the 10th of the month. Fees were always due on the 1st, and I always tried to get the check sent off by the first (there was no way to automatically pay them except to sign up for automatic monthly transfers which we did not want to do). They also had a "pay online" method available but that cost $7 per use so was not a good option either.

Anyhow, we were late on a few payments, they notified us so we started paying extra every month to get caught up. They then charged us late fees for being late! In other words, because the late fees totaled more than a month worth of HOA dues, they charged us for being late because we were late! That is downright mean, especially since we agreed we had been late, and we were paying extra to get caught up.

Then, they slapped a lien on the property right in the middle of all this leakage in our unit, which, since they had been contacted as early as December of last year, they were obligated to followup and make sure everything was fixed. At least, to our way of thinking they are.

We are now at the point where our tenant stopped paying rent and has since moved out. I lost my job, we have a single income now, with Unemployment Insurance. However, we stopped paying the mortgage on the condo, and the HOA fees, because of all this mess, and because we can no longer afford it, and now the HOA is suing us.

Do we have grounds to not pay them? Do we have grounds to sue them for all this mess? What the heck do we do?

The court paperwork they have filled out for the case against us makes it all sound like we are the bad guys. As in all things, what they have written is only part of the truth.

Thanks for any help. We have little money since I have no job right now, and we can barely make our bills (we cannot really even pay all those as you have seen from the above).

-Scott & Cheryl deBeaubien
Aurora, CO[/QUOTE


**A: it does not appear that you have much to argue about to help your situation.