Gate Malfunction

A few months ago, several cars were damaged coming into our community by the gates closing too soon. Its a double gate entry, but one side of the gate would close sooner than the other and it ended up scraping the sides of several cars over several months. This gate was repaired several times by our Management company owner to save money. Those people whos cars were damaged were told to talk to their insurance company. Is the Management company liable personally or is the Community? We never authorized the management company to fix it. He did that on his own as the gates are 13 years old and parts are hard to come by. He doesn't want to spend the money on new gates. What is the recourse on these people's cars? He also will be installing new key-pads himself but awaiting the programming details from the company. What is the liability on that?

If you're on the board, why haven't you folks discussed these repairs with the property manager months ago and told him to stop it (that includes the plan to install new keypads)? The property manager is supposed to handle the day to day operations under the board's direction -someone needs to make this clear to him or you need to consider getting another property manager.

And why haven't you addressed the repairs before now - if this was a problem months ago and parts are difficult to find, it seems to me you should have been talking about replacement all along. That's why the point about reserves is a good one - it's ok to save money, but I would think the gate should have been part of the reserve study, which makes me wonder when was the last time you had one. Are you following the study's recommendations? If not, why not? If you can't fix the gate, you'll have to talk about replacing it, and if you don't have the money in reserves, you may need to look at a special assessment, depending on the cost? The owners won't be happy about that, and if you're on the board, you'll need to explain why all of this is necessary.

If you're not on the board, these are the questions you need to be asking them.

As for who's responsible for the damages, I would say the property manager - if, in fact, he's done these repairs on his own without any direction from the board, but it may be best for the owners of the damaged cars to contact their insurance companies and let the companies duke it out with the property manager's insurance (that's why insurance was invented).

With others, I cannot imagine why the board would permit the PM to do these repairs!

Are you on the board, Kelly? You know what? I'd say the board is responsible for letting this manager run amok and get involved in fixing items UNLESS there're in the contract with the Mgmt. Company.

Otherwise, the buck stops with the board; they hired the MC and approved a contract.

Well, let the damaged car owners duke it out with someone's insurance company--MC's or the HOAs. But this HOA board needs to realize that ultimate responsibility rests with them. Your board may end up needing your attorney on this one.

What do you think is going on, Kelly? Careless board? Pushy MC?

Our community had a gate entry system that was 30 years old! Talk about parts that were hard to come by ours were non-existent! LOL. I feel your pain.

Anyway we finally had to purchase an entirely new system (Master control panel, vehicle gate motors, vehicle gate receivers, and of course gate openers for all homeowners). We hired a professional gate company to do it all and they finished the work in 2 days and we haven't had any problems since. Problem solved. Easy peasy.

We had a property manager in the past who was able to perform some minor maintenance on the old system and he was a very competent fellow so all his repairs worked as well as they could given how old the system was... and it did save us money but in the end it was better to spend all the money necessary to finally get it done right. Unlike you there was never any vehicle damage which, IMHO, is beyond unacceptable! Get a real gate company out there to fix it!

I think it is far more likely than not that the HOA's governing documents and/or case law say that the HOA is responsible for paying for the damage to the vehicles. I think if the HOA had used a licensed contractor with the proper bonding, then this would not be the HOA's problems. This will be a hard lesson for all.

Kelly,

This is an issue the Board needs to address.

The drivers who were advised to contact their insurance company will likely result in the drivers insurance company filing a claim against the HOA insurance company [especially for those damaged after the first one if that fact is known].

The HOA, if desired and the work was a violation of contract, would have to seek damages from the MC.

Bottom line, the damage to the vehicles would be the Associations responsibility.