Condo Board Performing Maintenance on Unit Components

What's the item in question?

After Surfside in Florida, Condo boards are under the microscope. Depending on the item, I would not second guess it.

What is the item in question.

I am guessing at duct cleaning. If so and a central system, they might well be within their rights to enter and clean.

"Dig in my heels" means fight this now (think demand letter from an attorney at a minimum). My reaction is the same as yours, especially since some of the board members have a long-standing belief that they should be able to do what they want. I resigned because I didn't want to keep fighting stuff like this when I was outnumbered.

The reason this is hard is because in general I'm in favor of proactive safety measures. But the board needs to decide that the current CC&Rs don't support this goal and take steps to amend them. In other words, I have no problem with the goal, only with the means of achieving it.

head for the hills...

https://www.nfpa.org/-/media/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/US-Fire-Problem/osdryer.ashx

Let me see i I understand this correctly.

Both you and Kerry live in condos that have dryer vents that are the responsibilty of the owner to maintain. Kerry's HOA appears to engage a company to clean the vents for a fee of $95 and the owners can opt out.

Isn't Cathy describing the exact same thing, as she mentions in the first post, "that the board decided to add this service". Cathy later added there was no special assessment or fee.

Could you point out where Cathy said the HOA paid?

And this is what Kerry stated:

So Our HOA offers the service once annually, which just occurred. Owners pay. It cost $95 and about 1/2 of Owners signed up for the service.

It's one thing to provide a service, but since we're talking about something that's supposed to be homeowner responsibility, there should have been a discussion with the association's master insurance carrier and the attorney, and then homeowners should have been notified of the potential impact - namely increased assessments because (1) the documents would have to be changed and a certain percentage would have to approve it, (2) the master insurance policy would have to be updated to cover the vents - and the premium adjusted accordingly and (3) homeowners would have to prepare to allow the association to bring in a vendor to clean the vents every year (in fact, I need to do that for my own house). If anyone wanted to opt out, I'd want to require annual verifiable proof they had the vents cleaned by a qualified vendor - or risk covering the association's deductible if there was a dryer fire. So, I think you should bring it up - what is it they say about hurricanes are announced through the flap of a butterfly's wings or something like that?

It's an interesting question that applies to my townhouse community, although the association doesn't pay for dryer vent cleaning. When the community was built in the 1970s, the developer installed roofs where all the dryer vents went to the one shared roof and the hot air would leave through those vents. However, the cheap-A developer didn't install enough vents - the number installed was compliant with the current city code. Years later, when moi showed up, my home inspector noticed this and said there was a chance the association would be on the hook for repairs/replacement of the entire roof if it failed and the manufacturer said tough shit - y'all didn't install the number of vents according to our specifications and now you voided the warranty.

When I asked the board about this, most everyone was surprised - one commented he couldn't figure out why one part of his home was so much hotter than the other - and now he knew why. It wasn't addressed at the time because handling delinquencies was a major issue at the time. Happily, there was never a fire and a hailstorm resulted in us getting new roofs with the proper number of vents.

I don't know how many people go about getting the vents cleaned (in fact, I'm behind in getting my own done, which I'll take care of in the next two weeks). I may attend next week's board meeting and ask about this, as it would be helpful if people started doing this regularly. In the meantime, feel free to use this story as a way to jab the board into doing some more thinking on the subject.

I appreciate all of the questions and comments, they're helpful.

No, there was no rule. I suppose that in condos, almost anything that is the owner's responsibility to maintain has the potential to affect the common elements somehow. Some boards may view this as an excuse to adopt a lot of intrusive rules, but I'd rather have the rules out in the open rather than finding out that they've hired a company to perform work on my property and workers are showing up in a few days.

And yes, operating funds are being used to pay for this. (Speculating here: the board may have discovered that doing something like this will lower our insurance premiums enough to pay for the work.)

The announcement we received did not mention being able to opt out, so in effect they are forcing everyone to have this. I was told that I could opt out only after I objected and sent them the quotes from our CC&Rs showing that they have no authority to do this.

As I'd mentioned earlier, I'm in favor of the board being proactive about safety and saving money. I only object to the way they're going about it since it amounts to an unlawful amendment to our CC&Rs with no homeowner input. Unfortunately, based on past experience with the current directors, I'm afraid it will come down to accepting it, hiring a lawyer (because this crew will double down rather than admit they're in the wrong), or rallying the rest of the community to unseat them. ("Live with it, fix it, or move" - as I'm fond of telling others.)

The two fires we've had in this community were the result of food burning in the kitchen.

The ironic thing about this is that many of our condo buildings are equipped with sprinkler systems that are serviced and inspected annually. If some dryer lint ever does catch fire, the unit owner will be dealing with more water damage than fire damage. :-) And since our community is fairly young, all of our smoke detectors are hard wired - owners can't disable them by pulling out the batteries. And the fire department is less than 1/2 mile from here. It would be pretty difficult to burn down a building here.

None of the 2021 meeting minutes available on our website mention this decision. It's possible that it came up during the last meeting and the minutes haven't been posted yet, but the timing would be pretty tight for approving a non-emergency decision, going out for bids and approving a final selection - so I'll go out on a limb and say there is no evidence of this decision having been made during a board meeting this year. I don't believe that homeowners are entitled to view bids, only contracts - so that wouldn't get me anywhere either.

Ohio allows email decisions as long as they're unanimous and the decisions appear in meeting minutes, so it's possible the board discussed it via email and never added it to the minutes.

The dryer vent folks showed up this morning. They posted a notice on my front door, so I expect I'll have to be here to enforce my "opt out" when they come back after lunch. Good times...

Cathy

Does any of the dryer vent run through a pipe in the wall of ceiling to the outside versus a direct to the outside hookup? If a pipe, I can understand the BOD's concern as the pipe runs thru common/shared walls/ceilings, etc.

Our ducts also run about 30 feet, straight shot outs to l our Blanca ceilings. but why should that concern the HOA, HJohnC?

From Section 5311.081 | Powers and duties of board of directors:

(B) Unless otherwise provided in the declaration, the unit owners association, through the board of directors, may exercise all powers of the association, including the power to do the following:
...

(5) Adopt rules that regulate the use or occupancy of units, the maintenance, repair, replacement, modification, and appearance of units, common elements, and limited common elements when the actions regulated by those rules affect common elements or other units;

My observations:
-- From the sound of what CathyA3 posted, I think it's clear each vent serves exactly one unit, and per the declaration therefore the vent is the unit owner's responsibility. Since the declaration appears to be clear that the dryer vents are the owner's responsibility to maintain, then because of the phrase "nless otherwise provided in the declaration... ," the statute section above about adopting rules does not apply.

-- Similar to what KerryL1 posted, I think board-created "rules" refer to rules for unit owners. I do not think board-created rules are for the purpose of creating new corporate obligations for maintenance. In this case, the rule is something like, "Owners do not have to clean their dryer vents, because a vent full of lint could cause overheating of the lint in the vent and a fire in a unit's dryer, likely affecting other units. Instead, the corporation will ensure dryer vents are cleaned, unless an owner wants to arrange and pay for his/her own cleaning of his/her unit's vent." This is pretty wishy-washy.

-- A condo Board can, say, instruct owners not to keep woodpiles on their patios (for their fireplaces), on account of the risk of termites. But this is rule adds no new financial obligation to the COA.

-- A far more appropriate rule in my opinion would be: "Owners shall have their dryer vents professionally cleaned once [twice?] each year and provide proof of this cleaning within three days of its being performed."

-- IIRC my former condo association cleaned some dryer vents up to a certain short distance, where some of the vents penetrated the corporate owned wall and were accessible by leaning a ladder against the corporate-owned wall? The unit owner was responsible for the rest? I believe some vents went to the roof and the Board was clear these were entirely the unit owner's responsibility to keep clean.

-- Regarding slippery slopes all to prevent an event in a unit that may affect other units or the common elemens: What's next? A board-created rule that says, "No cooking in units unless the cook is certified in the use of fire extinguishers"?

-- One of the problems in fighting this may be that many owners feel that, yes, vents should be cleaned at least once yearly, and if this can be done collectively by the corporation, it might save all some money and ensure safety. Yes, this should be done by a formal amendment vote. But if say owners come to board meetings and just want their darned vents cleaned and the assurance that their neighbors' vent cleaned, then this is a lot for one person to go up against. Pariah status may be likely.

-- I too wonder about insurance companies' position on this. At my former condo, about a third of the units have fireplaces. The board created a rule requiring proof of chimney cleaning once every two years. I believe this was something the insurer asked for et cetera. But again, this was a rule that did not add a new expense for the corporation.

-- I agree with others that there is a line a court would draw. The line is what is "fair and reasonable." Toss a coin on what a judge would rule. CathyA3 is talking a sequence of demand letters. Unfortunately, and with the Florida Surfside condo disaster now being a compelling example of why condo boards need to think safety, I am not sure how far I would take this. I might start with a letter pointing out much of what I post here (and other sound reasons that I know CathyA3 is more than capable of preparing), including the slippery slope argument, and asking the board to consult the COA attorney. If the attorney rules in favor of the board, I would give up on this one. But it might be a partial victory, too: It might enlighten the board on when it can undertake a maintenance responsibility.