Man Is Annoyed With His Awful Neighbor, So When She Decides To Move, He Is Very Strict About The Rules
Shutterstock
When you live in a condo, there’s really no way around the equivalent of an HOA. If you have an awful neighbor in the building, that can make life pretty miserable.
In this story, we hear from a man who is in a condo and who ends up having pretty much all the power in the condo association along with his wife. They use this power to get back at a neighbor they don’t like.
Keep reading to find out how they got the power and why they wanted to get revenge.
Neighbor in condo association acts like a jerk and we get her to move away
I live in a city in the North East in a relatively small condo association (6 units).
It’s surrounded by new construction, but this particular building is a very old 1850s mansion that was converted into condos back in the 1980s.
Because of this every unit is totally unique with different square footage and layouts (important later).
The neighbor sounds really annoying.
The jerk neighbor, let’s call her Monica, was the daughter of the owner.
She’s also a has-been politician who was a former mayor of a small city in the state who lost re-election almost 10 years ago.
But she mentions this ALL THE TIME, in emails, in casual conversation, “my former time as mayor”, “I’m very connected in the state as you know”, and on and on.
It seems that Monica really does have connections.
Another neighbor, let’s call her Rachel, decided to sell her unit. As part of this process she made improvements on it and had contractors frequently.
We have a back hallway that is required for contractors to access units, and a painter had left some minor things on the first floor as he was working.
Jerk Monica apparently did have some connections because without asking my neighbor or talking to the contractor she managed to get a city inspector to come right over who immediately fined the contractor for “impeding access” in the hallway despite it being a small number of supplies.
The contractor was so mad he said he would never do another job in this building – very annoying as trusted contractors are hard to find.
Monica did this because she likes to flex and is a jerk.
It seems like a lot of people are moving.
Well, I spoke to Rachel before listing and I offered to buy it from her direct. We agreed on a price and avoided real estate agent fees, plus she just wanted a simple transaction as she already had a new house.
I acquire the unit and start renting it out.
Then another neighbor, Phoebe, wants to sell.
The real estate agent emails all the owners in the building and tells us about the open house.
Monica is really jumping to the wrong conclusions here.
Well it turns out Monica wasn’t contacted (because she’s not an owner) and because of this takes it upon herself to report the real estate agent to the state board for discrimination because Monica is black.
Cue the real estate agent calling me in a panic, asking me to vouch for her in a disciplinary review (which I oblige).
Absolutely insane behavior.
The unit sells over asking. Everything is great as it’s boosting the value of our units and the building.
A problem led to an interesting discovery.
However the buyer is insisting that the condo board signs off that all HOA fees are paid with a form that’s submitted to the registry of deeds, which requires a valid condo board.
Since Rachel moved out, there is no condo board. We have been derelict in our duties – we haven’t had an association meeting in years not a single valid trustee since Rachel moved away.
I read the condo docs with a magnifying glass over and over.
It turns out with my two units, my wife and myself can each represent 1 unit and have 52% of the voting power because our two units have 52% of the total square footage (ours are each 3br while the rest are two 2br and two 1br). We have just slightly the max footage of the building and the majority “beneficial interest” which effectively gives us full say over the building.
This is sad for Monica.
As the sale process is happening, Monica’s mother passes away from cancer, which she had been fighting for years. Monica now becomes an owner as she inherits the unit.
In order to be elected to the condo board you need the majority of beneficial interest and at least 3 units to vote for you.
We have 52% of the beneficial interest but only 2 units. Therefore 1 more unit has to agree.
This is an interesting loophole.
I get the owner who’s selling and moving away to agree to vote for myself and my wife, and I vote for them in return. That gives quorum.
We sign off on the condo fees, and then the seller resigns from the board promptly.
Now only my wife and I are trustees.
According to strict reading of the condo docs, my wife and I now have de facto control of the board, and never have to have another election, because with beneficial interest 52% we never have to approve anyone else, and even if everyone else votes, they can only get a maximum of 48%. In this situation the remaining trustees can be the trustees indefinitely if there can not be quorum achieved.
They got their revenge on Monica.
Monica throughout everything has been protesting aggressively, accusing us of being judgemental (despite my wife and I being Vietnamese), and sending legal threats.
My lawyer has been countering everything and there is no issue.
Monica has now decided to sell and move away. It turns out she inherited $15000 in unpaid condo dues that no one bothered to collect (because we had no board and were disorganized) that she will have to pay in order to get approval to sell.
Never Miss a StorySign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
Furthermore all of her contractors doing work on the inherited unit have had to park far away because my wife and I have been VERY STRICT about hallways and driveway parking of vehicles impeding access which is absolutely no allowed.
They weren’t going to go easy on her.
We even got a van towed who was doing work on her unit because it “impeded access”.
The tow truck works for the condo association rather than the city so we could approve is as the trustees.
If Monica hadn’t been such a total jerk we would have been totally reasonable about everything. But once she started bringing lawyers and inspectors and playing the rude angle everything became war for us.
And she lost.
Well, with Monica moving out and OP and his wife having full control, it sounds like there shouldn’t be much drama anymore…unless another neighbor crosses them. It sounds like you don’t want to be on OP’s bad side.
Let’s see how Reddit responded.
This person calls out the fact that OP used the names of two characters from the show Friends (Monica and Rachel) in this story.
Same!
One person thinks this story could be a movie.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who escalates her issue to the state when a third family is added to a shared neighborhood well.
Another person has a prediction that I sure hope doesn’t come true.
Monica for Governor would be a sad day for everyone in that state.
At least she’s moving away. The drama is almost over, and the condo association is theirs to rule (or to ignore the rules like they had been doing).
Enjoyed this story?
Sign up to get our BEST stories of the week straight to your inbox.
