This may not be just a plumbing issue, but before you go out and buy a condominium, or if you already own one, here are a few of our stories about condo living. Caveat emptor!!

Let me tell you a few stories.

We went to look at a leaking waste pipe in  the basement of one condo, it was a converted two family house, so there were only two units. The leak was in an old cast iron drain that served both units, kitchens and bathrooms. The leak was fairly active, and kind of disgusting. We gave our client a price, and she was going to approve it. We would have had it fixed that day or the next, as it was leaking sewage into the basement. She just said that she had to talk to the other owner and then we could come and fix it, please. Well, as you might have guessed, when she talked to the other owner he really didn’t care that much about it. First, he hadn’t really been aware of it, as I guess he didn’t use the basement. Second he didn’t think he should pay for it. And third, he said if he did have to pay for it, he would find someone cheaper!  The last I talked to her, the pipe still wasn’t fixed. Was she going to have to take her housemate to court? Was she going to have to put up with some butt crack plumber making a mess of her basement and leaving his trash behind?  Who knows! This is one aspect of condo living!

We had a top floor client who house mates didn’t want to pay for a new roof. After all, it wasn’t leaking on them!

Multi family condos

Recently we’ve been trying to deal with a client’s problems  whose heat freezes when it’s really cold out. The problem is, she is the top of three floors, and the chairman of the condo association lives below her and isn’t interested in helping her fix it. He would barely even turn up his heat to try to thaw it (we aren’t sure if he did turn it up- he was very rude to us and we weren’t able to go into his unit to see). The problem is, her pipes run up his wall, and any fixing of her problem will probably involve some demo in his unit. Does she have the right to do it? Of course she does, as it is a common heating system and it needs to be fixed. The question is, what is she going to go through to get that done? Now the management company is involved, so we have no idea what will happen, and we have no standing with the management company, so we won’t be in there looking out for our client, which is where we want to be. Who knows what will happen.

I don’t mean to be completely negative. After all, it’s the only way that many people in Massachusetts can afford to get into the housing market. I just want you all to be aware of some of the potential pitfalls of condo living. I’ll probably tell you more stories another time. What I won’t be telling you about are all the condos that do work out OK for people. After all, happy stories aren’t that entertaining.

Caveat Emptor!!