Sometimes, your heart rules your head.
You fall in love with a place and you just really, really want to live there. This particular nameless condominium townhome association is quite unique and located in a City of Chicago neighborhood. There are 48-units located in 6-buildings on what is, by Chicago standards, a generous piece of property. Built in the mid 1960s, the buildings are well-constructed with gated off-street parking. All units are 2-bedrooms with 1.5 baths and finished basements. There are wide and lovely entry courtyards and delightful patios separated by brick walls and wood fencing. Large, mature trees shade homes in front while owners take pride in landscaping private areas. Residents run the gamut from single professionals to young families to empty-nesters. The place is just downright charming.
So sure, the author delved deeper below the surface. Who wouldn’t, right? The budgets and the association minutes seemed fine. The property employed the services of a single licensed property manager in business for himself. Cause for pause? Well, that can be okay. The finances looked good, the board of managers was meeting monthly, and decisions were seemingly recorded in the minutes. Heck, the author would even have to attend a board meeting after closing as a purchase requirement. There was no question that the property was desirable and well-maintained. New roofs had been installed within the past few years, and the association had also instituted window replacement. The 60s-era buildings were aging well. All seemed well and looked good.
Frankly, this author stalked the property, putting in various offers on different units over a few years. Courtesy of the not-so-awfully-distant past economic downturn and a still recovering multi-dwelling unit market in the area, a below-market but reasonably priced offer was eventually accepted. Hooray for me! Then…came the annual meeting.
The notice of the annual meeting arrived in timely fashion. Oddly, the notice of the annual meeting contained no mention of the election that would presumably be held at the annual meeting. Hmmmm. The notice of the annual meeting was accompanied by a proxy form. The proxy form didn’t contain the names of any board candidates; or the space to write in candidates for the board; or even any mention of an election. The proxy form just allowed the unit owner to assign his/her right to vote at the annual meeting to the board of managers or to write in an assignee of the owner’s selection. Everything about the proxy form set my
foolish heart beating faster with anxiety from the very first sentence: Here ye all men now know… Yikes.
Perhaps there had been some misunderstanding. Maybe the election of board members was held separately? How can you have an annual meeting without mentioning an election? Where was the chance to declare candidacy for the board election? Of course, I would attend the annual meeting to find out.
The annual meeting was to be held on a weeknight, outside, in the far end of the parking lot. The annual meeting announcement noted a rain-date of the following night if the outdoor meeting should be cancelled due to weather. Seriously? Interesting approach, but perhaps meant to save money on a meeting space. Well, it would still be exciting to attend my first annual meeting in my new homeowners association.
When the appointed annual meeting day arrived, I dutifully lugged my own lawn chair to the far end of the parking lot. Rain threatened but held off. It was hot and muggy. Owners gathered in a circle of lawn chairs and mismatched furniture. The board president called the meeting to order, introducing herself by name and saying, “and I’ve been the board president for a really long time now.” The board secretary was then invited to read the minutes from the previous year’s meeting. The old minutes were a litany of accomplishments; not half-bad for a self-managed association. The next item on the agenda was a reading of a list of this year’s accomplishments. What happened to the approval of last year’s meeting minutes? It didn’t happen, that’s what.
Of course, it was difficult to follow the meeting events. The mosquitoes were biting, the meeting had to pause for the occasional plane to fly overhead, and somebody’s kid was driving a motorized vehicle around the parking lot while yelling for his mommy who was busy trying to attend the meeting. Never mind the homeowner that wanted to park in her assigned parking spot in the middle of the meeting space! All of these external diversions had to compete with the increasingly loud and numerous internal alarms going off inside my aching head. One board member provided a passionate and completely inaccurate account of how the “banks are no longer providing any FHA financing to multi- dwelling unit properties.” He stated his misinformation as pure fact. It wasn’t even close! Following a question-and-
|
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
