Reporting issue about strata and management
 

Last year, there had been some repair needed for all 3 building of our complex.
Total job costed $200k ish. (Vapor Barrier paint on all buildings)

I had my unit listed for sale but sales didn't go because management company or strata was not able to provide any document stating that these repairs were done.
Without it, buyer wasn't able to secure mortgage approval.

Both Management company and Engineering firm who worked on this were unable/unwilling to provide official document.
All they could do was email/verbal confirmation that it was done.

Now it costed me sale of my condo and not sure where do I take from here.
I know personally that the work is done and there's no question about it.

Where do you go when you have issue with your management company?

I'd sue their ass if I could... sigh.....

Isn't there anything in strata minutes about the work being complete?

Your strata treasurer should at least have an invoice. If they dont have it, it is very suspicious (under the table deal).

You're suppose to go to the strata tribunals

Resolving Strata Disputes - Province of British Columbia

Information and Record Keeping in Stratas - Province of British Columbia

According to this website documents requested should be within two weeks.

There is, but buyer's bank wanted something more formal.
ie.. letter from company who actually worked on it or engineering firm.

what gnomes said, i asked for an invoice of work and i got a cop in under a week.

good infos Thanks,

your strata manager also has a supervisor that you could go above if they arent cooperating. have you actually talked to the strata management company or just your buildings strata council?

Both, building council was helpful. Strata manager was incompetent asshole.

'have bank email/call me and I can confirm that work is completed'

riiiiigt.... like any bank is going to take that as an official document.


Anyways, there is no question that the work is completed. I'm just shaking my head at lack of document.

He stopped responding my email/call so maybe I'll have to talk to his supervisor.

Thanks,

what property management company your strata use?

Associa... and they fucking suck at their job..

Maybe even get a lawyer to write them a letter basically stating because they fail to provide you with the docs you requested (legally and you do have toe right to request them) this cause the lose of sale and if they don't comply you will sue them for your loss.

At this point spending a few hundreds dollars to a lawyer letter and force them to give you docs you need is an option you should consider.

For the scope of work involved, it's likely that there is no requirement for an "Official Document" under building code.

Your strata is not "screwing" you out of anything, your bank is most likely asking for something that doesn't exist nor does it have to.

Also seems like the realtor dropped the ball in not being able to get the documents needed. There was only 1 time we had to authorize our last realtor to speak to our strata manager and after that they retrieved all the documents required

To get into bit more detail, our building wasn't built with Vapor Barrier. Which was against the building code and not built by drawing that was submitted/approved by the City.
(going after developer or city inspector is another 12 month long story but I'll save that story for later)

This was later resolved by applying vapour barrier primer paint to the building.

Sound like mortgage insurer is requiring 'certificate of completion' and our strata never obtained on or not willing to provide one.

All they were willing to provide is verbal or email confirmation saying that the work has been completed.

At this point, I don't know who's screwing who.
Is mortgage insure requesting something that does not exist/needed?
Is it our strata management doing shitty job?

All I know is that I just lost a sales and any future sale is in jeopardy .

:heckno:

nope.. he tried hard, and even I have many email and phone call exchange with strata management company.
They just do not have document that we need.

A Certificate of Completion is not required for any and all work performed on a structure and as far as I know the cost for the vapor barrier work falls well below the threshold to trigger the necessity for one so it's likely that one doesn't exist. It's use is for builder lien holdbacks.

Before anyone goes running around further to gather documents that are not applicable speak to the lender (or a lender) to see if they can accept alternate documentation as mentioned (invoice/head contract) in this type of situation. The bank can talk to the strata manager all day it wouldn't matter I haven't known any lender to take the word of someone over documentation. Lenders can bend around their "black and white" requirements to satisfy financing approval - it really depends on the broker working on the file though. Did you know which lender the buyer was going through? Even with B lenders they can approve non-conforming documentation. I recently had to do a workaround for a client due to a lingering special assessment with lack of specific documentation the lender required. I pieced everything together by doing a timeline using the minutes, financials and reports got lender approval. Don't rule out the possibility that the buyer's realtor on your collapsed deal didn't push as hard as they could and just accepted the outcome at face value.

How long ago was the work done? This type of work should require a follow up engineering report to show that the deficiencies were addressed properly since it sounds like the deficiencies were mentioned in the minutes/depreciation report in the past. Of course, a follow up report would need to be done to the buildings.

I would also check with your realtor to see if there have been any sales in the complex leading up to and following your collapsed deal. If there have been other sales that should mean that this situation shouldn't prohibit your home to sell. I would talk to the realtors involved in those transactions to see if they had to overcome the same situation.

Regarding management companies, most if not all are contracted on an annual basis by the strata corp which does need to be renewed. Consider shopping around if it has gotten to that point with yours.

Work was done in Oct/Nov of 2016.
There had been 2-3 sales in this building since but it is possible that those mortgage did not involve mortgage insure. My buyer does.
Is it common for mortgage insure to hold different standard? ie bit more strict?

At first we only had engineering reporting saying that rainscreen checks out fine and VBP is needed.
When I raised enough stink, management company finally got the letter from contracting company confirming that the work was completed according to what is required by engineering report.

However that letter from contracting company did not help. Mortgage insure wanted to see 'certificate of completion'

I'm hoping that this particular insure is the one in wrong here because my management company is showing no interest in getting that certificate done.

Thanks,

I'm starting to think the mortgage insurer is trying to ensure that there are no liens on the property.
Like Bonka said, the "Certificate of Completion" is a document issued by the owner(owner's rep in charge of payment IE Architect/Engineer) to the contractor upon holdback release. It's not required below a certain threshold, or if the owner doesn't care to keep a holdback.

Maybe you should clarify with the mortgage insurer to see if they actually just checking for liens on the property?

Oh? I thought Certificate of Completion would be coming from Engineer/Architect/Contracter?
Man.. why am I having to chase this down is beyond me.

Unfortunately, because of the timeline, this deal is off the table and I have no contact info for the buyer's bank/insure.

But thanks for the all the good info. I'll keep this in mind for next sale.

Baywest apparently got bought out by them and they absolutely fucking sucked so bad. They were consistently ranked one of the worst building management companies out there, so it doesn't surprise me that they decided to re-brand/get bought out.

Simple things such as emails and calls were always ignored and you'd never get a response back until the 3rd or 4th try. Whenever you called the building manager, it'd go straight to voicemail.

I think everyone eventually got so tired of her shit (building manager) that we fired them within a year of being built. I've never seen such an incompetent and useless company in my life.

To the OP, if it hasn't been considered already, I'd definitely bring the issue up to the strata council so that strata can fire the property management company's a$$. It'd be in the strata's interest to do so since a shxtty management company will affect all owners at the complex too.

No, it doesn't help with the OP's situation, but "for the greater good", it is something that needs to be done.

LOL AssociaBC is a nightmare to deal with... I do a bit of signage and graphics for them, 2 red flags...

- they started with a net 15 day account as they passed the basic credit check... and then the invoices started to pile up, 30 days, 60 days... we had a few invoices go into net 90 days... and my manager was like FUCK IT... from now on.. is full payment upfront or no job is to be completed.

- they will get a quote and drawing from us... send our drawings around to get a better "quote" even with our company watermark over them, and then try to low ball us... good thing other shops around the city are in good relations with us since our circle is small, they basically just told them to come back to us and they cant help them...

**** Bonus: I have had them told us that our quote was way over budget... didn't hear them for like 2 month.... and then a week before the fire department re-inspection, they said they needed the signs... lol ended paying upwards of $1500 more for rush charge.... "that is some amazing management right there folks"