Often a very difficult task, which requires a systemized review, response and if neceesary charted system that will provide a one look capability to SEE a decision. Describing your job spec requirements so that you are looking at apples to apples is the first goal, however life is never as simple as all that and the contractors all have different lines that they represent, different experiences and perspectives and various methods and results. You want the one that does the MOST for the LEAST cost. It is something that one can present when you have this perspective but not if you refuse to acknowledge the above and insist on parameters that may not be met. Yes, when you cannot view and make decisions per above, there are times when you are making decisions that are just plain wrong and when advise like this was not taken, I have seen the job not get completed fully and continual difficulties occur. This is not in the case when I was in charge, of course!!!!
Property Management is to be reliable and reports are to come in at the same time of the month on a regular basis. There is no reason for you to have a monthly statement that is not in Board hands by the once a month normally promised time. Yes, I have seen it happen. When a Management Company is too large, cumbersome and overloaded with bureaucratic lack of efficiency and improper delegation of responsibilites, things just don’t get done. It is then time to change Managements! It seems that often Boards of Condos, especially do have flexibility and a relaxed perspective when it comes to this, but this is not something that one can just relax about. It just gets worse. Often it is not the Site Manager or Property Manager that causes delays but various accounting requirements for specificity that delays and ultimately complicates reports. This eventually leads to additional costs in accounting and yearly tax reports, which is unacceptable and details need to be clarified and specs provided and there needs to be simplification so that costs for these categories do not get effected.
A smaller simpler Management system can effect what you need without complicating, gumming up and slowing down the report process. If you have any of these current difficulties, follow up with Primary Inc./Managementonsite.com and we will be a reliable alternative to your current situation.
The electrical system was a new buss line system, which had huge buss pieces of 12 – 20 + feet of length that are joined together in various lines feeding areas of the building with power. After the building and electrical installation being less than two years old, the building buss line has an explosion and minimal fire in one of its lines and the power to a major component of the building goes down, which includes the elevator, AC system and all common area lights. This new electrical system was presumed to be under warranty as most main building systems would be under warranty for 10 years from the date of the development, but this system was only warranted for one year!!!! The emergency diesel power generator had to kick on and was running for three days, while the replacement parts were ordered from several states away and there were no parts available locally in any local supply house and in fact they had to be produced by the manufacturer in order to meet the specifications of this particular job. The Condo Owners/Residents had to deal with no AC, limited elevator usage, since we were running on back-up generator power. The On-Site Property Manager had to manually restart the generator, which had shut down due to a protection mechanism, since it was low on oil, which the maintenance engineer had neglected to check. Oil had to be picked up at a local gas station and manually added to the generator unit. Meanwhile the generator had to run, 24 hours a day for three days, exhausting diesel fumes into the air and back towards some of the units windows that had to be open, due to lack of Air Conditioning.
The parts did show up after 3 days and get installed and all was able to return to normal. Meanwhile, the fault of the electrical system did not need to be argued since the Manager placed a claim with the Insurance Company who had accepted liability and would pursue the blame and reimbursement from the appropriate sources and have the legal muscle behind it to settle the claim.
An unhappy neighborly situation comes to mind in another Condominium high-rise situation. This occurs where one Unit is occupied by a chain smoker and is immediately backing another Unit that is occupied by someone who is very sensitive to smoke. Supposedly, there is extra insulation and double drywall between units to prevent transmission of noise and air infiltration. What happened here however, is that there was uncovered a gap between the window unit and the drywall area between the units and there was no intention of the Developer’s representative to admit the error in installation. Nevertheless, the Developer’s rep did attempt to alleviate the situation, pumping foam insulation into the spaces between the wall and the window gap areas. Did this work. Only minimally and in addition to filing suit, the offended Unit Owner had to consider selling but ended up renting the unit to others who would not care about this issue as much. Meanwhile the chain smoking unit owner contracted Cancer, stopped smoking for a few months, cleaned up her unit, but meanwhile the other Unit Owner had already moved out and rented out his unit. The On Site Property Manager had worked hard to enable each of the sides to work out appropriate solutions, which enabled some efforts on both sides to occur.
A New High Rise building was built in the Chicagoland Suburban or downtown loop area with very high hopes for an excellent value and high quality life experience. The development was first class and included an entire community of stores, businesses, and various community attractions including community parking and Theaters. The building was built with an excellent development plan including a built in relationship where the commercial spaces and residential spaces coordinated services together in such a way that would compliment each other and provide the best possible interrelation of services and coordination as well as costs. There was an On-Site Management with separate Maintenance, Housekeeping and Security Departments under its supervision.
A Condominium living situation: what occurred here was that there was one floor that was constantly dealing with a disturbance coming from a dog in one of the units that was annoying and barking at various intervals during the night and waking and disturbing a number of the other units including a very kind and patient senior citizen on the floor. This senior found it difficult to complain, but was smart enough to realize that the only way to take care of this situation was to notify Management. Once Management was notified, appropriate notification to the offending Unit was provided and over a period of time and a significant effort and number of notifications, the Management sought Board approval for fines, penalties and strengthening of the rules governing this area. This brought about the offending unit, to choose to put up its unit for sale on the market. In the end, with months of wrangling on the issue, the offending dog was sent to live with relatives instead of staying in the Unit and continuing to cause difficulty.
This blog will delve into the exciting and ever changing world of Condominium and Property Management. Years of experience doing this type of work gives me many stories to tell. Those of you who own buildings or condominium property will most likely relate to some of my experiences and may even learn a thing or two. Check back soon as I am compiling a group of information to post here. And if you are in the Chicagoland area and in need of a reliable, hands-on property management company, visit my website at: managementonsite.com
