Thinking of taking the CONDO association to "small Claims Court" -------------- Any suggestions????????? (hardwood floors)

[sssb2000]

hello,
recently, i had a leak on the roof of my condo. the water dripped and damaged the hardwood floors i had put in a couple years back.

they fixed the roof after a week (in november!) and then (long story short) sent 3 contractors to give estimates for replacing the wood.
- 550 plus the cost of wood
- 600 plus the cost of wood
- 700 plus the cost of wood

then, the board of directors of the association voted and decided that the floor is "my" responsibility....even though the damage that caused it was "their" fault.

I'm taking them to court but had a few questions:

- Whom do i sue? the property management company or the president of the board of directors, or someone else?
- what do you think about the situation? do i have a case?
- any suggestions? thoughts? ideas?


thanks :-)

[sssb2000]

Bump

[kevinm]

I would agree that your floors are your responsibilty. You will have to prove that you did what you could to mitigate the problem. If you just let the water sit on the floor for a week and did not try to keep the area dry, they will refuse your claim.

Don't you have homeowners insurance?

[sssb2000]

Originally Posted by kevinm

I would agree that your floors are your responsibilty. You will have to prove that you did what you could to mitigate the problem. If you just let the water sit on the floor for a week and did not try to keep the area dry, they will refuse your claim.

Don't you have homeowners insurance?

i actually put a bucket underneath the leaking area the morning that this happened. (it happened overnight). i actually have a picture of the bucket on the floor from the day it happened.
i do have insurance....and i did call them.....
it's ironic....i've lived there for 5 years....not a single problem.....the weekend before i moved out, my car got broken into....and i had to put a claim in for the stuff that was taken from the inside of my car (they fell under my condo policy). my agent said that if i put another claim in, my rate will double if i'm lucky. i'll get dropped if i'm unlucky.
and since my deductable is 500 and the price is about 800 to fix, he said it's not worth it in his opinion. (with which i agree).

so....that's the situation.

[eyeball]

I had a similar situation happen to me. Since the association made repairs when the problem was brought to their attention, your repairs will have to be covered by your insurance. You should go through your association paperwork thoroughly to double-check though.

[irisheyes13]

Originally Posted by sssb2000

i actually put a bucket underneath the leaking area the morning that this happened. (it happened overnight). i actually have a picture of the bucket on the floor from the day it happened.
i do have insurance....and i did call them.....
it's ironic....i've lived there for 5 years....not a single problem.....the weekend before i moved out, my car got broken into....and i had to put a claim in for the stuff that was taken from the inside of my car (they fell under my condo policy). my agent said that if i put another claim in, my rate will double if i'm lucky. i'll get dropped if i'm unlucky.
and since my deductable is 500 and the price is about 800 to fix, he said it's not worth it in his opinion. (with which i agree).

so....that's the situation.

Sorry to hear you are going through that. I would agree with you if the floors were ruined as a result of the leak in the roof and not because you ignored the water etc.. it should be on them. Quite a few years back we lived in a new construction and about a year after we moved in, there was a leak in the downstairs bathroom as a result of a nail that went in to the pipe when the baseboard was attached. It eventually rotted I guess and sprung a leak. It damaged our wood floors and the builder replaced them without question. They were still building in the area so that may have had something to do with it but they made a mess very easy to tolerate.

[HumanRemodeling]

- Whom do i sue? the property management company or the president of the board of directors, or someone else?

That is my question too. I just went to small claims court and sued the president of the board of directors, and that was a wrong thing to do. I was told to sue Association. HOW DO YOU SUE ASSOCIATION? Which name and address do you put on the small claims court form?

[VRE332]

Originally Posted by HumanRemodeling

- Whom do i sue? the property management company or the president of the board of directors, or someone else?

That is my question too. I just went to small claims court and sued the president of the board of directors, and that was a wrong thing to do. I was told to sue Association. HOW DO YOU SUE ASSOCIATION? Which name and address do you put on the small claims court form?

The association is Incorporated in Virginia, so it's like sueing a company. The address would probably be the mailing address of the association; or the c/o the management company.

[frogbiscuit]

They may be required by the by-laws to get 3 estimates, I'd do my homework first.