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I recently bought a condo managed by an association.
We hired someone to come by and have our chimney cleaned. The technician went up to the roof and said the chimney cap was not put on properly, so years worth of spider webs, twigs, leaves, etc have accumulated and it needs to be cleaned. They quoted it at $250.
Initially we were just going to do the $100 flue cleaning. Now we have to pay $350 to get our fireplace operational.
I contacted the association and the manager said the chimney is the homeowner's responsibility. However, the chimney cap is their responsibility so he said he would put in a work order to have it fixed. He said would not pay to have it cleaned out though.
My question is, since the chimney cap caused this problem and it is their responsibility, shouldn't they also cover the cleaning? Or am I stuck with the $250 bill?
I recently bought a condo managed by an association.
We hired someone to come by and have our chimney cleaned. The technician went up to the roof and said the chimney cap was not put on properly, so years worth of spider webs, twigs, leaves, etc have accumulated and it needs to be cleaned. They quoted it at $250.
Initially we were just going to do the $100 flue cleaning. Now we have to pay $350 to get our fireplace operational.
I contacted the association and the manager said the chimney is the homeowner's responsibility. However, the chimney cap is their responsibility so he said he would put in a work order to have it fixed. He said would not pay to have it cleaned out though.
My question is, since the chimney cap caused this problem and it is their responsibility, shouldn't they also cover the cleaning? Or am I stuck with the $250 bill?
Depends on state law and how the HOA is set up. Here any such repair would likely be charged back to the unit owner. The refer to it as sole use common property. It is the property of and maintained by the Association but if it used by only one unit the one unit gets billed for the repairs done to it.
As a real for instance a water pipe was recently replaced in a building...and the four units that used it where billed for the repair. So check around and see how your HOA is set up. But you will probably do better just to pay it.
Pay the $250- know it was done properly, and call it a lesson learned. Your's and my opinion of maintenance may defer, but I can assure that the HOA's is probably nowhere near the same.
And just for clarification, what are you calling the "chimney cap"?
Is it the shroud; or is it the spark arrester? And what exactly does "not installed correctly" constitute?
As noted, your actual rights will depend upon HOA rules and local ordinances.
As an anecdotal note that may not apply to your situation, my last HOA would be for damage caused after it was notified of a problem with its property. So, if it was told about the about the cap not being on properly and didn't fix it for a while, any damage then caused they would cover. Any damage done before they were notified they would not be responsible for (which is the case in your situation).
Again, not saying this applies to you, but providing for some reference.
it's only fair to point out different areas of the country command different rates. We also do not know how far off the ground for the OP's chimney. My chimneys are probably 50 feet up. A condo, if stacked could be even higher. In my area, I can pretty much count on $100-$125 just to come to the home, before any work is done (for any trade). That is if I want licensed and insured. If I want to mess with unlicensed and uninsured (and possibly not in the country legally), I can pay a lot less.
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