Harer says the fee is legal so long as it's written into the condominium's declaration. Also called the governing documents, the declaration is basically the set of laws that owners must follow. Before you completed your condo purchase, you should have received a pile of paperwork, including the declaration and a resale certificate (if the unit was used) or a public offering statement (if it was new). One of these documents should have disclosed the capital contribution fee, although Harer says you wouldn't be the first buyer to not have digested this information.
"There are a lot of protections for condo buyers in the laws, but they depend on the buyers reading the information they're given," he says. Before the final paperwork is signed, buyers normally have the right to rescind their condo purchase if they object to such fees. After the deal is done, they have no choice but to pay.
Q: Our home, which we bought in 1999, has a glassed-in porch. During our last warm spell, its ceiling collapsed. That's when we learned that this ceiling was a large piece of sheet rock glued to the original stucco ceiling. Does the previous owner have any responsibility for repairs?
A: There are a bunch of hoops you'd have to jump in order to get to what ultimately is a fuzzy answer. First, are you certain the seller installed the sheet rock? If he didn't, he may not have known about it and therefore can't be held responsible.
But let's say he did install it. The next issue is disclosure, says attorney Mark Schedler of Williams Kastner & Gibbs. Form 17, the disclosure statement sellers give buyers, asks if building permits for any remodeling have been obtained. Generally, no permit is needed to install sheet rock, so he had no duty to disclose this work.
More important, Schedler says sellers only have to disclose what are called material facts — in other words, things that are so important that a sale might hinge in this information. The presence of the sheet rock itself wouldn't be a material fact. If the seller had reason to think it might fall off the ceiling, that could be considered a material fact. But since it stayed in place for at least the four years you've owned the home — and possibly much longer under the previous ownership — Schedler doubts you have a case there.
But you can always take a run at small-claims court, where a judge might award you repair costs. That wouldn't be Schedler's advice, which is "it's not worth your time. Fix it (the ceiling) and move on with life."
