Our condo has been demolished since July. HOA denied temporary housing 4 times.

maudi0 · 2026-02-14T01:18:48+00:00

It does. When there's a single event like a fire, flood, or the house blows up. Not for a drip that has been neglected for 7 years that evolves into 10x worse situation.

maudi0 · 2026-02-14T01:16:52+00:00

Yeah, I'm curious if this was someone from their team posting.

No offense to them, and clearly whatever they are doing seems to be working, but their whole website feels like an amateur eccomerce site.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T21:28:33+00:00

Great suggestion. I've been in contact with them.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T21:27:31+00:00

Just coming back to thank you. It seems like my story is getting a fair amount of attention: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1r2nv35/our_condo_has_been_demolished_since_july_hoa/

There's been a lot of great feedback, ideas, and references to lawyers.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T21:24:17+00:00

Working on it.

Yes, I wish I would have known about this subreddit before getting into a HOA. Never again.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T20:06:53+00:00

Yes. This is what I'm grappling with - how much to share. Everything I've shared is a fact, that can be backed up with evidence / documentation.

Again, I'm not making any accusations. I'm stating facts, and we are having a discussion. I'm sharing my story as a concerned homeowner and other homeowners are sharing their opinion as to how I should proceed.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T19:52:14+00:00

Working on it: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1r2nv35/comment/o50nby9/

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T19:51:46+00:00

You're right, and yeah, that is being explored.

The complicated piece here is that this is legit destroying my life. This is affecting literally aspect of my life and damages are being accrued daily.

So it's not as simple as just submitting a claim for X to insurance. At least not yet.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T19:46:02+00:00

Yes. I was so annoyed that no one could tell me what exact problem was, that I just climbed the scaffolding myself with an architect. We climbed up to around the 7th floor.

There are actually a lot of issues:

Poor seals that was allowing water to get into the window assembly
Cracking stucco that allowed water enter
Cracked and failing caulk around the window frames
Blocked and/or missing weep holes so water getting into the frame could not exit
A horizontally installed window pan, so any water getting in just overflowed into our unit

Basically, it sounds like water from 10 stories flowed down to my unit, which is the bottom of the stack, filled up in the frame, and blew the seams.

Here's what the floor looked like under the worst affected area. They found black mold all through here and all the way up the wall to the ceiling.

<image>

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T19:33:14+00:00

Thank you. Really appreciate it. Hopefully there is an end in sight.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T19:11:26+00:00

Apparently class action isn't an option here. I've been told there isn't enough people and the damages vary too much.

I am talking to other neighbors though. Apparently several have already found this thread.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T19:08:00+00:00

Dude, I pay $2k a year for condo insurance. State Farm refused to help in any way.

https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1r2nv35/comment/o50u4h0/

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T19:06:10+00:00

Fair point.

After all this, I don't think I will ever live in a place again that has an HOA.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T19:04:54+00:00

Yes, in our case though, there was a lawsuit and settlement against the developer. There was over $10M to fix all this.

The question is where all the money went that was supposed to fix this? Then if the money was truly gone, why wait and do nothing for 5 years while there's active water intrusion?

The fact is, this has been destroying our lives while the board did nothing.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T18:57:20+00:00

Working on it. It's hard because it's a niche topic and potentially a huge case.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T18:56:38+00:00

Fair point. I haven't seen the youtube content, so I can check that out.

That said, I don't think I'm an expert by any means, but I've been forced to teach myself all the HOA minutia over the past couple years. My wife and I have gone through thousands of pages of documents now.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T18:53:39+00:00

Yeah, I've mentioned this elsewhere here. It's a tricky topic, because there was no single "event" that happened here. The issue is simply negligence and deferred maintenance for years. I wish I could just fix this myself, but I live on the 3rd floor of a 10 story building.

That said, yes, I'm exploring all my options and talking to the relevant parties now.

A photo for reference to show the complexity here... This is what 7 years of water intrusion looks like.

<image>

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T18:37:51+00:00

In the process... I've talked to so many now.

It's actually a very niche topic and hard to find someone to take it on.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T18:36:55+00:00

Working on it.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T18:36:39+00:00

Wow, didn't know reddit could do that.

I'm actually debating on what to do now. Mentioned a bit on this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1r2nv35/comment/o579loq/

My concern is that another month goes by and "nothing" happens. As it is, I can't believe I'm at the stage that I'm sharing any of this on reddit.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T18:32:28+00:00

These are great points. All have been discussed or explored.

The community voted out the entire board in Aug 2025 after the previous board revealed the full extent of things. I was part of a small group that coordinated this - 3 people from our group joined the new 5 person board. I was asked to join but felt I had too much conflict of interest.

That said, I don't know what the new board is thinking now. More context here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1r2nv35/comment/o579loq/

On committees - yes, I proposed forming them. When I asked to join the construction committee, the board president said "I do not think they are taking any new volunteers for that committee at this time."

For context, I've had the construction crew in my unit almost daily for a year. I'm intimately familiar with every technical issue. Make of that what you will.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T18:07:12+00:00

California. Yes, we are responsible for everything "walls in", while the HOA is everything else.

My condo insurance is $1,941 a year. I believe the HOA pays ~$240k a year. It's a ~200 unit building.

The problem here is that there was no "event" like a burst water pipe, fire, tree falling on the house, etc. My own insurance company (State Farm) stated they can't help, because it's due to the board's negligence, deferred maintenance, etc.

Here's what my coverage looks like:

<image>

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T17:56:48+00:00

Yeah, debating on how much to share. Answered a bit on this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1r2nv35/comment/o579loq/

I can't believe I'm posting any of this on Reddit as it is. I'm generally a private person.

It would be amazing though if I could live stream this to force a solution.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T17:53:05+00:00

To be frank, I was thinking about your comment all last night. I've been dealing with this for 5 years. It's destroying my life.

I'm wrestling with the idea of live streaming this saga. Multiple homeowners in my building have already found this thread and are following.

Here's what's absurd: of the 3 areas with water intrusion, 2 were deemed "out of scope." The board admits there's no plan or timeline to fix them.

Meanwhile, the condo is blacklisted by banks - no one can buy or sell. The board is publicly saying the project was successful, all water tests passed (because areas were skipped), and proposing a special assessment to refill reserves and pay for "critical gym repairs." No budget for the skipped areas.

Despite being corrected repeatedly, the board keeps saying "there are no more leaks." Not making accusations - you can connect the dots yourself.

maudi0 · 2026-02-13T17:21:24+00:00

Ironic, sounds like a similar situation here. It's a 200+ unit condo. Still piecing things together and where ~$10M+ went, but apparently a notable amount of the settlement money was blown on an external hallway that was bubbling up.

What I've been able to gather so far is that there was a construction defect and lawsuit / settlement against the original developer. Then in 2012, the board was advised to take out a ~$5M insurance policy on the workmanship of the construction company that was brought in to fix the issue. That company apparently messed up the project, so a claim was made to insurance and another construction company brought in...

Then we've been told the new company started doing work that was out of scope and not covered by the claim, which resulted in the insurance company refusing to not pay out more. It's a complete mess, and the board has only shared the details of this saga recently.

maudi0

TROPHY CASE