Advice Needed For Dealing With My Totalled From Charley Condo
I'm not sure where to put this post, hope this is an ok place, i could use some ideas and suggestions about now. Just over a year ago, i bought a sweet little ground floor, 1 bedroom condo in Winter Park, FL for our son to live in whilst going to school. We used a HELOC to buy it, seemed like a great idea at the time. Long story short....when Charley came through, it ripped off the upper condo's roof and tons of water came pouring down into our place. We lost just about everything in it (son only had a truck with no topper and no where to store things, he got his electronics out and everything else just sat there and got wetter and wetter), the rain continued to pour in for almost a month til the roof was finally repaired. Until that time, water saturated it, collapsing the ceiling, running out of the light fixtures, down the walls, ruined everything.
My condo is totalled. I swear it had it's own ecosystem in there, mold grew everywhere. The association is responsible for the drywall out, everything else is my responsibility. They (association) has started the process of gutting it, even the studs in the walls are moldy. It's one of 8 units in a building, i don't see how people can live in the other ones with mine being so nasty. I've been told it's the worst in the whole complex, and i believe it. I was down there a week after the hurricaine and had never seen anything so gross. I also learned i'm one of those "highly allergenic " folks who break out in rashes and welts and get horrid headaches from the stuff. I informed the association that any cleanup they did would have to meet EPA standards or it would be unacceptable.
I live in MI. It's not an expensive place, i paid what it was worth at $37k. The insurance i got was minimal, 20k on the structure, i thought the association would cover anything else, who'd ever think something like THAT would happen? (dumb, i know now, but...) My son has since graduated and moved on, i don't need the condo anymore, i'm still paying association fees, taxes are due next month and work in the complex is creeping along, if that fast due to their own insurance woes.. Dealing with my insurance company has been a nightmare, i had to hire a private adjuster to help (actually, he's helping me for free cause he's a helluva guy and i helped him get the condo association contract). Long story short:
What are my options? I had thought i'd wait til the association had dried it out and redrywalled it, then put it on the market for a VERY low price (needs everything, remember?) but the way things are going, i dunno when that's going to be. I'm pretty sure an assessment will be coming, the association fees got raised 10 bucks for this year. If i stop paying the fees, can they foreclose? Would that be a bad thing? The place should have been (in my opinion) condemned. What if i let it go back to the county for non payment of taxes? What sort of "mark" does it put on your name and/or credit if a place you own gets taken back either by tax default or by non payment of fees?
This thing has been eating at me since it happened. Money's been tight, the insurance company hasn't paid me anything except $4700.00 that they said was all they were going to pay me, once the public adjuster stepped in they decided it was a total loss but no money has come yet. I want to move on with my investments but everything is tied up in this now and i'm considering cutting my losses and letting it go. Any thoughts and advice would be appreciated.
becki
:-o
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