Infighting and Poor Planning Leave Condo Sites in Disrepair

Under pressure to keep costs down, many condo boards around the country have little money set aside for big repairs like the ones needed in Surfside, Fla. Some are looking to force a change.

For years before the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South complex near Miami, the condo board wrestled with how to come up with the $15 million needed to fix the building’s dilapidated roof, a poorly designed pool deck and crumbling support columns. The problem: The homeowners’ association had just $800,000 in reserves, and getting the work done meant asking residents to shoulder huge special assessments ranging from $80,000 to $200,000 on each home. No one was eager to pay. “The dirtiest words in the community-association industry are ‘special assessment,’” Donna DiMaggio Berger, a lawyer for the board, said of the effort to get 135 homeowners — of varying means and of multiple nationalities — to agree on a plan to do the repairs.