RE: Taking possession of the building from the developer
From: Jennifer Gryn (jgryncogeco.ca)
Date: Wed, 16 Mar 2005 14:47:13 -0800 (PST)
Because the building is refurnished and not new some of the warranties that
apply to new condo's may not apply, it depends on your laws and what the
definition of the project was.

As an example my building is in Ontario but even though everything from the
drywall in, including electrical and plumbing is new the building (an old
school) is considered refurbished and therefore does not quality for an
Ontario new home owners warranty.  Basically we get nothing...

The best you may be able to do is to make sure that some of the deficiency
items can be linked to code and have the municipality or city inspectors on
your side to have the items closed.

-----Original Message-----
From: katie-henry [at] att.net [mailto:katie-henry [at] att.net]
Sent: Wednesday, March 16, 2005 3:12 PM
To: cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ Taking possession of the building from the developer


I'm the facilities manager for Eastern Village Cohousing in Silver Spring,
MD. It's a 56-unit condo community in a single building with many shared
building-wide systems, such as elevators, central hot water, geothermal
heat/AC, and a green roof. (Winner of a 2005 NAHB Green Building Award!)

Our developer bought the building two years ago (it was an abandoned office
building that needed to be completely rehabbed), hired the contractors, and
managed the work. The community hired a construction advocate to represent
our interests.

Most of us moved in to our units in October/November 2004, with work on the
common areas continuing until now. We inspected the common areas with our
construction advocate about a month ago and came up with a punchlist of
repairs, most of which have been corrected. We are now a few weeks away from
building hand-over, where the community takes possession of the building
from the developer and receives training and the O&M manuals from the
contractor, etc. Work on the remaining punchlist items will continue a
fter building hand-over (parts on back-order, etc.). I'm hoping to find some
guidance on this process. A couple of specific questions:

1. Most of the remaining work is minor, but there's one large item -- a
drainage problem that caused several units to be flooded during heavy rain.
The developer has identified several corrective actions. Some of this work
has already been performed, and some is still pending (waiting on plans from
the civil engineer, bids, etc.). There is a sentiment in the community that
we should not accept the building until all of the flood-control work is
complete. If we accept the building before the work is complete
, does it weaken our legal position if the developer doesn't finish the work
(something I think is extremely unlikely) or if it turns out the work that
was done is insufficient to prevent future flooding? However, on the other
hand, we can't really test the work in a meaningful way until the next heavy
rain, which might be months away.

2. What is a deficiency report? I'm getting two definitions. (1) The
community hires an engineer or inspector immediately after building
hand-over to do another inspection to identify problems that weren't evident
during the first inspection. (2) The community hires an engineer or
inspector towards the end of the warranty period (three years) to identify
problems that have developed during the warranty period. Can anyone
enlighten me?

Any advice or insights on this whole process greatly appreciated.

Katie
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