Does anyone have any experience living in, or managing themselves their condominium building without using an Administrator company? I wonder how hard it is, and what the usual problems are?, Thanks for any advice.
We do it ourselves but this is only 5 parties. Use Excel to keep track of shared cost, we distribute the information once a year and settle the balances.
One person is the main contact for insurance etc, supported by one other person. Once a year we get together and discuss things.
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We do the „administrative part“ ourselves. The bookkeeping is still outside (at the company that previously did everything).
Though we contract some work out (cutting back trees and bushes early in the year).
We found we had to double check the offers the administration solicited anyway. So we decided to do this part ourselves.
To make this work, you really have to want to do it.
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Not a condo building, but a Quartier with shared ownership of a common garage and grounds. Similar issues, however.
For the first twenty some years of the Quartier’s existence, the owners self managed the administration of the common grounds. Easy enough to do, mostly just accounting and coordinating. The job rotated among the owners.
HOWEVER, there came a point when coordinating - getting agreement on whether a project needed to be done, how to finance the work, choosing who to do it, supervising - became a nightmare. Not because there was any new difficulty, but because of… ahem… differing opinions or conflicting goals between owners.
At one boiling point, when consensus could not be reached, it was decided to engage professional management of the common ground. The manager doesn’t do any better of a job than we did, and sometimes has done worse. But he is a neutral party, which can be quite valuable when Nachbarkreig threatens to surface.
Just my experience.
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Yep. Cheaper than lawyers, still.
Often, it’s all about hurt feelings (literally). People channeling their inner 12 year old.
Then, the property management company (only doing bookkeeping now) is run by a woman and it seems that two of the women who own or co-own here (six parties altogether) don’t do well with her.
Also, two owners had a long-going feud (for whatever reasons - they’re both easily triggered) and one ended up trying to hold up a rather urgent (and expensive) renovation project.
In the end, we agreed to pay him a lump sum to settle it. But again, those same women are not going to want to sit at a table with him anymore.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re all nice people and I get along with them quite well. But I try to stay clear of any conflicts and I don’t make it my life’s mission to one-up them or proof them wrong or whatever. If it’s halfway reasonable, I agree with the majority.
After all, I want to continue to live here and enjoy it!
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Thanks all for the responses. Here in Ticino, i am trying to find a solution to help with our building. What do you find most difficult? keeping track of payments, or communication between neighbours? Our whatsapp groups is a bit of a mess so I always have it on mute :)
I don’t have WhatsApp. On principal.
One even tried to give me a phone with WhatsApp.
I have Signal and we created a Signal group.
I guess it helped that there’s vegetarian couple who knows something about principles.
Would you try to talk a vegetarian into “just try a little piece of this sausage. The pig’s already dead, it won’t come alive if you don’t eat it”?
Before the drama with the other guy trying to sue as all to get back at his opponent, the Signal group was a dumpster fire.
People are so unhinged on chat apps. It’s as if they’re switching off their brains when they log on.
I’ve urged them to stop using it for anything other than ephemeral things.