February 20, 2009
Dear Past President Irizarry:
When Donna Bragassa, Terry Grossman and I were elected to the board in
December 2007 and you were not reelected, we inherited a gigantic mess
from you. One of the first things that the new board did with Royal
Management, the newly hired management company, was to carefully go
through several boxes of papers that we received from Maxwell
Management, the former management company. Upon carefully checking
them, we found most of them filled with garbage (empty folders, unused
check books of defunct bank accounts, resumes, insurance declarations from
other properties, etc). The ones with documents belonging to Ocean Walk
did not contain any documentation regarding the wall AC unit project that you
were responsible for nor did it have any information on the elevator project,
bank accounts, etc.
We received several complaints from Ocean Walk owners regarding the AC’s
and Donna told us that the warranty was already expired. Moreover, she had
already replaced one of her own units. We told owners, we were not
responsible for their AC’s.
Now, per your unsolicited email to most of the unit owners of February 19,
2009 (which was painfully hard to read since you used small blue slanted
type) you told us the AC’s are still under guarantee and that owners are
replacing their units with sub-standards air conditioners bought at appliance
stores.
Hermann, please, I beg you not to confuse the owners, giving them false
expectations and wasting their time. We want solutions no more
inconveniences. So far, everything coming from the your previous board is
unclear, problematic, deficient, and not well done. For example, a recent
problem has emerged regarding the hallway AC. The contractor is blaming
you because the lack of plans. We are working hard and slowly things are
improving, please, don’t give us any more of your negative influences.
I’ll tell you a few more things regarding the AC units: we checked the
installation of most the AC units. We found around 20 (twenty) that were not
properly installed. We, at our own expense, reinstalled several units and
corrected a few more. Also, we noticed that some apartments had wall
damage because of this and one of the AC’s was falling down towards the
exterior.
After reading your email, I called the contractor you mentioned and I asked
him to provide in writing his warranty for this work. But, he told me he will
charge $80 to come and check the AC. That is not the way a warranty is
supposed to works. That is the way to make a few bucks in a rough
economy. That is the way to profit even more from Ocean Walk. Owners
already paid more than $70,000 for what you call ”units that do not require
water draining “ and are not sub-standard. And after only 2 years they are
failing….
Home Depot has on sale AC’s with the same characteristics you mentioned
plus remote control and warranty for only $200.00 plus tax. This is a much
better option than giving business to someone who already charged us a lot
and did a deficient job and that in the long run will not solve any problem.
In addition, in the future, before sending an email to all of the unit owners
concerning problems which you are no longer in charge of solving, please
show me the courtesy of giving me a heads up and getting my opinion and
input since I am currently very involved in the dynamics of Ocean Walk.
Thank you
Susana Omil, President
Ocean Walk on South Beach Condominium Association
Dear Past President Irizarry:
When Donna Bragassa, Terry Grossman and I were elected to the board in
December 2007 and you were not reelected, we inherited a gigantic mess
from you. One of the first things that the new board did with Royal
Management, the newly hired management company, was to carefully go
through several boxes of papers that we received from Maxwell
Management, the former management company. Upon carefully checking
them, we found most of them filled with garbage (empty folders, unused
check books of defunct bank accounts, resumes, insurance declarations from
other properties, etc). The ones with documents belonging to Ocean Walk
did not contain any documentation regarding the wall AC unit project that you
were responsible for nor did it have any information on the elevator project,
bank accounts, etc.
We received several complaints from Ocean Walk owners regarding the AC’s
and Donna told us that the warranty was already expired. Moreover, she had
already replaced one of her own units. We told owners, we were not
responsible for their AC’s.
Now, per your unsolicited email to most of the unit owners of February 19,
2009 (which was painfully hard to read since you used small blue slanted
type) you told us the AC’s are still under guarantee and that owners are
replacing their units with sub-standards air conditioners bought at appliance
stores.
Hermann, please, I beg you not to confuse the owners, giving them false
expectations and wasting their time. We want solutions no more
inconveniences. So far, everything coming from the your previous board is
unclear, problematic, deficient, and not well done. For example, a recent
problem has emerged regarding the hallway AC. The contractor is blaming
you because the lack of plans. We are working hard and slowly things are
improving, please, don’t give us any more of your negative influences.
I’ll tell you a few more things regarding the AC units: we checked the
installation of most the AC units. We found around 20 (twenty) that were not
properly installed. We, at our own expense, reinstalled several units and
corrected a few more. Also, we noticed that some apartments had wall
damage because of this and one of the AC’s was falling down towards the
exterior.
After reading your email, I called the contractor you mentioned and I asked
him to provide in writing his warranty for this work. But, he told me he will
charge $80 to come and check the AC. That is not the way a warranty is
supposed to works. That is the way to make a few bucks in a rough
economy. That is the way to profit even more from Ocean Walk. Owners
already paid more than $70,000 for what you call ”units that do not require
water draining “ and are not sub-standard. And after only 2 years they are
failing….
Home Depot has on sale AC’s with the same characteristics you mentioned
plus remote control and warranty for only $200.00 plus tax. This is a much
better option than giving business to someone who already charged us a lot
and did a deficient job and that in the long run will not solve any problem.
In addition, in the future, before sending an email to all of the unit owners
concerning problems which you are no longer in charge of solving, please
show me the courtesy of giving me a heads up and getting my opinion and
input since I am currently very involved in the dynamics of Ocean Walk.
Thank you
Susana Omil, President
Ocean Walk on South Beach Condominium Association
