Owners would have to pay estimates of between $ 80,190 for one-bedroom units and $ 336,135 for the building's four-bedroom penthouse owner, according to a document sent to residents of the building. The deadline for prepayment or a 15 year monthly fee was July 1st.

A detailed list of planned repairs included new paving stones, planters, and waterproofing – and addressed some of the issues mentioned in a 2018 report by an engineer who warned that leaking water was causing the concrete to deteriorate. The most expensive project was "facade, balcony and railing repairs" for 3.4 million US dollars.

The 2018 report produced for the Condominium Association had previously estimated that necessary repairs to the Surfside, Florida building would cost approximately $ 9.1 million. It is unclear whether the issues identified by Frank Morabito, the civil engineer who wrote the report, contributed to the disaster.

In a letter to the apartment owners in April, the president of the apartment owners association, Jean Wodnicki, described the decay of the building with the words: "The visible damage, such as in the garage, has worsened significantly since the initial inspection." She noted that the "concrete deterioration is accelerating. The roof situation has deteriorated significantly, so extensive roof repairs had to be incorporated."

"Other previously identified projects have been rolled under the main project. New issues have been identified. Also, costs are increasing every year," the letter said. "So we've moved from the estimated $ 9,128,433.60 quoted in Morabito's 2018 report to the much larger number we have today."

For some owners of the building's 136 units, the grand draft assessment did not come as a surprise.

"We struggled with it and with everything," said Isabel Agüero, who owns a condominium on the 11th floor in the remaining part of the building. She said she believed that most line items were intended for aesthetic improvements rather than structural improvements to the building – such as $ 722,000 for "hallway and public area renovations."

Aguero and her husband opted for the monthly payment and sent the filing on June 23 so that the association would add $ 593 to their homeowner fees, they said. The building collapsed early in the morning.

The couple bought their condo two years ago with plans to retire there, but they said they didn't spend much time in it as their renovations and furniture deliveries were delayed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Her son, Albert Agüero, was in the tower with his wife and two children when it collapsed. They woke up with a terrible sound and tremor, and "when we opened the door we realized how much damage had been done," he said. "The apartment on the left looked like it had been cut in half."

Work has been carried out on the roof of the building since the beginning of the year, "which wakes us up every morning with drilling". But the larger building construction has not yet begun, according to a statement from the engineering office that prepared the 2018 report.

Albert said he was saddened to read the warnings in the 2018 report that he saw only after the building collapsed.

"I was pretty angry at that point, angry that innocent lives were being lost," he said.

Earlier this month, Francesco Cordaro paid more than $ 95,000 for his millions in special fees related to repairs and recertification.

On Thursday, Cordaro and his wife watched their home collapse on TV from Staten Island, New York. They were at Surfside last month and had planned to move to South Florida for retirement, he said.

"The sea view, the size, the location – I loved everything about this apartment," said the 65-year-old. "All my dreams are shattered."

The couple bought the device in January 2019.

"We knew we would have recertification, but at this point no other specific claims were made about structural issues," Cordaro said.

He did not hire a lawyer out of respect for the tower's missing residents, he said, but he believes someone should be held financially liable.

"Sure someone has to pay for it," he said. "I don't know who, what, when, but someone will definitely have to pay."

Housing cooperative put to the test

Since the collapse, the condominiums association has been scrutinized because of the years of delay between the alarming 2018 report and the building's renovation. Its representatives have found they have been delayed by the pandemic and have had to take the time to submit competitive bids for the work.

"We have board members who live here, had their families here and are missing. So if they had known there was a dangerous problem they would surely have taken care of it," said Donna DiMaggio Berger, attorney for The Champlain Condominium Association Towers announced on Friday to CNN.

A Surfside city official had previously assured the association in November 2018 that their building was "in very good condition," minutes of the meeting that CNN-Show received – despite receiving the structural damage report two days earlier.

Rosendo Prieto, who was working as the city's construction clerk at the time, spoke at a meeting of the tower's homeowners' association more than two years before the building collapsed, according to the minutes of the November 15, 2018 meeting.

The death toll from the collapse of a Florida condo reaches 11 as a rescuer to find 150 people still missing

"The civil engineering report has been checked by Mr Prieto," the minutes read, with obvious reference to the Morabito report. Although Prieto found the report "was not in the format for 40-year certification, it noted that the required data was collected and it appears that the building is in very good shape," the minutes read.

A resident of the apartment, Susana Alvarez, told NPR that she attended the meeting – which was held in the building's common room – and recalled a representative from the city who said, "The building was not in bad shape".

Prieto has stopped working for Surfside and has not responded to CNN requests for comment.

Two days before the meeting, on November 13, 2018, a member of the condominium council, Mara Chouela, sent Prieto a copy of the civil engineer's report, according to an email the city posted on Saturday.

And the day after the meeting, Prieto sent another email to Guillermo Olmedillo, the former city administrator, saying the condominium's board meeting "went very well".

"The response has been very positive from everyone in the room," wrote Prieto in the November 16 email posted by the city on Sunday. "All major concerns related to their forty year recertification process have been addressed."

CNN's Daniel Medina contributed to this report.

source https://seapointrealtors.com/2021/07/30/surfside-condo-owners-in-florida-building-were-facing-assessments-for-15-million-worth-of-repairs/

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