FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY WHERE DOES IT BEGIN AND END?

Yesterday, I became aware of a significant structural movement in a condominium building in Alexandria, Virginia. As best I can tell from the news stories on the subject, the movement and resulting damage are by-products of water intrusion and poor maintenance.

At issue (in the mind of this writer) is the relationship between the condo association and the owners themselves. Associations have a fiduciary obligation to be good stewards of their members’ funds.  This isn’t as simple as it sounds.  Oftentimes, an association will simply be cheap and pinch pennies in the interest of short-term cash flow.  This sort of thinking will often backfire when maintenance takes a back seat to expedience resulting in higher life-cycle cost when a major repair has to be made to compensate for deferred maintenance.

Without throwing rocks at anyone in the incident that inspired this post (this sort of thing often happens), maintenance is often overlooked when the manager is unaware that he/she needs to be watching for a hidden problem. Granted, such problems are often difficult to detect and diagnose.  This is where membership in an organization such as BOMA or CSI can be helpful.  I will focus on CSI, as it is the group I am most familiar with.

The membership of CSI is a professionally diverse group of experts on the built environment. We are members of the architectural, engineering, construction, supplying, and owning communities – emphasis in this case on the last one.  Active CSI members develop long term inter-professional relationships with one another.  As a result, we learn from one another.  More importantly, we know who to call when an issue arises or for advice on how to prevent an issue from arising.  In the case of one of my clients, it was a recent CSI encounter I had that prompted me to check into a looming facility problem.  Turns out, the problem was far worse than we anticipated, but preventative action was taken before the issue reached catastrophic proportions.

The takeaway for me is this: building owners, including managers of condominium associations, need to be active members of CSI. The relationships developed are a first line of defense against construction related problems that inevitably develop as a facility ages.  Information relating to membership in CSI can be found at http://www.csiresources.org/communities/membership/individual-membership .  Membership in a local chapter is invaluable.  For those in my locality, I look forward to meeting you at our next chapter meeting.

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