I am doing a big term project for school on Condominium law. By big project, I mean big like the only material I have had this term is this research project. Everyone does their project on different subjects and I decided to do Condominium law because I am already pretty involved in it and of the different areas of the law that I am involved in I would rather be known as an expert in condominium law than anything else.
Another big reason that I decided to do this project on condominium law was the vast quantity of material I could find on the subject. Condominium law has been around for the better part of a century and various different countries around the world have adapted condo law to meet their needs. This means I had lots of research material and most of it in English.
Having had a chance to examine condo law in Quintana Roo and compare it to other places I have some great suggestions and great ideas as to how the laws in this area can be changed to benefit investors looking at buying condominiums in the area in order to strengthen our economy. I know all the common complaints and problems that the condo buildings in the area deal with and how the law is deficient in terms of handling said problems.
Here is the problem I run into, even though I now am an expert in condo law in Quintana Roo, it doesn’t do me a whole lot of good because I feel like the majority of what I know is how hard it is for a condominium building to get put back into working order if it has been at all neglected or if any of the procedures of the law are not followed completely. So when I have people come to me with their problems about condominiums I can explain to them how deeply in trouble they are and how extremely complex and difficult the solution is.
…and because of the complexity and absurdity of the condominium situation nobody believes me when I tell them their situation because it really defies logic. So it doesn’t seem to be doing me a whole lot of good on that front.
On the upside, I know enough about condominium law to confuse and frustrate the authorities. One of the buildings that I manage got inspected recently as a part of the city’s effort to regularize the thousands of clandestine hotels that are operating in Playa del Carmen. They were asked to produce various documents that they don’t have because the nature of the condominium building, and more so the condominium association that is actually what I am in charge of, doesn’t lend itself to the possibility of having a business license or operating permits.
I was given five days to produce all these documents or face grave consequences, so I went to the “Protección Civil” office and started to explain to them the precarious situation I am in with this particular building. You see, I am not the actual administrator of the building. My company is not the actual, legal administrator of the building. My company is the legal administrator of the civil association that some of the owners of the condominium set up to function as their association. The problem is, there is nothing legally linking the condominium building to the civil association. Way back when the association was formed and the building was turned over to the owners by the developer the formalities of the law weren’t followed and nothing was made legal.
Legally the building administrator is still the developer who built the building. The developer of the building has been advised by their attorney to not acknowledge that they are still the administrator for liability issues. In a condominium assembly, the building’s owners would happily change the administrator if given the choice, but they cannot, because only the building’s administrator or the vigilance committee (which this building doesn’t have) can legally call a meeting. As I said, the administrator of the building (the developer) doesn’t want to call the assembly because he is afraid that they will be legally liable for any actions that have been taken by the building since they stopped acting as the developer. So what other options are there?
There is a provision in the condo law that allows 25% of the building’s ownership to appear before a judge to get a assembly called. Sounds great, right? Try getting all those people to get together to do anything is like pulling teeth: their building looks great so what do they care who the legal administrator is? They could also give a power of attorney to someone who can appear before the judge in their representation, but a legal power of attorney is no small task in Mexico. It either costs $150-300 dollars to do with a notary in Quintana Roo or can be done through a foreign notary and some fancy paperwork for about $100 dollars. But again, their building looks great, so why do they want to spend another $100?
Now, for most of the permits that the “Protección Civil” wants from the building are a) only for buildings with commercial use and I maintain that a condominium is for residential use, even if the separate condo owners use their units for other things, and b) only obtainable by the building’s administrator, who in this case I am not and who probably will not be available to obtain these permits anyway. I assured the nice inspector that I would love to help but I was sure he understood my difficult situation and that I hoped he would be able to make some exceptions in this case.
So, when I gave this whole discourse to the inspection officer from “Protección Civil” as an explanation for why I absolutely cannot get a business license for a residential condo building his eyes started rolling back into his head and eventually he gave me a pass on the majority of the stuff that he was asking for. He did understand that I wouldn’t be able to provide him with a business license, but wouldn’t budge on some of the things he was asking for and as incentive for my cooperation he offered to suspend all operations in the condominium and order it legally closed, with the reasoning that it would help me in the long run to get the owners to cooperate and quickly. I declined his kind offer, promising him to get the proper number of fire extinguishers, a natural gas inspection and a first aid kit in the building before the end of January.
So, my being an expert on condominium law may not help me any, but it seems to have helped the owners of this particular condominium building. Unfortunately, I doubt very much if they read my blog, so they will never know it.
