Quote:
Originally Posted by undercoverbrother
No, it is different.
The insurance set up in Condo's vs stand alone homes is different.
In your example there are 3 sets of property owners, owning 3 different properties.
The application of the deducible against the unit owner is usually set out in the bylaws. Bylaws are all different, but the one thing they all generally have common is that they set out when the unit owner is responsible for the payment of the Condo Corp's deductible. They often say that is the unit owner is responsible for the damage/loss the Condo Corp's deductible is applied against the unit owner.
This is a loss which happened without any negligence on Polak's behalf, so the, pending the wording of the bylaws he might not be responsible for the deductible. I suspect, and my experience is, the property management company and/or the condo board are just telling Polak he has to pay. If I was him I would ask to be shown in the bylaws.
This is but another example of why I would never buy a Condo again.
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That's not really how fault and negligence work when it comes to condo insurance.
Far as the condo board and prop manager are concerned, this was polak's "fault". It would be his responsibility to keep his things in good working order. Their insurance may go after a third party if they think negligence was responsible for them having to payout but something polak owns did damage to someone else's property. That means he's responsible. Sadly the condo and their insurance aren't likely to care about crappy luck. I guess it is possible they may pay it on his behalf in any situation where they can't prove negligence on his part, but I highly doubt it. That would be unlike any condo I've ever seen.
Now if the siding was installed incorrectly and rainfall leaked into polak's unit and ruined his floor and his below neighbor's roof, then the board (really all homeowners since it is their money), would pay the deductible.
It really isn't much different than the example you quoted. There's just more people involved. In fact, since the responsibility of the cost gets spread out, you could argue the condo owner is better off than the homeowner, who would be solely responsible. And he gets the benefit of the prop management company to help sort everything out. If they suck, then that's the board's fault and by extension partly polak's fault for not getting involved in running his board (I'm not making any assumptions about either polak, the board, or the prop mgr, just saying that's a possibility).