"J. Meier" wrote in message
...
Hello, Please allow me to apologize for the length of this. I hope
someone can help me.
(snip)
Can anyone help us?

Thank you so much,

J. Meier
Condo or Co-op? Do you each own a percentage of entire building, or just
your specific unit? Does your deed address common areas, and upkeep thereof?
If you never formed an organization, how can you have bylaws? Who did the
management company have the contract with? Who was the person or entity that
opened the bank account?

I suspect that there is some legal entity, however dormant, that is on
record as controlling the common areas. Likely to be a shell company the
original builder set up. Sounds like the management company was handed the
keys to the money box at some point, and just regarded your building as a
cash cow. Now that you are getting involved, they are washing their hands of
it.

IANAL. You need one, specializing in real estate and HOAs. An outside
accountant, too. You can probably kiss off any funds the old comapany had
defacto control of. A lot will depend on the fine print in your deeds, aka
the C&Rs. Pass the hat, hire a lawyer, and have him go over all the
paperwork everyone has, and attempt to reconstruct things. He will also need
to search down at the courthouse, and find whatever was recorded for the
property. Maybe you can take over whatever abandoned association or whatever
was created way back when, or the lawyer can tell you how to officially kill
it and form a new association with all the proper paperwork in place. I'd be
real careful about signing any purchase orders related to the property
absent a legally recognized association- somebody could come after you
personally. (Say, if you contracted for a roof or something, and not all the
owners kicked in their share.) But like I said, IANAL- advice on Usenet is
worth what you paid for it.

aem sends...