ST : Condo's by-laws have teeth

Oct 17, 2010

Condo mayhem

Residents who behave badly can make life miserable for others

By Sandra Leong

Beyond the idyllic depiction of classy condominium living, another facet may lurk: the resident or visitor from hell.

For instance, residents at a condominium in the East suspected that the same culprit was repeatedly urinating and defecating in the swimming pool, said the estate's managing agent Victor Charles.

The company he works for, Philip Motha Property Management, manages more than 40 private estates here.

To catch the mischief maker, Mr Charles, 50, installed a closed-circuit television camera system around the pool. No one was caught but the cameras seemed to have scared off the culprit.

There have also been cases of balconies used as dumping grounds.

Media director Jamie Sze, 42, found used tissue paper, onion skins, cigarette butts and even used sanitary pads thrown onto her second-storey balcony at Goodluck Garden in Toh Tuck Road.

Said the mother of three, who has since moved to Maplewood along Bukit Timah Road: 'There was no way we could stop them. It's not as if I could park myself at the balcony all day...We didn't have concrete evidence but we had our suspicions. The sanitary pad was the ultimate.'

Unlike the happier outcome in the earlier example, the litterbug was never caught. Her complaint to the condo management merely led to a general letter reminding residents not to litter.

Earlier this month, former Singapore Idol Hady Mirza, a tenant at Mimosa Park in Yio Chu Kang, was banned from using the condo's recreational facilities for six months after a poolside party his family hosted left behind a mess.

Paper plates and uneaten food were found in the swimming pool, the management council said. Toilets were choked and damaged.

Hady has since apologised. The party, he said, was a children's bash gone awry.

People want to live in private estates for the pluses, including facilities such as swimming pools and gyms, and the 'exclusivity'.

But residents, management councils and managing agents told The Sunday Times that there will always be people who behave badly in their estates.

Boorish behaviour may range from littering to bizarre acts, like soiling the pool, skinny dipping or using communal shower facilities to save on the water bill.

On the other hand, management corporations or councils have the power to act. The office-bearers are fellow residents voted in by the others.

Managing agents are professionals hired to run the estates.

These bodies have a mandate to upkeep the condo by tapping into maintenance contribution funds - which range from about $280 to $500 a month - paid by owner- residents.

One of their responsibilities is to uphold the condo's by-laws, essentially a set of rules to foster harmonious living.

Depending on what the by-laws allow, warnings, fines and bans can be meted out. But the enforcement of these rules can be a challenge.

'Sometimes a resident may say to the manager, 'I'm paying your salary'. But we have to be clear that certain behaviour is unacceptable,' said Mr Lionel de Souza, 67, a former council chairman of Stratford Court in Bedok.

Mr Francis Zhan, 65, chief executive officer of the Association of Management Corporations in Singapore, said problems such as residents not cleaning up after booking facilities like barbecue pits and function rooms are 'widespread'.

But these occurrences are seldom severe, said Mr Eric Tay, 48, director of Total Estate Management Services, which manages 25 condominium properties.

He estimated that there are fewer than 10 such disputes in each estate every year, most of which are resolved without the need for external mediation.

It can cost at least $200 to clean up after irresponsible residents, he said.

In one serious case he saw at a condo in the East, a rowdy party of 20-somethings repeatedly ignored requests by security guards to clear up after a barbecue. The management then retained the hosts' $100 deposit to pay for the cleaning services, and barred them from using the facilities for the next three months.

Though they did not cause any permanent damage, they had left food and furniture strewn around the common areas. The condo's cleaners had to do 'extra work' to clear up the mess, said Mr Tay.

A check with the Strata Titles Board, which arbitrates disputes between owners or between owners and management, found that over the past two years, there were no cases brought before it over misuse of facilities.

Still, the horror stories do go round, even within swankier developments.

At the Caribbean at Keppel Bay, resident Eugene Wee, 38, went to the carpark one morning about two years ago to find the windscreen of his Toyota MR2 convertible smashed by a pole.

The vandal was a drunk tenant who had also destroyed two other cars in the early hours of the morning. Luckily for Mr Wee, a general manager in the marine industry, the culprit forked out $10,000 for the damage to his car.

The main perpetrators of bad conduct are tenants, not owner-residents, say estate managers.

Mr Zhan, who was the council chairman of Regent Garden in West Coast Road until it was sold to developers in 2007, said: 'Owners are less likely to misbehave as they do not want to affect the value of the property. Tenants don't have a stake; why should they take care of it?'

To address this problem at Regent Garden, the council there introduced maintenance fund rebates to owner-occupiers so they would not have to feel as if they were subsidising excess maintenance costs created by the tenants, he added.

Fairly or unfairly, some residents say the lifestyles of some foreigners may be a factor.

Mr Jimmy Ling, 57, the estate manager of Woodsvale condominium in Woodlands, has encountered foreign residents who invite up to 100 guests for weekend parties that mess up the barbecue pits.

He said he also dealt with a non-local family who lived on a high floor. They threw water out of their window every day as part of a religious cleansing ritual.

But locals are not blameless either.

'Attitude is the biggest problem we face,' said Mr Ling, who added that some condo residents feel no need to take personal responsibility for their surroundings because 'they don't actually see what they are paying'. Money for repairs is usually taken from maintenance funds.

Sociologist Paulin Tay Straughan from the National University of Singapore said bad behaviour can occur in any type of communal living.

'It is not limited to those living in HDB estates. It is just that in condominiums, because there is a condo manager and security personnel, there is an on-site outlet for grievances to be heard.

'Expectations will tend to be elevated and tolerance is lowered as well.'

sandral@sph.com.sg

Additional reporting by Cheryl Ong





--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Condo's by-laws have teeth

It is rare for the police to step in when a boorish resident upsets his fellow condo residents or the estate's managers.

Typically, the condominium's by-laws have the teeth to deal with the perpetrator.

Most such offences - like dirtying or damaging common property or leaving cars in non- designated areas - are spelt out in the by-laws, so the condo managers can deal with them.

Owners of condo units are subsidiary proprietors and they all have a share in the common facilities.

'As subsidiary proprietors, they voted to pass these by-laws,' said property lawyer Norman Ho. So anyone who breaches any by-law faces the stipulated penalty, he said.

Penalties may be warnings, bans and fines.

Even if a resident disputes, say, damage done to a shared facility, what may happen next is a civil suit, not a criminal case, Mr Ho said.

But Dr Lim Lan Yuan, a real estate lecturer at the National University of Singapore and chairman of the Association of Facility and Property Managers, felt that mediation through bodies like the Strata Titles Board and the Singapore Institute of Surveyors and Valuers is a better option.

'Even the courts will probably ask you to resolve the problem amicably,' he said. 'The aim as a community should be to establish good rapport with one another.'

The police, however, can and should be called in for cases of vandalism or when residents or their visitors become a public nuisance.

Never take the law into your hands, Mr Ho advised. 'If a fight starts and the resident accuses the management council or managing agent of using force, they will be in a difficult position.'

Sandra Leong

Additional reporting by Cheryl Ong