Does Condo Association Owe Tenants Anything?

[Chris G.]

Posted something similar awhile back but here we are again. Have condo which is inside a building with 10 other units, power went out for their unit only so we sent out electrician, he found that the meter socket was overheating. This makes it a condo association issue so I contacted them and they agreed so they sent out their own electrician. Due to the buildings being old I saw told it's hard to find parts for these. Keep in mind at this point it's been 5 days tenants have been without power. Electrician orders part for ebay.... and association tells me it could "possibly" fix the issue but won't be delivered and installed for another 5-7 days, if that used part does not fix the issue they'll have to replace the whole thing for the building which would take several weeks to order and have installed.

At this point everyone is upset, us, management, tenants. I told tenants in times like these renters insurance would have covered housing and loss of food. If we had any vacant units I'd allow them to stay there but we don't. I've offered for them to break their lease if they want. Would the condo association be held responsible for providing a credit or temporary housing for these tenants? I have a feeling they would use the renters insurance argument to cover themselves. Are there any other things I could do, I feel like there's no real other options unfortunately. 

[Russell Brazil]

Well if power is out for all 10 units....Id say each owner is owed $10,000. In order to pay that out though they need to issue a $12,000 special assessment to each owner. So youll get to write a $12k check for the assessment, but youll get back $10k for the inconvenience of the power being out.