Remember to Read the Fine Print

So in the end, one "concession" that the ownership was willing to make was to give a few of the early buyers a new parking spot.  This is NOT a new one in addition to the existing one, but rather trading up to a better parking spot.  Woohoo! Finally got something awesome! [/sarcasm]

I get a legalese document informing me of the switch. I didn't think there was going to be too much in it, but in concession for the parking spot...

"Release. Unit Owner hereby releases and agrees to hold harmless BTC, Realty Trust City, Inc., a Washington corporation, and their respective members, managers, agents, representatives, affiliates, successors and assigns (the “Released Parties”) from and against any and all claims, causes of action, costs, injuries, damages, losses, liabilities or indebtedness of any kind or nature (including without limitation attorneys fees and expenses) asserted against the Released Parties or any one or more of them by the Unit Owner relating to Unit Owner’s purchase or ownership of the Unit, BTC’s actions in providing the concessions set forth herein or any other action taken by BTC related to its ownership of the unsold units in the Project and control of the Board and Association, or any breach of this Agreement."

You got to be kidding me? So for SWAPPING parking spots, I have to forgo any possible previous claims. These guys are just ridiculous. It wouldn't be SO ridiculous if they were upfront, but to just slide it in the fine print. If there was NO culpability for all my issues, would this need to be added?

Link to the contract (this is the original contract copied to word)

Ruff Neighbor

My neighbor moved in a couple weeks ago and lovely enough this was that I listened to for the first two weeks:

That's right,  a yipping  and yelpling dog.  The dog's calmed down a bit, but every time I leave my unit, I hear it scurry to the front door and start barking.  The other thing that is more apparent now is that I hear everything my neighbor does.  Given the proximity of all our doors, they aren't offset and face each other -- I can everything going on in their unit when I'm coming home and when I'm home, I can always hear someone getting on to the elevator, closing their unit door, having conversations in the hallway, and so on.  Since I have studio, even at the furthest point in my unit, I can still hear ongoing noise from the hallway. 

It's been ruff. 

Free Valet -> Limited -> No Parking

Something had to give and so there will no longer be validated guest parking for Bellevue Tower visitors. Although, this would probably acceptable if this was stated upfront when moving in, but when I moved in they promised that there would be FREE VALET PARKING (WITH ZERO GRATUITY). Now, if you have guests come over they'll have to park in the PAY LOTS across the street, sneak into Lincoln Square or Bellevue Square parking. This is a far stretch from the initial promise.

Even more unbelievable, was that we were sent an email stating this. There was no meeting to discuss, just wham, here it is. Again, the Board of directors is made of the majority ownership, so you just take what they give you. Yes, time for me to bend over again.



Here was some colorful feedback on our bulletin boards from the owners:

"Let me say that we are stunned, upset and disappointed to read this. When we purchased at Bellevue Towers we were assured that there would be complimentary parking for our visitors. It was one of our greatest concerns and near the top of our list when purchasing. We asked about it repeatedly and were assured that it would not be an issue; in fact, it was one of the main selling points for us. We feel betrayed."

"I am very disappointed in the recent announcement that Bellevue Towers will remove free validated parking for its guests. This is concerning for me both as a homeowner personally, and an investor within the
building."

"To say that I am outraged, it is still not enough to describe my anger.
This is non-sense. I think this is a violation of the original intent for this condo.
I also feels betrayed that such an important decision was made without any of the owner being consulted. Not even include our owner representatives."

Here is the entire letter if you want to have a read. You would think I would run out of stuff to post, but it just keeps piling on for me. "Love" this place!

Peeping Tom

When I spoke about how close the two towers were to each other, I was not joking. I was talking to the concierge the other day, making idle chit-chat, when he says to me - "hey, so you like photography, huh?". How did he know I liked photography? So I asked him - "yea, why do you ask?". The concierge -"Well some noticed flashes coming from your unit and noticed you taking photos." Really?

I can probably only see five or six people who have moved in across the way as most of the other units are empty, so who is peeping into my window? Maybe one of the units with the drawn curtains on the upper units. Oh well.. it's a good thing I've been working out, it's probably been a good show for them.

Anyway if you do visit the units for a tour, please do wave hello.

I suppose this is less awkward when another concierge asked me when I first moved in - " Late night, huh? I was looking at the guest logs and I saw that you had a visitor until 4AM last night." 

Bend Over

[Post refers to Jan. 27th.  Sorry for the late post(s).  I was told my blog was not up to date, so here are some posts]

After making our proposals in the summer of 2009, we finally got an email stating that a decision had been made for early buyers and that we would have a meeting on January 26th to discuss. Also noted in the email was that the meeting was to be "expected to be a brief discussion". This screamed that nothing would be done for us...

I go to the meeting and they schedule to have it on the unit on the 40th floor condo unit, probably to keep any rioting and yelling isolated, usually we would have the meeting in our common floors. At the beginning of the meeting, Ira K. Glasser, the rep from Morgan Stanley, states what I expected - "There will be no compensation given". Myself and many early buyers are frustrated/irate/mad/angry. I won't go into too many details as to why I am and others were frustrated as it's pretty well documented in my blog, but just the fact that we've been in limbo w/ the condo for well over a year as the prices have drop precipitously, that we've given promises of price guarantees, and that we had to move into conditions that were less than ideal.

Most of the very upset people spoke first, the complaints were mostly the ones mentioned in this blog. There was one gentleman who spoke of how he even set up a meeting to discuss w/ developers before moving in about the prospect of falling prices and the fact that he only closed only based on that meeting and the assurance the value would still increase. Ira's feedback to those meetings were that developers (the ones that defaulted), probably in their mind, believed the prices of units would still rise and therefore was no culpability on the original lender or Morgan Stanley today and if the resident wanted to take legal action, then Morgan Stanley is more than welcome it. (translation: we're bigger than you, bring it.) I'm assuming he didn't file any suits.

The rage went on for a while until someone said, paraphrasing (he said this much more elegantly) - "hey, we should just calm down and accept our losses and move on. The best thing we can do is promote the building and make sure it sells out." Really??!! Someone responded jokingly (though I'm not sure 100%) - "Are you working for the lender or something?" In my head... I was thinking the exact same thing. So per the Internet standard, WTF came to my mind. Later, I found out that this resident had actually bought a second unit and is now on the condo association board - so you can see where his loyalties lie.

So in the building, there are some people like the person above that have so much money that they've accepted their losses and double down on their investments and purchase another million dollar unit, for me, I'm still upset; I've waited a good 20 months when I could have ditched my unit waiting for a response only to see my unit to drop in price dramatically. I feel like my move-in conditions were not ready (see entire blog) while others didn't move in and had a chance to negotiate to lower price which I was told not possible.

Is it of value for me to be still upset? I'm sure some people just tell me to let it go, but given the many months of writing proposals, emails, and meetings to come to this conclusion is a very bitter pill for me to swallow. Maybe it's time to bend over and just let the ownership give it to me. Wait, they already have.

New Year, Old Complaints

NO FEEDBACK
It is the new year and there is still no feedback from the ownership. I reached out to the Realty group in December about the proposal I submitted in August of 2009, but I was told the ownership still has not transferred over to Morgan Stanley yet and no action will be taken until that is done. But from reading news articles today, it seems like they finalized the transfer, but it is still up in the air when I'll receive feedback on my proposal to address all the issues I've dealt with moving in here. It's been 17 months since I made my proposal and there hasnt' been a peep from Bellevue Towers. Like myself, many of the early residents I've talked to are extremely aggravated at the snails pace for any feedback or resolution.


BLOGGING
Patrick Clark, the principal at Realty Trust, the realty group for Bellevue Towers, who I usually communicate to about my condo issues, mentioned his dissapointment about my blog. My response, which he understood:

- There is no feedback from the ownership, what other recourse do I have to get traction? It's been 17 months.
- I have had all these issues that weren't addressed (read this blog) when I moved in which severely impacted/impacts my experience
- I was told that units would not be reduced by selling agents when closing, but as you can see they have been dramatically reduced and deals have been given to buyers that held out on their deposit.
- I have not embellished my stories and just re-counted my experiences at the condo
- Most importantly, I'm held in limbo as to what I can do financially - I can't re-fi, I can't sell, I can't buy other property, I have to wait for the outcome of their feedback. At this point, it would be even better to just walk away from my unit given the current appraisals.


NOISE/SMELL
I ran into my neighbor downstairs and she lamented about all her issues with her unit which I could totally empathize with. As mentioned in my previous blog entry, the smells from the restaurants downstairs run through some of the vents and permeate many of the units. "We're Jewish and our unit was filled with pork smells this weekend" my neighbor complained. Again, I was told exaggeration should be avoided in blogging, but that was the quote I was given, obviously that commentary is a little extreme, but you can clearly understand the emphasis for frustration.

As well, there is constant noise in the alleyway (maybe a given for city living), but as expressed in the blog and our last condo meeting, there are loud garbage trucks that usually roam the alleyways in the middle of the night. I'm woken up once in a while, but you can imagine the impact living closer to the ground level; my neighbor complained to me pretty vehemently about her problems and that it doesn't seem like and issue that will ever be resolved along with the food odor issues.

For me, I'm more woken up by hallway noise, which is pretty amazing since there is only one more unit occupied on the other side of my hallway. I can hear the garbage chute being used as well as the elevators everyday. For what I paid for this condo, I wouldn't think I would have been impacted by hallway noise.

I was hesitant to put my neighbor's feedback, but she actually prompted me to post her feelings and that she would 100% back the post. Honestly, I don't I think I did her frustrations justice.

Public, Again.

To be clear, all my stories are factual and truly reflect my first year and a half at Bellevue Towers. If any item is not true, I will be more than happy to take it down, but the posts are honest and represent all the anger and the issues I've felt in the past year. As for the legitimacy of my blogs, they can be all be backed up by residents, the condo google group, concierge logs, pictures, and/or my email correspondences.

I've spent more than enough time on this condo issue. It's been extremely draining and time consuming. At this point, All I want is closure and resolution and I hope to get that soon.