The $50 million mistake
“I don't have regrets, there are only lessons. You learn from them, and you become a better person.”
—Nicole Polizzi

“The only thing that I can do with my regrets is understand them.
—Kevin Costner


By the early 1990s, YCC #42 was in trouble as a slow but constant number of owner-residents moved out, either selling their units or rented them out. Property values were dropping and the cultural and social tensions remained.

Let’s save a few bucks
Then in 1996, YCC #42 elected a new board of directors who promised the owners a 5% cut in their maintenance fees.

The manager resisted his instructions to cut back on the maintenance budget  and the increased meddling with the day-to-day management of the corporation, so he terminated the relationship effective the end of July 1997.

Vince continued to manage YCC #60. (Others say that Vince hired his relatives to work in the condo office and that created resentments.)

The owners got their 5% drop in fees but what followed was ten years of mismanagement, waste, theft, corruption, quarreling and continuous power struggles between individuals and factions fighting to gain and maintain control of the board and the money and jobs that the board controls. These power struggles are documented in various affidavits that are included in superior court applications.

15 years later
Today, units in YCC #60 are listed on the MLS for at least 70% more than similar units in YCC #42. (autumn 2013) There is at least a $50,000,000 difference in the total property values between the two identical condominiums.

However, the $50 million is actually too low. If one includes all the extra money spent on special assessments and the present difference in assets and debts and add in the personal costs of all the power of sales; collectively the owner-residents of YCC #42 have taken a terrible financial beating.


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