DHA
Construction Management

An owner in a condo community is under contract to sell. Two weeks before closing, the buyer's lender comes back and says the project doesn't qualify. Not the buyer — the project. The deal dies. The owner is furious, the manager is fielding calls, and the board is genuinely baffled, because the thing the lender is asking about is a balcony repair the association already assessed for, already collected on, and already built. Two years ago. The board's reaction was exactly righ

(Part 2 of two. Last week was everything you can settle with a gauge, a straightedge, or 48 hours and a piece of chalk. This week is everything you can't.) Two board members are standing on the same balcony, looking at the same railing, on the same afternoon. One says it looks like crap. The other says it looks great. Both of them are sincere. Neither is being difficult. The contractor is standing ten feet away waiting to know whether he's getting paid for this phase, and the

(Two-part series. This week: the criteria that have numbers behind them. Next week: the ones that don't — color, texture, profile, and the arguments nobody wins.) Here's the scene. It's three weeks after the balcony coating went down, it rained overnight, and there's a puddle on unit 12. A unit owner photographs it and calls it a defect. The contractor says every deck holds a little water and it'll be gone by noon. Both statements sound reasonable. Neither one is a standard.

The letter shows up in month four. It's polite, it's on letterhead, and it's addressed to the board. "Please be advised that the Contractor has incurred twenty-two days of compensable delay attributable to Owner-caused conditions, including delayed submittal approvals, restricted site access, and unavailability of the designated laydown area. A change order request follows." The board reads it twice and lands somewhere between confused and annoyed. Then the meeting happens, a

By Sean Davis | DHA Construction Management As a current HOA board member of 12 years and a civil engineer with over 30 years in construction and project management, I’ve lived both sides: sitting in board meetings approving projects and managing the bids, contractors, and execution. I’ve seen communities work hard to handle maintenance and repairs—only to leave serious money on the table because of avoidable RFP pitfalls. Here are three frequent hazards and quick ways to avo