I live in a condominium complex. For the last several years, Vanguard's property manager has effectively run the place, telling our board of directors what to do and when; she says "jump frog" and they ask how high on the way up.
Several months ago, a neighbor in our building moved out and put their unit up for sale. They left a storage locker vacant and I moved into it, changing the lockers (the only thing that determines who has what locker is what a paper card on the door says). There were no rules or regulations or even laws against it.
A new neighbor moved in in the last month, and initially took our old locker. However, he was apparently told by a Board member that he was owed the locker we had swapped for it. Not only was this false, they apparently made it sound like we had stolen it; the owner refused to speak with me at any time to discuss what had happened, and immediately had the board and his attorney resort to legal and property threats.
Illinois law states that anything not mentioned in the declaration of ownership, or in the rules and regulations of the association, is common element, and therefore is up for use as suiting the residents; neither of these state that the storage lockers are assigned to any one condo unit, and there is ample evidence (old tags, new tags, tags with new unit numbers on them) that lockers have been changed. Our rules and regulations also provide for a procedure to be followed when there is a violation, allowing for a hearing if requested.
We requested the hearing and were ignored.instead, at 10 PM last night, we were told via email (from Vanguard) that our lock had been cut and property removed from the locker that was now ours. We went down and found that it had been carelessly shoved into the locker, and what couldn't fit was left out in the open with no security or care given to it.
Vanguard has encouraged the Board and the Board follows time and time again ignoring the laws and rules of the association when it suits them; I would like to believe that this is one rogue manager, but based on the cold response we've received from Vanguard corporate, I am led to believe that this is their general policy. They have been intentionally ignoring procedure and state laws whenever it suits them, and have gone out of their way to be hostile to me.
The Board claims that Vanguard said they were legally right to do whatever they want; the laws and actual writings on the subject disagree with them and they take word of mouth over that. Partially it is their fault, but Vanguard is the orchestrator of this whole event, as well as past ones that have resulted in damages to the property, public and private.
I hope this helps anyone looking at Vanguard for a management company. My advice: no. They will do everything they can to ensure they have control of the property, rather than the homeowners and board.
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