L I V E D R A F T as of 4/172021
>sample tacky headline<
Boathouse Board Caught Stealing* ~$5,000. Trustee Says “Inappropriate” to ask about it.
It’s the way of life here says the owner who snagged them. Expects reprisals.
*If “stealing” sounds harsh, maybe
Boathouse owners get fleeced once again.
The good news is that this time it’s only $5,000.
The Boathouse Condos are unique in a lot of ways. Their age and history and great location etc. Also for its unique association/management structure meaning that there is none. Kind of a free for all. Thirdly, its overly docile ownership whose pockets are picked time and time again, over and over again ad nauseum
It is almost impossible to track the goings-on behind the doors of the self-anointed people who run the place, so the possibility for corruption is very real and therefore a way of life. The place is always broke and under-maintained and consistently has to be propped up with fees and assessments.
Evidence of the corruption is rare but there is some. And this page is here to immortalize one tiny snippet of what goes on here. even if just for fun.
Without any of the back story, which is even more damning, I will focus on one small transaction.
Poor building maintenance resulted in water/mold damage to a unit severe enough to incur Board of Health violations. Part of the work involved replacement of some sheetrock. We were quoted $2,500 from local pro builder.
Here is how it works. It is easy of you weren’t raised right. Anyone with access to condo money can use it to “pay” some out-of-town hack $7,250 dollars to do the same $2,500 job. and voila $5,000 right out of the owners’ pockets. About $220 avg per pocket I am not sure where it goes from here, but there is no doubt where it came from. It is fair to state that the total hit to the property will be far higher when all the little transactions are scrutinized including some very suspicious legal fees.
L I V E D R A F T as of 2/28/21
Over two years since the last lawyer-letter
“…please consider this email to be a friendly request to take the website down today. If it’s not down by 5pm today, Monday, February 4, 2019 you will both be sent a formal cease and desist notice from the association attorney with a timeline for legal action.
A year and a half later, the response is still:
“this site will come down after the next legal, by-the-book elections, and will stay down as long as the property is managed in a legal and by-the-book manner”.
Today, Nov 24, 2020, Final response to Mr. Matthews and Atty Palmucci.
Agreed. With new management, new direction.. A lot of reasons to be optimistic that the troubles will be addressed. I think the -ish we won is well worth shutting down the site as I promised. In return, I’d expect that the BHA will not incur any more expense on this frivolous nonsense.
Feb 27, 2020 Sadly, the optimism was premature and we’re going back to public shaming. Starting here:
Massachusetts Real Estate Law Blog
This is the text of our BBB review of BTA. We are waiting for BBB review of our review before it is published.
Our condo board hired Mr. Alex Bezanson and BTA Building & Remodeling to repair some water/mold damage to our unit. A small job needing only a single sheet of drywall and a few studs. We had been quoted $2,500 by our regular guy.
But Mr. Bezanson charged the board $7,250 for that very same $2,500 job. Even worse, this somewhat questionable business model meshes all too well with a total lack of capability to do the job, no matter how simple, and this is the basis of our warnings about them.
Not long after they started the job it became clear that they had neither the tools, materials, smarts nor intentions to actually do the work, and were very obviously damaging the unit while pretending they did. We finally tossed them from the job, but not soon enough to avoid a seriously compromised unit and a monstrous repair bill.
BTA presents itself as a long-standing company with substance and commitment, but came across a lot more like the stereotypical itinerant trunk slammers prowling the market and bilking anyone they come close to. Please, be wary.
