by Raymond Daniel Burke | Nov 21, 2012
Ober|Kaler Construction Group principal Raymond D. Burke and associates Mathew T. Vocci and Jackson B. Boyd secured judicial confirmation earlier this year in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City of a significant arbitration award on behalf of the owner of a penthouse condominium unit located at 100 Harborview Drive in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. The Circuit Court’s confirmation of the $1,252,487 arbitration award resulted in what is believed to be Maryland’s largest judgment against a condominium council of unit owners for its failure to maintain, repair, and replace the common elements of a condominium building (in this case, the roof system, exterior façade, and HVAC ductwork of a 27-story high-rise). The Circuit Court also confirmed the arbitration award’s order of specific performance, which requires the condominium’s council of unit owners to replace the building’s roof system, repair its exterior façade, clean its HVAC ductwork, and insulate its rooftop exterior HVAC ductwork. The value of the work required by the specific performance order is approximately $6 million. (more…)
by Raymond Daniel Burke | Nov 19, 2012
By Raymond Daniel Burke – Reprinted from The Baltimore Sun Commentary November 19, 2012
Baltimore’s Fifth Regiment Armory is a good place to start for some perspective on the recent presidential election. Within its gray stone walls, the tumultuous 1912 Democratic National Convention played a major scene in the political drama that resulted in an incumbent president not only being defeated, but finishing third in the national election. The dynamics that led to such an extraordinary result are lessons that apply to any analysis of an election involving a sitting president.
We are beset daily with opinions as to why Mitt Romney managed to win only one swing state against an incumbent presiding over an underwhelming economy. Many analysts point to the failure of the Republican Party to come to terms with the nation’s shifting demographics. Others go so far as to bemoan a perceived rejection of traditional free enterprise values in favor of an entitlement mentality. All of these theories, however, could benefit from a dose of history. (more…)
by Raymond Daniel Burke | Nov 2, 2012
As condominium boards and property managers should well know, Section 11-135 of the Maryland Condominium Act imposes a duty on councils of unit owners to provide unit purchasers with a resale certificate whenever a unit is being re-sold. One significant disclosure that must be made in a resale certificate is “[a] statement as to whether the council of unit owners has knowledge of any violation of the health or building codes with respect to the unit, the limited common elements assigned to the unit, or any other portion of the condominium.” This, of course, gives rise to the question of what constitutes “knowledge” of a code violation for disclosure purposes. The Maryland Court of Appeals recently addressed this issue, but only in a footnote contained in MRA Property Management, Inc. v. Armstrong, 426 Md. 83, 43 A. 3d 397 (2012). While the issue was not actually before the Court, it, nevertheless, took the unusual step of considering the question, and concluded that the disclosure requirement involves only “charged violations;” that is, only violations as to which a formal violation notice has been issued by the code authority. It can certainly be argued that “knowledge” of a code violation includes knowing that a deviation from a code requirement exists, such as in the form of an engineer’s report, and that such information is highly relevant to a consideration of what maintenance and repair costs may confront the unit purchaser. However, the Court’s voluntary discussion of this issue, while only dicta, certainly indicates the direction and narrow reading of the statute the Court may take if the issue were to be placed squarely before it. (more…)
