Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in New Jersey

home owner assosiation

A pipe broke in my town house while i was at work. my wife was home but did not know how to turn off the main water shut off. i called the association to tell them to shut it off for her. the association sent a rep. over to shut the water off. when the rep. got there, they assumed that with this amount of water running it must be a main valve. so they called for a plumber to come to my house to fix the problem and clean up the water. when i got home, a plumber came to me and said do not worry about anything your association will take care of the bill. i agreed to let him do the work. midway through the job the association calls the plumber and tells him to stop all work, and advise the owner to get his own plumber to finish the work. 2 months later the association sends me a bill for around 1200.00 for the work of the plumber. the bill came to the association and in the associations name, i feel i should not be responsible for this bill. i did not call the plumber, and i did not tell him to stop midway through the job so i should not have to pay this bill. what should i do?


Asked on 7/19/07, 12:07 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
John Corbett Corbett Law Firm LLC

Re: home owner assosiation

Tell it to the judge. Really!

$1200 to not solve the problem of turning off a valve seems excessive.

If you are unsuccessful in getting the association to own up to its own bill, sitting on it will only produce a lien agaist your property that will haunt you when you need quick action to sell and no one is around to remember what happened. You can't win then.

Try to negotiate a big reduction with the association which, in turn, should get a big reduction from its plumber (who didn't even finish the job). If that doesn't work, tell them to sue you for the $1200 and defend. If they won't sue and just sit on their lien, sue them. Those are the only ways that will get the issue resolved. Sure, you will have some costs and fees but it is better than losing a sale because you can't get the matter cleared up.

See also: http://info.corbettlaw.net/lawguru.htm

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Answered on 7/19/07, 2:50 pm


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