Home Inspections Vancouver Case Study

Ask the Expert: Warranties and racing a ticking clock

We were recently called to conduct a Warranty Check and review a large 16-building townhouse complex in South Surrey, almost at the U.S. border. The client, the Strata Council of Owners, was very concerned with their fading warranties on the common property of their nearly two-year-old complex, with the clock ticking down to the point of the warranty coverage evaporating completely.

They had been disappointed that their previous Property Manager had really ‘dropped the ball’, resulting in most of the warranty expiry dates already passing and gone forever. On top of this, the 15-month warranty coverage on most everything was now completely missed and wasted, leaving only select items still covered.

Once the new Property Manager was in place, this concern was now such a high priority that they naturally reached out to us for help, in order to save the day.

In addition to everything mentioned above, and with pressure already mounting, there were only two of the 16 Warranty Certificates on file, which meant they really had to go digging for the rest.

What they were all really in need of was peace of mind.

It was once again time to Ask the Expert!

Once they had luckily found us, we strategically scheduled a site visit. After numerous exchanges of emails, we eventually and patiently earned their trust over a number of weeks, but the clock was still ticking. We needed to commence a full review of the exterior of all 16 buildings.

In the end, their new Property Manager had to realize that 13-14 of the buildings, each with unique expiry dates, were now expired, leaving just the last two to three buildings covered under warranty.

After yet another Council meeting on the subject, they wisely decided to still have all 16 buildings checked over on the exterior, with an obvious priority on those last two to three that were still covered, before it was too late.  The rest would constitute just doing a Condition Check, which is never a bad idea and would be useful as a To-Do list for that administration, with priorities spelled out for them.

Our detailed reports are powerful, hard hitting and meant to get results, based on Glenn’s 30 years of documenting deficiencies for all sorts of situations.

BIG worries were turned, once again, into BIG SMILES with this client and their Property Manager, which sure made our day!