freespeechrocks
16 Mar 2013
Real Estate / Can the Poland's apartment building coop be forced to fix the building's front door? [6]
Hi - I recently bought an apartment in a building in Krakow. The building's front door (the only means of egress/exit) does not close by itself. The mechanism that normally pulls the door shut has been removed. This means that at any given point in the day or night I can find the building's front door wide open, as not every person who lives in the building takes a moment to pull the door shut. The bottom line is that when the front door is left ajar, anyone can have full access to the building. As I live on the ground floor, I am very concerned.
Having lived in Poland long enough, I know that it is possible that I have no leverage over the coop with regards to forcing them to fix the door. Further, there is some long-term work scheduled on the interior of this building over the next two years, including the overhaul of the front door. This was explicitly detailed in the contract we signed with the coop. The building is a registered historical landmark. Clearly, the plan is to leave the door be until the interior renovations to the common space are complete. But nowhere in the contract did it indicate that the coop could leave the front door in its current degraded status. There is no justification in my mind that would allow a board to abdicate this responsibility.
Does the coop/board have a legal obligation established by local, country or federal government to provide for the security of the building's inhabitants? Specifically, I am referring to the front door. If there is no legal obligation, is there any other leverage anyone can suggest I might have with the board?
I really appreciate your answers. Thanks.
Hi - I recently bought an apartment in a building in Krakow. The building's front door (the only means of egress/exit) does not close by itself. The mechanism that normally pulls the door shut has been removed. This means that at any given point in the day or night I can find the building's front door wide open, as not every person who lives in the building takes a moment to pull the door shut. The bottom line is that when the front door is left ajar, anyone can have full access to the building. As I live on the ground floor, I am very concerned.
Having lived in Poland long enough, I know that it is possible that I have no leverage over the coop with regards to forcing them to fix the door. Further, there is some long-term work scheduled on the interior of this building over the next two years, including the overhaul of the front door. This was explicitly detailed in the contract we signed with the coop. The building is a registered historical landmark. Clearly, the plan is to leave the door be until the interior renovations to the common space are complete. But nowhere in the contract did it indicate that the coop could leave the front door in its current degraded status. There is no justification in my mind that would allow a board to abdicate this responsibility.
Does the coop/board have a legal obligation established by local, country or federal government to provide for the security of the building's inhabitants? Specifically, I am referring to the front door. If there is no legal obligation, is there any other leverage anyone can suggest I might have with the board?
I really appreciate your answers. Thanks.