Whataburger in PCB - not well rated by customers so far.

In Nov last year it was mentioned on the blog that there was a new Whataburger going up in front of the Lowe's store at Back Beach Rd (ok its also known as Panama City Beach Pky) and Alf Coleman Road.

Well, it opened last week and it is a 24 hour restaurant, located next to the Hardee's restaurant and near the Publix grocery store.  From customer comments on a web site it seems that they need to work on their customer service and food preperation issues, probably this will eventually be sorted out, but for the moment they are not well rated by customers.  
http://www.whataburger.com/contact_us.php

An old topic that needs some attention to save $ now.

I don't know if anyone else ever noticed it or if they did if they even cared, but here is some info on NCC water/sewer costs, it is the same thing I have been bringing up for years and it is time things changed and our dues signifigantly reduced.

'Old Timers' at NCC might recall that when we first purchased here we were all billed seperately for our water/sewer, this was done monthly by a 3rd class outfit called American Utility Management (AUM) http://aumsucks.blogspot.com. They did an extremely BAD job, billing people for water never used and they were finally fired 3 1/2 yrs ago.

Concord decided, probably with the approval of the developer controlled Board of Directors, that rather than doing the logical thing and finding a replacement billing firm, they would just increase the dues from the then $556 monthly to $675 so as to pay for the water/sewer charges and there would be no more individual billings.

Now we all pay the same for water, no matter how much or little you use.   (ie:  150% more than we should be paying)

Here is some math for you to consider: water/sewer is budgeted for 2012 at $91,584, that is what we expect to pay the City of PCB. The difference between the 'old' dues and the 'new' dues for the 168 condos is $239,904. So there is an additional $148,320 over and above the water/sewer whose actual costs will be $91,584.

I have always said that we should never have dropped the individual billing, we should just have signed up with another utility billing firm immediately. So now each unit is paying $880 yearly, over and above the actual costs of water/sewer.

If we go back to individual unit billing we ALL save, plus it isn't fair for a unit occupied by one person to pay the same as a unit occupied by 8 people.   3 1/2 years ago Concord made a major mistake in not finding a replacement utility billing firm when AUM was fired.  They were just to lazy to bother, it was easier just to raise the monthly dues. 

All our units still have the water meters and I know from inquiries that another company can come in and use these meters with 'no start up costs' to the condo.  Isn't it now time to correct this error? And of course it long past time to get rid of Concord.   Further info at:  http://tinyurl.com/6nam65z

If you would like to know why we don't return to individual billing you might ask the BOD, perhaps they will reply to you, they have stopped answering any emails from me. 

Contact:  babs.simmons@att.net, edeetroncale@yahoo.com, nknight@ndkconstsvcs.com

#1603 goes for 45% of original sale price

Diana Krasnova, is the new Owner of #1603, the old James Sheppard unit. 

The unit is a 3/2, 1195 sq ft, ground floor, parking lot side. It was a Fannie Mae foreclosure and went for $74,900 or 45.9% of the original sale price of $163,100 on 3/13/07.  Yearly taxes are $850.

Today's Announcements FYI:

From the: "I don't really care Dept":

On 4/7/12 the NCC BOD gave the City of PCB a sewer easement for $10. It was just posted online today by the Court Clerk, so now we are all up to date on that.

 
From the "Slightly more interesting news Dept":

Knology is continuing to install its cables here and they are hand digging trenches for the lines and replacing the turf afterwards, currently work is being done at the rear of the complex. 

The various services should go online at the same time and the target date was previously announced as being July 4th with some sort of gathering or pool party to celebrate completion.

RE:  NCC Budget:  If you are interested in the 2012 Budget and Expense Report you can see these 4 pages at:  http://nautiluscondosrules.blogspot.com/2006/05/2012-budget-and-expense-report.html

RE:  Photos of NCC from 2005 until today, take a look at the 163 photos at:  http://nautiluscondo.blogspot.com/

Delinquency List for May 2012

While previously existing delenquencies grew a bit and a couple of new ones appeared on the list, 6 other units came off the list from the last report, 4 paid off by banks or mortgage companies reclaiming the units and 2 by sales of units to individuals who paid. This was a reduction of nearly $40,000 from the prior lists $127,988. 

The units having paid and are removed from the list: 306*, 307, 405, 513*, 601 and 610. (*sold to individuals)

Q. How many times has the Condo been sued?

A)  Twice since I have been here.

One suit involved 2 Owners who had expensive motorcycles stolen during a time when the gate was broken and the VCR taping was kaput. Neither of the Owners are here anymore but they received a 'settlement' from the Insurance company. Details unknown but it didn't cost us anything directly as the insurance covered it. The Concord management company and BOD's of the time were unhelpful. Both the gate and camera system should have been working and I hope the Owners got a decent settlement, but such things are 'usually' settled with a confidentiality agreement so we won't know the results.

The other suit was mine and is covered front to back at: http://nautiluscovesuit2008.blogspot.com.   I refused any confidentality agreement and with the matter 2 weeks from trial the Condo Assn. 'settled' and agreed to pay my $7,000 in legal costs. The only thing I had ever asked was that the condo documents be enforced.  The matter involved inappropirate rentals in the 7 building where one realty firm owned 4 units and allowed 3 of them to be used as dorms for imported foreign workers.   9 months of complaints, warning letters from my attorney and 2 yrs and 363 days in court resulted in the 'settlement' with total expenditures to Owners here of nearly $11,000.

As with the other Owners suit, I found Concord Mis-Management and the then developer controlled BOD, to be totally useless and entirely unwilling to enforce condo documents. Today several of our previously ignored regulations are actually being enforced (rentals and pets as examples). Hopefully our Owner controlled BOD will not let such things be ignored as has happened previously.

One note FYI:   Per both Florida Statutes and condo documents, any suit involving the Condo Assn. and Owners will result in the loser paying all costs, so if you sue, make sure you are going to win. In my case there was never any doubt I would win, it just took nearly 4 years in total.

We won't know for another 2 years if we broke even or lost money

The scorecard so far on the 9 units that NCC filed foreclosures on:

106   Davis - Sold before June auction, delinquency paid off
306   R Smith - Sold at May auction to private party and delinquency paid off
401   Thomas - Taken by NCC at auction 3/30/12 for $200 and rented out
513   McRitchie - Sold before June auction, delinquency paid off
506   Glass - To Be Auctioned 6-5-12
615   Gayatin - To Be Auctioned 6-5-12
701   Jarrett - To Be Auctioned 6-5-12
702   Ussery - Taken by NCC at auction 3/30/12 for $300 and rented out
705   Reyes - Taken by NCC 3/30/12 at auction for $200 and rented out

Of the 9 units we 'temporarily own' three (401, 702, 705) which are rented out and 3 more are coming up for auction June 5th. We may also end up with these 3 condos to rent out.

Whether we end up making money on these temporary rentals or end up in the hole depends on just how long we can retain possession of the units and collect the rents on them. All 3 (or 6) will end up going to the mortgage holders eventually.

If we had not taken the 3 units (or perhaps 6) the mortgage companies would have eventually paid off the delinquencies in order to take title. There is a Florida law which in theory limits such payments to 12 months of delinquent dues or 1% of the highest mortgage amount, whichever is less. In the past the mortgage companies or banks have just paid up in full, they either don't know of the law or don't care, they just pay.

By 'cutting in line' so to speak, in front of those mortgage companies who had already filed foreclosures we managed to get title before the mortgage companies could finish their more complicated cases (all of which are still active in the Court) and now we have possession, but we can not sell the 3 units.

So whether or not we end up ahead in this mess comes down to being able to keep them rented out until we equal or exceed the amount that was owed on the units.

Say we rent out the average unit for $900 per month, in the case of #401 Thomas, the amount owed to us (delinquent dues, lawyers fee, court fee, etc) was $11,566.74, so simple math shows that we must hold the unit and have it rented out for 13 months to break even.

However it isn't quite this simple, as during the months we 'own' it we are NOT getting any $225 monthly condo dues (remember WE own it and are not paying outselves) so our income is not $900 a month but only a net of $675, this take us up to 17 months we must own and rent out the unit to break even.

But wait, we now must pay property taxes on it, just like any other Owner and also we must pay both the County and PCB taxes for all rental income we get from the units if rented out for 6 months or less, by my back of the envelope calculations we need to hold and rent out the unit for at approx. 20 months before we pay off what was owed to us plus taxes.

If we go past 20 months, we 'might' make money, anything less then we 'lose' money. I think that if you want to gamble then you should go to Vegas, we don't need all this fuss and bother and we should have just waited until the pokey banks and mortgage companies finished their foreclosures and paid us.

One more thing that we will be on the hook for is additional legal fees (above the 24k already paid to Hess/Applebaum) when the banks and mortgage companies come after us for taking their condos. Probably another $1,000 or so per unit.

We should have left well enough alone, only the Association lawyer is going to be sure of making money on this bad idea.


Forfurther info on this topic by a realty professional see the 5/5/12 article 'Associations Foreclosing and Owning Properties' at:  http://www.ccfj.net/ForeclSRarticle.html
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Here is an item from the "Be Careful Who You Send Your Email's To" department it comes one to me from Board member Ms. Troncale who in part comments on the above post about the 9 foreclosed units, and I will be pleased to share it with you on the basis that you just might find it interesting to see what the Board thinks of Owners here, both myself and someone with a chair:
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Subject: Re: Foreclosed units
Date: 5/5/2012 6:54:38 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time
From: edeetroncale1@gmail.com

It seems to me Mr. Harris is never happy. I believe he is the one who wanted the board to purchase these units! I think it's time the harrassment Mr. Harris is causing to our community be addressed. I personally am very tired of it. He only finds the un negatives in this community and down plays it the public which to me is nothing but harrassment!! I think that this should be addressed and the way that he has belittle Roxanne. I hope we can all sit down and discuss this matter. I think the fact that we have recoved some of our loss is a great improvement.

As far as the unit with the wrong chair, personally the should receive a written warning, then fined. We need to start cracking down on things around here!
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Gosh, I even voted for her!  Guess I won't do that again.

And just for the record:
1)  I have opposed the Asso. using foreclosures against Owners even before the first unit (McRitchie) was filed on and I never wanted NCC to take over any Owner unit,
2)  I have mentioned to the new BOD and others, that I know of at least 3 times that Ms Turnipseed has lied to me and indeed I do not hold anyone at Concord in high esteem and have said for 2 1/2 years that we need to remove Concord from the management of the complex.
3)  Whoever has the 'wrong chair' better watch out - Edee is apparantly pissed off at you and wants you fined!