State of disrepair stirs discontent

Seven months after flames and water from fire hoses took the top off a building at the Apple Grove condominiums, a contractor has been hired to replace faded blue tarps with a new roof.

“When it starts snowing, it’s going to leak,” William Meyer said.

Last week, flooding from frozen pipes forced the retiree to move out of his home in the damaged building at Fourth Avenue and Pierce Road in Spokane Valley.

That’s not to say Meyer and the other condo owners who live there aren’t happy to pay for a new roof. But the small group of owners who still live at Apple Grove say they are being forced to watch their homes fall apart because of one absentee landlord who owns the majority of the units and therefore controls every decision made by the condo owners association legally charged with taking care of the common areas.

“We’re up against the wall and can’t back out,” Meyer said.

Their monthly association dues go to Zanco Properties. Vernice Zanco owns most of the condos at Apple Grove, as well as the University Apartments next door.

Zanco said she signed a contract to fix the roof on Friday, after the project was delayed because the insurance company would not pay the full cost of the repairs.

Ernst Graf didn’t know a lot about the rest of the complex or the condo association a few months ago when he bought his unit across the street.

“I should have the right to fix the roof, but I can’t,” said Graf, a biochemist Ph.D. who’s traveled extensively and wanted a small place near his children in Coeur d’Alene.

Cut flowers sit in a vase on the coffee table in his living room, and the branches of mature pines fill a window looking out onto a courtyard. Inside, the condo is spotless, but Graf said he is afraid he won’t be able to insure his property against water damage because the roof needs to be replaced.

“I thought this would be a nice place for me, and now I’m stuck,” he said.

With condos, money for projects on common areas comes from association dues, but many at Apple Grove aren’t clear on where all of that has been going.

A list of the association’s expenses on Graf’s kitchen table shows numerous late fees, interest and penalties into the hundreds of dollars levied by utility companies and other debtors – money that he and every other condo owner were legally liable for as part of the association.

Zanco said issues with association money owed to utilities have been resolved. She only recently started managing Apple Grove business, she said. In years past, she had a management company handle it.

Dues are low, about $65, and she said she has often put her own money into maintaining the condos. Additionally, she said, several condo owners are behind on their dues.

After a vote at the last meeting, Zanco said, the association will raise money to replace the other roofs and take care of other maintenance.

She and her son Fred, both of Liberty Lake, and the companies affiliated with them also own the University Village Apartments at University Road and 32nd Avenue, a strip mall on Trent Avenue, an apartment complex at Market Street and Marietta Avenue in Spokane, and assorted other properties in Spokane County that total more than $10 million in assessed value, according to an analysis of assessor’s data.

The Better Business Bureau lists Zanco Properties and both the University and University Village apartments as companies that have not responded to consumer complaints in the past year.

In June, officials in South Lake Tahoe, Calif., shut down an apartment building owned by Zanco, according to a newspaper there.

Tenants in 15 apartments were evacuated after building inspectors found a leaky roof, mold-caked walls and cockroach infestation so extensive that a pest control company said fixing it would require demolishing part of the building.

Vernice Zanco said they are remodeling the apartments and that the problems arose under the management of a company she had hired.

About 15 years ago she bought all but 13 of the Apple Grove condos to rent out. At the same time, she gained control of the condo association, which is governed by a board of directors and a voting system based on unit ownership, said Kathy Rodgers.

“It doesn’t matter what we all want; she maintains the majority,” Rodgers said.

With her mother renting the condo now, Rodgers and other owners held meetings and sorted through some of the association’s records recently to find a way to pay for a new roof and other badly needed maintenance.

At the last association meeting, though, Zanco and her lawyer said the meetings were legally void and then proposed an amendment to the bylaws to allow non-owners onto the board of directors, association members said. Everyone in the room said no, except Zanco. Now three of the five seats on the board are occupied by Zanco, her son and one of their acquaintances.

Rodgers said that in the decade following 1980, the year she purchased her newly built condo, she didn’t put much thought into the association or its bylaws. Now however, Rodgers and at least four of her neighbors have complained there’s little they can do short of suing to regain control of the basic maintenance of their property.

“To allow this to rot away is criminal, I think,” Rodgers said.