🏗️ “Trust Us, We’re Definitely Not Engineers”

(A Satirical Guide to Financial Chaos, Brought to You by Blenvale’s Board)

Here’s a fun fact: when you hire professional engineers and pay them tens of thousands of dollars to prepare a reserve fund study, you’d expect them to advise the board, right?

Not at Blenvale.
Here, we’ve invented a revolutionary management model:

“We tell the engineers how to engineer.”

What could possibly go wrong?

Step 1. Pay for Expertise, Then Ignore It 💸

Engineers: “We’ve carefully assessed your common elements and built a 30-year plan.”
Board: “Adorable. Now, push every multi-million-dollar project up by five years. Chop, chop.”
Engineers: “…But there’s no budget.”
Board: “Shh. We’re visionaries.”

Apparently, numbers and reality are optional when you’re running a condo corporation.

Step 2. Million-Dollar Projects Without Million-Dollar Plans 🧠

The board managed to bring forward projects worth millions – windows, boilers, staircases – without the money to pay for them.

Result:

Reserve fund? Raided.
Operating budget? Bleeding.
Owners? Drowning in skyrocketing fees and special assessments.

But don’t worry – according to the board, it’s all “under control.”
(Translation: Hold on to your wallets.)

Step 3. My Favourite Question (a.k.a. The Silence Maker) ✋

While I was on the board, I had the audacity to ask:

“Why are you – people with no engineering degrees, no financial training, and in some cases, no clue – telling professionals how to do their jobs?”

Cue crickets. 🦗
Apparently, asking for logic was considered controversial.

Step 4. And Now… Your Fees Are Exploding 📈

This bold, groundbreaking strategy has resulted in:

Sky-high condo fees
Endless special assessments
Reserve fund withdrawals that make your accountant cry
A financial “plan” written entirely in disappearing ink

But hey, at least the engineers got paid. Somebody had to win here.

Moral of the Story

If you’re paying experts tens of thousands of dollars to guide your financial future… maybe listen to them.

Because right now, we’re living in the financial equivalent of “DIY Open-Heart Surgery” – except the patient is our reserve fund.

Disclaimer: This post is satire and opinion. Read full disclaimer.

Condo Chronicles