CHAPTER ONE:  ABUSE OF PROCESS BY BOARD.  I received a notice of fine assessed against my condo unit on the 23rd of January stating that a complaint from a resident had been received about a dog altercation that did actually occur around 10:45 pm on January 8th.  The letter was dated January 16th and came to me unsigned from our Professional Management Company (whose president claims they have no responsibility for anything because the Board President has told them if they don't do exactly as he says their contract will be terminated.  Would the law agree that they are free of any obligation to follow the condo association Rules?  We don't know that yet but they sure don't follow the rules.

On the afternoon of January 15th the PMC agent for our condo called my mobile phone to say it was a courtesy call before mailing out the "dog bite fine letter."  I cut her off due to my astonishment and the heavy downtown traffic and emailed her that evening at 7:15 pm that I would like her to tell me what rule I had broken before we talked again.  There is, of course, no rule prohibiting dog bites because that would make no sense. Dogs bite and that's why we have insurance.

The astonishing part of that call was that she was sending out a fine notice about an event they may or may not have included a dog bite (the police said, when it was reported to them by a spectator, not the injured party, on January 30th that it looked more like a scratch and the Department of Neighborhood Services said the affected person must not even have seen a doctor because any doctor who sees a patient for a dog bite is required to file a report with them---and no such report had been filed.

But that is not really why I was astonished.  I was astonished because the same witness (the injured party has never said a word about the accident to us) called on us in our home at 10:00 am that ame day to show us the pictures of the "bite."  (Yes, they looked like a scratch but of course we didn't comment on that.)  He said he wanted to know if our dog's shots were up to date.  Since our dog had just been to the vet the week before for shots we assured him that they were.  He said neither he nor his girl friend were even aware of the "bite" until later that evening., after the incident; it was not mentioned when the altercation between the dogs occurred.  But he also said, in a very friendly way: "I have not filed a complaint about this and I don't intend to.  It was an accident and these things happen."

I got the letter by email on January 19th and by US mail on the 23rd. It said the Board had received a complaint from a Resident in the building about the dog incident; that the Board had made a thorough review of the complaint and a thorough investigation of the incident and had determined that I had violated the following rules (every rule about pets was copied into the letter). It did not say the date by which I had to pay the fine, which is a required element and it did not include a copy of the complaint.  I immediately requested a copy of the actual complaint (there is only one way to make a complaint) and never received it, of course, because it does not exist.