What Happens When No One Listens
When our condo corporation decided to take legal action against our unit, we knew the law was on our side. That wasn’t arrogance—it was the conclusion we’d reached after reading the rules ourselves, after consulting the governing documents, after doing the kind of homework that self-reps learn to do when their home is on the line. We tried to communicate this to the board. We tried to explain it to the other owners. But none of them would hear us out.
By then, too many emotions were already strained. And when people feel they hold power, they dig their heels in. We warned everyone that this would not end well. We told them we would defend ourselves. We told them their case was weak. But reason had already left the building.
Talking to a Wall
I have to say, it was almost like trying to explain ourselves to cult members. There was simply no way to speak reason into the conversation. Every attempt to present facts was met with resistance. Every effort to clarify the rules was treated as aggression. The board had made up its mind, and the owners who bothered to pay attention had fallen in line behind them.
There were a couple of people who seemed to hear us. A few who nodded along, who asked thoughtful questions, who appeared to understand that maybe, just maybe, there was another side to this story. But their numbers were so small that it didn’t matter. They couldn’t shift the momentum. Eventually, those people either left the conversation entirely or walked away from their units altogether. The ones who stayed were the ones who had already decided.
The Aftermath No One Admits
Even when the condo lost their case—and they did lose—no one was willing to admit defeat. No one apologized. No one stood up and said, “We made a mistake.” Instead, each unit owner was slapped with a special assessment to cover the legal costs. The very people who had refused to listen, who had dug in their heels, who had treated us like the enemy—they all had to pay. And still, no one acknowledged what had happened.
There’s a particular kind of silence that follows a preventable loss. It’s heavy and hollow at the same time. You can feel it in hallways, in meetings, in the way people look away when you pass. No one says they were wrong. No one says they’re sorry. They just carry the cost and hope you’ll forget.
The Circle of Blame
What I realized from all of this is that condo accountability works in a kind of circle jerk of blame. No one is responsible because everyone can point to someone else.
The board holds all the cards. But most board members are volunteers with busy lives, and many are too overwhelmed or disengaged to truly understand what they’re signing off on. So they defer everything to property managers and lawyers. “The manager said this was necessary.” “The lawyer advised this course of action.” The board signs where they’re told to sign.
As an owner, you might try to hold the manager or lawyer accountable. But the law is clear: the board is responsible. Managers and lawyers are agents of the corporation. They advise; the board decides. The board signs off on every decision, even the ones they didn’t fully understand. So you go back to the board. And the board points to the manager and lawyer they relied on. Round and round.
But who gave the board this power? That would be the owners. The same owners who won’t come to meetings. Who won’t vote on issues. Who won’t read the documents or ask the hard questions until it’s too late. Condos are democracies, but democracies only work when people participate. When they don’t, power concentrates by default. And concentrated power, insulated from accountability, starts to behave in predictable ways.
The Democracy Problem
This is the part that haunts me. Not that our board was uniquely bad—they weren’t, not really. They were ordinary people who got caught in a system that made it easy to stop listening. The problem is structural. In a healthy democracy, decision-makers face consequences when they make bad choices. They get voted out. Their policies get reversed. Someone says, “We tried that, and it didn’t work.”
In condos, that feedback loop is broken. By the time a bad decision reveals itself as bad, the board members who made it may have already rotated off. The owners who funded it through special assessments have no mechanism for recourse beyond voting in the next election—if they even bother to show up. And the next board inherits the mess with none of the accountability.
What I Learned
I learned that being right isn’t enough. You can be right about the law, right about the facts, right about what’s coming. If no one is willing to listen, right doesn’t matter.
I learned that power protects itself. Not through conspiracy, usually, but through inertia. People who have decided they’re right don’t want to hear they might be wrong. They circle up. They shut down. They wait for you to go away.
And I learned that democracy is a participation sport. When owners check out, boards fill the vacuum. When boards defer to managers and lawyers, accountability dissolves. When no one wants to be responsible, everyone becomes responsible—by paying for mistakes they didn’t make and decisions they didn’t make.
The Bottom Line
Our condo lost their case. We paid our share. They paid everything else. And no one learned a thing.
I thought about this while writing Condozilla. Clara lives in a building where the same dynamics play out—the board that won’t listen, the owners who won’t engage, the lawyers who advise without consequence. Watching her navigate that world, holding onto her voice when everyone wants her to be quiet, became a way for me to process what we went through. She’s not always right. But she’s always paying attention. And in a system designed for people who aren’t, that might be the most dangerous thing of all.
If you’ve ever felt like the only one asking questions in a room full of people who’ve already decided, Clara’s story is for you. Condozilla is available now.
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