Bad News for Condo Owners

More bad news for condo owners with violation notices
e-published04/04/2006
Wildwood Leader

WILDWOOD – Condo owners who received notices of violation from the Joint Construction Office (JCOW) in February will not be able to rent their properties until the issues are resolved. Condo owner Eric Satterthwaite told The Wildwood Leader that he bought a condominium on Lincoln Avenue in September and planned to rent the property to help pay the mortgage. When he applied for a mercantile license last month, city solicitor Marc Karavan told him that he would not be able to obtain the license or rent his property until the code issues are resolved, Satterwaite said.

City clerk Chris Wood verified that the city will soon be notifying 14 property owners that the mercantile licenses they received earlier this year are being revoked until the life safety issues are resolved. Twenty-one other condo owners who have applied for licenses in the past will also receive notice that they cannot rent their properties. Seventy-nine buildings in Wildwood and North Wildwood were included on the initial list of properties identified by the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) as being in violation. About 500 individual units are affected.

According to Satterthwaite, Karavan told him that issuing the licenses would be “ethically, legally and morally wrong.”

“There is nothing I can do until the building comes off the list,” Satterthwaite said.

A spokesperson in North Wildwood’s clerk’s office said last week that they had no way of knowing what properties were on the violation list when owners file for licenses to rent their condos. The Wildwood Leader was unable to contact the city of North Wildwood by our Tuesday deadline.

Log on to www.TheWildwoodLeader.com for more breaking news on the story.

-- Maureen L. Cawley