Maintenance Fee Refund

Keolalai-info.com dated 4/23/2008:

MAINTENANCE FEES: Due to delays in the completion of construction, A&B will pay for one month's maintenance fee for all owners (those owners on record as of 4/18/08). A&B will also pay for all electrical fees for common areas and individual units for the March billing cycle. The maintenance fee and electrical credits will be reflected on each owner's association May 2008 statement to be sent by Hawaiiana Management. We'd like to thank all residents for their understanding and patience as we work with NordicPCL on project completion.

Do we need to pay electrical bills for the month of April if we haven't moved in yet? A few times, I entered my condo with the air con on full blast. Left on by whoever came in to finish the punchlist. I don't believe I should be responsible for that. And if we haven't moved in yet nor have access to the common areas like the gym, or the pool & rec room, why are we responsible for the fees?

Anyone else this is wrong?

Just got my bill from Hawaiiana. Looks like my electrical bill is about $24. I wonder how that can be when my air con is always off & I'm still moving things in. Anyone got similar billing?

You can disregard that first bill, if I understand correctly. Before I moved in, I also noticed lights on during the night as I drove by. Sometimes a/c would also be on when I entered my unit. This stopped after I taped a friendly reminder to my door for PCL to kokua and conserve power.

Got my bill in the mail from Hawaiiana. Looks like our billing starts in the month of June. Did a bit of research, turns out the two months of prorated maintenance fees we paid at closing will be applied to March & April.

I believe the fees should be applied to June & July since A & B admits the building's amenities weren't completed.

Any thoughts of this?

So far they refunded us a full month (by waiving fees for May) and depending on when you closed, also gave partial refunds for March. Although I do feel it should have been another full refund since amenities weren't available until May.

True, fees for March / April should have been waived. I recently read about A&B's record profits due to Keola La'i, and I can't say I'm happy with how they handled delivery of our units. I spoke with one agent (who shall remain nameless) prior to my walk-through and he said A&B was doing the punchlist as a "courtesy rather than a necessity." Huh? You mean I should feel lucky I am even getting a unit at Keola La'i? Since I hadn't seen my unit at the time, I also asked what the response was. He replied that everyone is "super-excited and happy with how things turned out." I followed up with a final question and asked if there was anyone who was unhappy with their unit. He hesitated a moment and said, "No, um, well there were a couple people. And that was because their units weren't finished prior to their walk-through." Thinking back, I have to say there was only one Keola La'i agent who seemed to be a straight-shooter. Most of the agents set off my BS meter after 10 minutes of speaking with them.