A Baltimore City Circuit Court judge has ruled that the Harborview condo association must pay the owner of one of the tower's penthouses more than $15,500 each month for failing to complete maintenance within a court-ordered deadline.
Judge Emanuel Brown found the condo association in contempt of a 2011 award, upheld on appeal in 2013, that required the board to complete maintenance due to water infiltration in owner James W. Ancel, Sr.'s 27th floor unit. Ancel, the head of a Towson-based construction firm, filed suit against the board in 2010 over mold problems in the luxury waterfront tower.
The work, including replacement of roof railings, was supposed to be complete by Dec. 30, 2013, but the board chose not to comply, according to the judge's ruling, issued July 24 and provided to the Sun by Raymond D. Burke, an Ober Kaler attorney who represented Ancel. The defendants maintained that the order did not apply to all of the roof railings in question, according to the ruling.
Brown ordered the condo association to pay the Ancel family more than $15,500 a month for 18 months, starting retroactively in January 2014, until the work is complete, with increasing damages if the issue remains unresolved after 18 months is up. The court previously awarded the Ancel family — which left the penthouse as a result of the maintenance work — more than $1.2 million in the case, according to the ruling.