Displaced fire victims still seeking insurance settlement

The displaced occupants of 4500 de Maisonneuve say their insurance company — whose policy they thought would provide complete fire coverage — decided to pay only part of the total cost for restoration following the blaze in November 2005.

A total of 11 condo unit owners have been claiming up to $500,000 from AXA — that being the difference between the amount the insurer was willing to pay and the actual restoration cost.

AXA has offered to indemnify up to the level of code standards that were in force when the building was constructed in the late 1950s. But the condo owners are faced with paying the cost of rebuilding up to the current code.

Much of the cause for the delay by the company in issuing a settlement has been attributed by the owners to the fact the building wasn't declared a write-off, but sustained only partial damage, mostly to the interior.

"It is about 20 months since the fire, and we don't really have a completion date," said Gotham Hooja, a co-owner. "We've gone ahead and made a decision to reconstruct the building, notwithstanding an appreciable gap between the settlement offered by AXA, our building's insurance company, and the estimated construction cost."

While AXA won't pay up to the level of the current code, according to Hooja, a series of subcontractors have refused to reconstruct without respecting the details of the code. Although there is hope the work will be completed by Sept. 30, Hooja said he would not be surprised if there were further delays.

Hooja said the owners have no option now but to resume negotiations with AXA. "We will have to continue to reach into our pockets and to gap-finance this project. Obviously, because of these negotiations, this has become a very, very long project and it's been very personally stressful to a lot of us.

"Many of us have experienced health problems. One of us will never actually make it back because she passed on. At the moment, a lot of us are experiencing a lot of dislocation in terms of personal finances, and those of us who worked out of our homes certainly do not have home offices to go back to."

While some of the condo owners have suggested the City of Westmount ought to intervene, Mayor Karin Marks maintains the issue is between the insurer and the owners.

"Our position in that is that when they applied for a permit, they were given a permit to do the work that needed to be done," she said this week. "That's really our only position in all of that. All the rest of it is in negotiation between the residents, the owners and the insurance company."