Burned-out condo owners finally return home

The residents of 4500 de Maisonneuve had been homeless for nearly 30 months, ever since a fire destroyed much of their building, located at the corner of Melville Avenue, across the street from Westmount Park. The long delay was caused by a stalemate with the building's insurance company.

Carol Pass and Gotham Hooja, two of the condo owners, are being forced to shoulder tens of thousands of dollars in costs each, after their insurance company, whose policy they say was supposed to provide complete fire coverage, decided to pay only part of the restoration bill after invoking exclusionary clauses.

A total of 11 condo unit holders were claiming an unpaid indemnity of more than $500,000 from AXA Insurance after extensive damage was caused to their four-storey building by the Nov. 30, 2005 fire.

According to AXA's interpretation of its policy, any upgrades from construction code standards in the 1950s, when 4500 de Maisonneuve was built, were not its responsibility, but the responsibility of the insurance policy holder. The building was supposed to be covered for $3.75 million, although the company ended up paying out considerably less than that.

AXA maintained that it isn't obliged to pay for upgrades to current code unless a building sustained structural damage and was a complete write-off. Many of the residents were outraged when they only became aware of the code compliance clauses after the fire.

"I think there'll probably be a few things to sort out over the medium to long term, in terms of the final finishings and little details like getting the carpeting and lighting," Hooja told The Examiner earlier this week. "We'd like to think it was an adventure, putting a positive spin on it for sure. But it's had its moments when it felt like an ordeal, I can assure you."

Like most of the other condo owners, the fire completely disrupted Hooja's life. A self-employed filmmaker who worked out of an office in his second-floor condo unit up to the fateful night, he has been forced to move four times since then as a result.

In terms of cost to the individual condominium unit owners to make up for what the insurance company refused to pay out, he said it ranges from $65,000 to $100,000. Those figures don't take into account additional charges for renting new apartments, storage facilities and other costs.

Pass, whose life was also turned upside down and who has also been forced to move many times, said she remains uncertain whether she'll be returning now. "The chances are that actually I will be moving in," she said, while adding, "it's not definite" and the experience "has been very expensive."