Des Plaines condo residents: Where did the gas money go?

In a courtyard of the Crestwood Condominiums in Des Plaines, the atmosphere was reminiscent of a Chicago Bears tailgate party.

Residents were grilling outside and watching the Bears inside.

One condo owner, Tony Hobyl, quipped, "We might have to be barbecuing out here the whole winter with no gas."

For Tony and Kim Hawkins-Hobyl, it really is no laughing matter.

For the three years they have owned their unit, they have religiously paid their assessments - $180 per month - to the Heritage Village Pointe Condominium Association. They thought the association was using some of the money to pay their gas bills.

Now, they and the residents of more than 50 buildings in the complex, located just east of Oakton Community College, face having their gas shut off by Nicor because the association fell behind on the payments.

Property Manager Sandy Hannon said the association is in arrears for more than $240,000. She added that Nicor is holding more than $45,000 in deposits and demanding more than $50,000 in late charges.

Hannon said a judge issued a temporary restraining order, but Nicor offered a payment plan if the order was lifted. Even after the order was lifted, Nicor took its offer off the table, Hannon said. Instead, Hannon said Nicor is demanding full payment and once again threatening to shut off the gas.

Nicor was unavailable for comment Sunday.

The association is behind in its payments because it has been hit with a wave of foreclosures and owners have failed to pay their assessments.

"When you have foreclosures happening, or owners that are going into foreclosure, they don't seem to pay their mortgage, so obviously they're not going to pay any of their bills," Hannon said.

Both owners and renters are wondering what became of the dollars in rents and assessments that were supposed to go toward the gas payments.

"Where did the money go?" asked renter Sarah Morales. "All I know is I came and I saw a notice on my backdoor saying Oct. 11 they're cutting off our heat and cooking gas. That upset me, because, I'm like, 'Wait a minute, I'm paying my rent. Half my rent is supposed to cover that.'"

Kim Hawkins-Hobyl said, "I was so excited to buy this place three years ago, and now I don't know where the money is going, How can they shut it off when we're paying?"

She hinted that the funds might have been misused. "Somebody is taking the money."

Hannon said Sunday she is hoping to avoid shutoffs.

She said the Illinois Commerce Commission had stated that the gas cannot be shut off until the commission completes its investigation of the situation. The association has filed a complaint against Nicor with the commission.

The association will meet at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Niles Public Library to come up with a strategy for handling the assessments and outstanding Nicor bill.

Hannon said the association tried a special assessment about two years ago to handle some of the outstanding expenses.

"But when you're having people having difficulties paying their assessments to begin with, what makes you think they're going to pay a special assessment?" she said.

Right now "quite a few of the condo owners are looking into how much it would cost to convert the water heater and their stoves to electric," she added.

Han Woo, one of the owners, said Nicor is unwilling to deal separately with property owners rather than the association.

"They don't want to work with us. I told them, 'How can you just shut us off like that, when there are babies and kids that live in the building?'" he said.

An estimated 300 families are going to be affected, Woo said.

Woo said his building was willing to pay Nicor every month until the debt was settled. The total for his building is $13,000.

"They wouldn't even work with us. They wanted us to come up with the entire sum for each building," he said.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=242117">Nicor will turn off gas Monday at condo complex <span class="date">[10/11/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=241780">Condos in danger of losing gas in Maine Township <span class="date">[10/10/08]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>