AOAO Colony Surf -Condo- and Colony Surf, Ltd. -Cooperative, William E. Denison ,Four Paddle Diamond Head Vista Colony Surf, Ltd. W.E. Denison Corporation Marine Surf AOAO Colony Surf Unethical Overpaid Managing Agent - Condominium Management - W.E. Denison Corporation Honolulu Hawaii

Bill Denison (President of W.E. Denison Corporation) is a unethical Managing Agent that needs to retire.   He is unethical, expresses no compassion and overcharges for his management services.    One property in particular is paying $10,000 / month for his management services when well respected companies charge $4,000/month on average.   Colony Surf consists of 9 BOD members of which 3 or 4 individuals on the BOD actually care about the role.   Mr. Denison plays the role of both Managing Agent & BOD.   He is a liar and will lie to homeowners faces.    

He knows nothing about cultivating good moralie with homeowners, employeees and overcharges.  He has secret meetings with BOD members in the morning of a BOD meeting, which recently ended, but historically at Colony Surf, has existed for years.  The BOD members do not care.    They would rather have him get an extra $85K/year in managment fees before actually performing their roles.   They ‘appear’ to care, but in the end, none of the BOD members actually perform their role.   During a BOD meeting, he provides cheat sheets to his BOD members as to what their response would be.    

They have never had a reserve study performed on a building that is 60+ years old.    Their trash chute is shared with their restaurant (Michel’s) exhaust fan.   In the State of Hawaii, reserve studies have not been performed because instead he does them in-house with a footnote that they are based on his strong experience in the industry.  Perhaps, that may account for why AOAO Colony Surf only has $950K in reserve fees in a building aging with not enough money to even replace 60+ year old elevators.  One BOD member told a homeowner that OTIS has informed the homeowner that they have never had a problem with their elevators, most likely because the only way they can perform any capital improvements is to get a loan from a Bank.  That then keeps homeowners fees low which makes them happy.  

His Biennial Certificate reported to the State of Hawaii (a required document to the State of Hawaii) is doctored and a complete lie.  His percentages are only there to keep the BOD happy & to retain his ‘rock star’ category when in fact it is completely untruthful.    I plead all BOD members of other properties he manages, namely:   Diamond Head Vista, Four Paddle, Punahou Cliffs, 3056 Kalakaua Avenue, Colony Surf, Iolani Court Plaza, Marine Surf, Aloha Towers & 2121 Ala Wai to investigate your reserves, shop around with reputable management companies for like/kind proposals and GET them from:   Hawaiiana, Hawaiian Properties, Ltd., Associa Hawaii as well as Caemus & Touchstone Properties so you can compare, most likely, your highly inflated management fees.    He bumps his fee up 2-3% and innocent homeowners that don’t even know what is going on are being abused by his tenure.   He is in his mid-70’s and any property management company that takes over from him has a lot of work to do.    You’ll pay less, run a BOD that is properly managed and not make him play dual roles of both Managing Agent & actually THE BOD.     He is a vendor and should be directed by the Board.   If the Board doesn’t want to do any work, he is the best choice to abuse a homeowner.  $60k-$85k a year goes in his pocket instead of your building reserves.    

Reports from Notkin Engineering related to the fire hazards, as well as Barrera & Co. (a well respected reserve study company) have not had their research/findings released yet prior to the budget meeting for 2018 even though they had the reserve study in hand after asking Barrera for three different revisions.  These reports at Colony Surf were not even released at the annual meeting requesting a 12% increase.       Their typical format on the morning of a quarterly meeting has historically resulted in a 2 hour morning meeting which they called ‘Committee’ meetings.   Make note that those meetings only consisted of BOD members behind closed doors and then that same afternoon he came back to perform a 30-45 meeting with no dialogue about the information hashed out in the morning meeting.      Totally unethical and against HRS 514B.    It wouldn’t surprise me if he gets kickbacks from vendors he chooses for major work as there aren’t set/firm policies in place for multiple like/kind bids to ensure homeowners know that this work was shopped around with multiple vendors.  Mr. Denison picks his own vendors to ensure they tell him information to share to the BOD.   Washers/dryers are in the building in approximately 100 out of 172 units without building permits.    None of them have ever had approval.    The City/County of Honolulu will not even permit washing machines in the building as the pipes/plumbing are not even set up for this.  Colony Surf was originally built as a hotel/cooperative which eventually turned into cooperative/condominium.        

Stay away from his office.   Anyone taking over any of his accounts will have to provide board members with a basic training so they actually know how to fulfill a non-paying role to protect the fiduciary responsibility they signed up for, not to make him perform their roles.    At the end of the day, he is only a vendor that has been getting away with abusing homeowners, all at their expense...without them even knowing.  In Colony Surf’s case, this is because most owners (over 1/2 of the homeowners - compare that to their Biennial Certificate where they report a different percentage - to ensure it does not tamper with financing for obtaining loans even though their reporting is not accurate & a lie.