The companion case: $510,905 in interest

The second half of Vermont's current association-insurance cluster is Mountainside Condominium Association v. Vermont Mutual Insurance Co., No. 22-CV-04513, Washington Unit (Tomasi, J.), decided June 20, 2024.²

The court confirmed the arbitrators' supplemental award of $510,905 in prejudgment interest to the association. It denied the association's request for additional post-judgment interest on the awards and for attorney's fees, observing: “Each side had potentially meritorious claims… Fees are not appropriate in this matter.”

What the two cases give a Vermont association

Together they describe a posture that is more favourable than most Vermont boards realise, in an area where the Supreme Court has left the ground open:

A statutory claim alongside the contract claim. If the Consumer Protection Act reaches insurance, an association's claim against a carrier is not limited to what the policy promises.

Real money in prejudgment interest on appraisal and arbitration outcomes. Half a million dollars of interest on one association's claim is not a rounding error.

But no expectation of fees. The Mountainside court refused them where both sides had meritorious positions, so an association's own costs stayed with the association.

What Vermont law requires the master policy to do

27A V.S.A. § 3-113 requires property and liability insurance to the extent reasonably available, with coverage keyed to the building structure and subject to reasonable deductibles. Vermont carries the 1994 uniform text; it did not adopt the 2008 uniform insurance revisions.

Section 3-113 appears on neither § 1-204 retroactive list. A Vermont condominium created before January 1, 1999 is not subject to it — its insurance obligations come from the Condominium Ownership Act at 27 V.S.A. ch. 15 and its own declaration. In a state whose condominium stock is substantially pre-1999, that is a large carve-out.

What the resale certificate has to disclose

27A V.S.A. § 4-109 requires the certificate to state, among twelve items, the insurance coverage provided for the benefit of unit owners — and reserves for capital expenditures, the most recent balance sheet and income and expense statement “if any”, the current operating budget, unsatisfied judgments, and pending suits in which the association is a defendant.

An association in a coverage dispute is disclosing that dispute to every buyer in the building. Section 4-109 is on the § 1-204(a)(1) retroactive list, so it applies to older Vermont condominiums too.

What to watch next

Whether the Vermont Supreme Court takes up the Consumer Protection Act question. It has been open since Greene in 2004, the Superior Courts have now answered it consistently in one direction, and Vermont has no intermediate appellate court to work it out first.