Water Damage

[Team Work]

I live in California and own a condominium. About a year ago, a toilet leak in the unit above me caused water and mold damage to the ceiling in one of my bathrooms. The owner of the unit was not living in the unit at the time and by the time we repaired the damage the bank had, literally within 2 weeks, foreclosed on the unit.

I have e-mailed demand letters to the former owner several times and she has not responded. I also sent a certified letter to an address for her that I found online, but it was returned. I went to that address and she doesn't appear to be living there anymore. Another letter sent by regular mail was returned and showed a forwarding address in Florida, however, based on a Facebook profile, she seems to be still living in California.

Long story short, I have tried virtually all methods I know to try to find a valid address for the woman and have not been successful. Are there any other methods I should use to locate the woman? I thought about paying for one of those online profiles available from Intellius and other sites but I'm not sure how reliable they are. The amount of the damage is about $600 so I don't want to just let this go.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[You Are Guilty]

What do you propose to do even if you find the owner, kick her ass? What are the odds someone in foreclosure has an extra $600 laying around (assuming you can even file a local small claims suit and win for the full amount)? In other words, there's a bit more to it than just locating the owner.

Good luck.

 

[Team Work]

What do you propose to do even if you find the owner, kick her ass? What are the odds someone in foreclosure has an extra $600 laying around (assuming you can even file a local small claims suit and win for the full amount)? In other words, there's a bit more to it than just locating the owner.

Good luck.

It's pretty obvious that the chances of recovering are not good but the chances are zero unless I locate a valid address. At least then I can properly serve her to appear in small claims court. Hence, the reason for the original question.

Again, if anyone has any helpful suggestions for how I can locate a valid address for this person (beyond Google searches, the assessor's office, post office, etc.), I would appreciate it.

 

[OK-LL]

Maybe you can ask the HOA to give you former owner's vehicle tag number (this is type of info usually collected by HOA) and run that through DMV for current address.