66 Cambridge Households Lost Their Building, Then the Demolition Bills Arrived

This is the most important thing a Massachusetts trustee could read this month, and there is nothing comfortable in it.

Riverview Condominiums was a nine-story, 66-unit building on the Charles River waterfront in Cambridge. In 2024 residents evacuated after longstanding defects were found in its concrete. The building could not be repaired. The owners asked the city to demolish it.

The demolition cost $9 million — structural dismantling, police staffing, asbestos removal and related expenses. In October, the bills went to the owners individually. They range from roughly $36,000 to $244,000 per owner. A Cambridge spokesperson said about two thirds were unpaid at the end of October.

The owners’ casualty insurance claims have been denied so far.

They still owe condo fees, property taxes and legal expenses on homes that no longer exist.

The land has not been sold. A Land Court judge is deciding how the proceeds get distributed, and the sale is blocked until that is resolved. The association had planned to distribute proceeds by ownership share, generally around one percent each. Some banks are arguing that federal housing legislation enacted in 2008 entitles them to repayment first, and that their claims take priority over the city’s liens for demolition costs. The city has said it can secure unpaid demolition bills by placing a lien on the property.

That is where it stands as of last Thursday.

What This Is Not

It is not a story about a board that failed. The reporting says nothing about this association’s reserves, its inspection history, or deferred maintenance, and it would be unfair to assume any of it. Longstanding concrete defects in a building of that age may have been invisible to everyone involved.

It is a story about what the condominium structure does when a building is a total loss, because almost nothing in that structure assumes the building might stop existing.

What Boards Should Take From It

Three things, and all three are answerable this month.

First: find out what your governing documents say about casualty and termination. Nearly every master deed has provisions covering substantial damage, destruction, whether and how the condominium can be terminated, and how proceeds get distributed. Almost no trustee has read them. Those paragraphs sat unread at Riverview too, and they are the ones that govern once a building is gone. Read yours, and if the language is unclear, that is a worthwhile question for counsel.

Second: understand what your master policy actually does and does not cover. Insurance generally responds to sudden and accidental loss, and is far less likely to respond to deterioration that developed over years. That distinction is where owners discover a gap, and it is the distinction to put to your agent in writing: if a long-developing structural defect made this building uninhabitable, what would our policy do? Get the answer before you need it.

Third: know the condition of your structure, from someone qualified to say. Not a contractor’s impression during another job. If your building has concrete, structural slabs, balconies, garage decks or a parking structure, a periodic structural assessment by an engineer is the only thing that converts an unknown into a managed item. Massachusetts does not require one. That is exactly why it has to be a board decision.

And One Thing About Obligations

The hardest fact in this story is the one easiest to skip past: the owners still owe fees, taxes and mortgages. Ownership obligations did not end when the building did.

That is worth sitting with before the next time a board defers a structural question for budget reasons.

Discussion Question

Does anyone on your board know what your master deed says happens if the building is substantially destroyed — and when a qualified engineer last assessed your structure?

Why This Matters

Sixty-six households in Cambridge are carrying bills between thirty-six thousand and a quarter of a million dollars for a building they no longer own a piece of, while a court decides who gets paid first. Most of what led there was outside any individual board’s control. The part that is inside your control is knowing, now, what your documents say, what your policy covers, and what condition your building is actually in.