Multiple Condo Deal - Opportunity or Trap?

[Stephen Polizzi]

My direct marketing campaign yielded a motivated seller of some condos local to me that I'm interested in acquiring for buy-and-hold rentals.  

The complex is a single 15 unit building in pretty good shape physically, but the association is dead in the water. Nobody has been paying condo fees for several years. There are only 4 owners living there (3 with running water), the rest of the units are vacant.

The seller and his brother represent 6 units, and they have agreed to sell them to me owner-financed. There are 2 other owners that want to sell, but I don't know if we can come to an agreement on a price, considering the discount I need to make this work.

My plan is to get 8 of the units under contract at once or with contracts contingent on getting 8 units. With 8, I'll own the majority of the units and control the HOA. I'll then restart the condo association, begin collecting fees, and as units become available, I'll purchase more of them. Currently none of the other owners want to sell, I assume because they're happy not paying condo fees, lowered tax assessments due to the condition of the association, and ignorance of the risk of not having an association.

I've run the numbers and I'm comfortable this will be a profitable deal even assuming high startup costs and high vacancies while we revamp and also assuming non-compliant owners not paying their portion of the fees.

My biggest questions are:

1. Assuming I stabilize this building and association, will I be able to refi out of my 8-10 units 3-5 years from now?  

2. What is my recourse with owners who don't pay HOA fees or follow HOA rules? I intend to get legal consultation on this as well.

3. I'd like to eventually own all 15 units.  Assuming I don't want to sell them, would it be more advantageous to dissolve the association? 

Any experience with this type of situation would be much appreciated.  I don't know what I don't know and what I'm not asking.