Advice Needed - Multi-Condo Water Damage

[Alexander Friedman]

Hi everyone - 

I'm hoping to get some advice on a complicated situation that we're facing for a rental condo that we own in Worcester, MA. 

On September 4, our ground-level unit was subject to an immense amount of water damage from a burst hot water heater from the unit above us. I immediately called my insurance to start the claim process and had a water mitigation service (ServPro) there same-day to begin the work of dehumidifying the unit. After four days of dehumidifying, ServPro continued to read moisture throughout various rooms of the apartment and told me that removing flooring, walls, ceilings would be indicated. My HO-6 adjuster agreed that the work would exceed my individual policy, and that the master policy needed to be looped in. My tenants agreed to move out by September 30 so that ServPro could start their work in early October. ServPro did complete their work by the first week in October, and I was able to have my GC provide me with an estimate for all of the put-back. All-in-all, I'm looking at roughly $46,000 in work, as my vanities, kitchen cabinetry, bath/shower inserts all needed to be trashed due to the waterlogged walls. 

During the course of ServPro's work, they found that the subfloor of the offending unit above me, and the walls of the unit beside me were also wet and moldy from the September 4 event. 

The owner of the unit above me has been extremely uncommunicative - she was pretty averse to any sort of mitigation action as her HO-6 adjuster told her as long as she dried up the water herself she was "all set", despite my telling her that her subfloor was obviously waterlogged and moldy. It took her several weeks to initiate contact with ServPro, who first came out to look at her unit yesterday (October 26). The owners of the unit next to me were also slow to action, and ServPro coincidentally came out to their unit yesterday as well. 

When ServPro was on-site yesterday, it struck us that for water to impact my unit and the unit beside me (as well as the offending unit), that water likely impacted a fourth unit as well (the unit beside the offending unit). They've not been looped in at all yet, despite my asking for their contact information. 

I'm writing now because I've been at the center of all coordination and communication - our property manager for the association has been supportive in working on this, but I'm clearly the one in the driver's seat. It's felt like pulling teeth to have any sort of momentum and convince the other unit owners to go through the work of navigating this damage via the insurance process. I've not been able to receive any insurance pay-out yet (from HO-6 or master) as my HO-6 adjuster needs to know how the master deductible will be "split" - a decision that I fear won't be finalized until each of the (four?) units know exactly how much the mitigation and put-back will cost. The master adjuster has been fairly uncommunicative as there haven't been any HO-6 payouts yet. 

In the meantime - I'm left holding the bag. An uninhabitable apartment and a $46,000 bill in front of me. I do not want to front the cost for the put-back work until I have more assurance that I'll be receiving the funds from insurance. Next week is two months since the offending event. 

My question is - how typical does this situation feel? Am I just being impatient? Is there any leverage that I can utilize as it relates to moving this forward? Would hiring a lawyer even be helpful at this point? 

Appreciate any insight that others might have (other than advice to not invest in condos - a topic for a different day) - and thanks for bearing with this long story!