Stay with me on this one:

I recently bought a condo that we discovered had a mold stain in the carpet. We don't know when it happened since the owner is dead and he used it as a rental property.

the suspected cause of the leak is soil that needs to be graded away from the foundation, and second, the fact that the soil line is above the foundation. The HOA sent their maintenance man over to pour asphalt around the offending area, but the mold guy claims that water is going to continue getting in to the weep holes.

The HOA thinks they have to spend $5k on an engineer to grade the soil. Is that necessary for something like a French drain? From all I've read, all you need to do is dig a trench and fill it with some rocks or pipes (the only difficulty is that some pipes need to be placed under some sidewalks. Heck, give me a shovel and i'll start on it. We're directly next door to a culvert which is a perfect place to jettison the water.

Second, would it be a bad thing to plug up weep holes with caulk? A contractor said the water can still get in that way since the water had nowhere to run. To me, it seems like a sound choice.

It is bad, and now a building code violation (may not have been when yours was built) for soil to be within 6 inches of any wood framing, even if, as I'm guessing from your description, you have a brick veneer.

Yes, it's a bad thing too, to plug the weep holes, because then, moisture which may penetrate the (assumed) brick veneer (all brick is to some extent able to absorb water) will fall to the bottom of the cavity behind the brick, and if it can't get out, will probably come in.

I don't know what you mean by a "culvert", but if it is a storm drainage pipe, usually, connecting a pipe to another pipe without a structure such as a manhole or drain inlet is considered bad engineering practice.

I wonder if you really need a drain pipe. It sounds like regrading and creation of a drainage swale on the surface may solve the problem. Without seeing the exact conditions, it's difficult to comment any further, but there are a few inexpensive solutions, unless the problem is present in other units besides yours. Then it might be expensive, but I would think the HOA would be obligated to solve the problem, regardless.

Thanks!

the outside is brick with a concrete slab.

basically what i mean by a "culvert" (maybe i misspelled it) is that it is about the side of a creek, but it is lined with concrete.

at any rate, my mind is boggled that the HOA doesn't care about the structure enough to do something. They see it as "well, the water is coming in to your place so you need to pay to fix the mold or wood rot which in turn saves us money from having to pay more in HOA dues", but i think that's bad practice that leaves them open for lawsuits for willfully failing to disregard a known problem.

anyway, they'd have to manage to build a swale under a couple of sidewalks.

It's relatively easy to build a swale, and where it must cross a sidewalk, either rebuild part of the sidewalk with a gentle dip in it, or alternatively, place a couple of small pipes under the sidewalk, which means removing and replacing maybe two feet of it.

My guess is that all the land is common area, and thus is the responsibility of the HOA, and if so, it seems as though they ought to be responsible for dealing with a bit of improper construction.

You may not have rotted wood, and probably a minimum of mold, so maybe offer to fix the problems inside your unit, where you are responsible, if they will fix the problems where they are responsible, to avoid the problem recurring.

Running a swale to the open concrete channel is certainly good engineerng practice, and ought not to be a problem.