What the Courts Say

Subscribe to What the Courts Say via RSS

Clients and community association managers are invited to join me at noon on June 4 for my 2024-2025 Legal Update, hosted on Zoom. I’ll go over the 2025 legislative session, what passed, what didn’t pass, thoughts about the future, and delve into cases that you may have heard about or that will impact your decision-making…

Tl;dr*: File your CTA beneficial owner registration by March 21, 2025. Probably.

The CTA has been the subject of various federal lawsuits and as a result, various conflicting rulings. We have focused primarily on the Texas Top Cop Shop cases, but other cases have also resulted in local and nationwide injunctions against the CTA. The…

This afternoon, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals granted the government’s emergency motion to stay the trial court’s nationwide injunction against the CTA and its reporting requirements, pending a final determination of the appeal of that order. Finding that the government made a strong showing as to the CTA’s constitutionality, and that the lower court…

In a memorandum opinion issued on December 3, 2024, Judge Mazzant out of the Eastern District of Texas issued a preliminary injunction against the Corporate Transparency Act, finding that the Act is likely beyond the scope of Congressional authority. Reporting companies do not have to comply with the CTA’s January 1, 2025 reporting deadline, pending…

Many of our clients have been following CAI’s lawsuit regarding the Corporate Transparency Act’s applicability to HOA clients, Community Associations Institute v. U.S. Department of Treasury, very closely. CAI sought a preliminary injunction, which would postpone the deadline for community associations to file beneficial ownership information reports until the case could be fully heard…

 In a recent decision [Houston v. Wilson Mesa Ranch Homeowners Association, Inc., 2015 WL 4760331 (D. Colo. August 13, 2015], the Colorado Court of Appeals held that an association’s covenants stating that homes could not be occupied or used for any commercial or business purpose did not prohibit a homeowner from renting out his property for short-term vacation rentals.

A homeowner in the community advertised and rented his home for rent through the VRBO website. In response to the homeowner’s actions, the association passed an amendment to its ‘administrative procedures’ prohibiting its members from renting out their properties for a period of less than thirty days without prior board approval and establishing a $500 fine for violations. 

Continue Reading Short Terms Rentals may not be Commercial Use of Property

Today, the Colorado Court of Appeals issued an opinion addressing the statutory declaration amendment process set forth in C.R.S. 38-33.3-217(7).  This process allows community associations that have sought to amend their declaration, and received fewer approvals than required to amend the declaration outright, to obtain a court order that approves the amendment notwithstanding the vote…

We’ve written many times before that community associations are bound by the provisions of the Fair Housing Act. There is a lot of information available about the Fair Housing Act, who it applies to, what it takes to comply, and what the consequences are for failure to comply. Notwithstanding all of the available information, some communities and managers (and apparently their legal counsel) still don’t "get it."

HUD recently announced a decision in connection with a complaint involving familial status. In the case, the association had rule in effect since 1998 known as the "children rule" which prohibited children from playing in the common areas. In July 2011, the association amended the rules to prohibit riding bicycles, tricycles, scooters, skateboards, skates and rollerblades; playing; picnicking; and sunbathing in the common areas.Continue Reading Fair Housing News – Again