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The Jefferson County District Court ruled last week that a condominium association can prohibit smoking in their four-unit building.   The Heritage Hills #1 Condominium Owners Association amended its bylaws to ban smoking after an owner complained about smoke seeping into her unit.  The District Court upheld the bylaw change stating that second hand smoke "constitutes a nuisance"…

Today, community associations are being challenged to provide services for the full breadth of members. A challenging area is accommodating the needs of disabled members.  The Fair Housing Act require associations to make “reasonable accommodations” for those with needs. The goal of these laws is to make it possible for a disabled person to live within the community by granting and maintaining an exception to the rules of the Association.   An example of such an exception would be to the parking rules.Continue Reading How The Fair Housing Act Applies To Your Association

As legal counsel for community associations, we assist our clients with the various types of conflict that arise in the course of association business activities.  We understand that conflict can sometimes escalate to a level that requires court intervention.  We also know that certain preventative steps can help to alleviate the time, expense, and emotional drain that come with litigation.  In particular, good contract drafting can help to minimize the impact of disputes between associations and their contractors.  We encourage our clients to seek legal advice when entering into contracts for management services, landscape maintenance, capital improvements, and any other project or service that involves a relationship with an independent contractor.  The following reminders come directly from our experience advising community associations:

 

A bid or proposal form, while legally binding, is not a good contract.  While signing a bid or proposal form may bind the association to pay for services performed by the contractor, the association does not receive any protections as part of the bargain.  We recommend contracts that contain specific provisions which, at the very least, address the scope of work, insurance coverage, payment terms, remedies for default or breach, and attorney fees for the prevailing party in any dispute that may arise under the contract terms.  Bid forms do not typically include these recommended contract terms.

 Continue Reading Contracting with Association Contractors: An Ounce of Prevention

We frequently get questions from our clients and their managers asking about enforcement of architectural guidelines, and particularly, the ability to either require a homeowner to obtain architectural review committee approval before making improvements, or alternatively, requiring a homeowner to remove improvements already made without committee approval. While there is no universal answer, there are some generalities.
Continue Reading How Enforceable Are Those Architectural Guidelines?

The pool has only been open a week but already you have started to receive some complaints from the community about noise and roughhousing. If you already have a policy regulating pool use, you can breathe easy and follow the guidelines that the Association has in place to handle noise and unacceptable behavior, assuming, of course, that those guidelines have been approved by the Board of the Association and reviewed by your Association’s attorney. Just make sure that you apply all rules in regulations in a fair and consistent manner.
Continue Reading Summer Pool Fun Brings New Concerns

Over time, we’ve noticed that those who deal with common interest communities (homeowners and condominium associations) may regularly take for granted that everybody knows and understands what these communities are and how they function. We are as guilty of this as anyone. However, in a recent message from CAI (the Community Associations Institute), we were once again reminded that what is so common to us, may not be to others. So, borrowing from CAI, we are looking to help provide understanding.
Continue Reading Common Interest Communities – A Basic Understanding

We have blogged here before about homeowner discontent with associations and the effect that discontent can have on the morale of volunteer board members and community association professionals. In a blog entry last week , CAI’s Chief Executive Officer Tom Skiba addressed the very same topic, echoing many of the sentiments expressed here.

The weather is warm, your Association’s pool is prepped for summer, and Memorial Day is just around the corner. Everything is fine until the owners currently contesting their Association debt (the same owners whose case is currently set for trial in one month) call to request the pool key. Their son’s birthday falls over the weekend and the whole family will be in town to celebrate at the pool. Your Association documents say the key can be withheld if the account of the owner is not in good standing. Do you give them the key?
Continue Reading The Pool Key: to Withhold or Not to Withhold

When you began your position on the Board of your community association, you probably thought about what you, based on your life experiences, might be able to bring to the Board. Perhaps you are an accountant or a contractor. Perhaps you are an attorney or a landscaper. Due to the diversity of issues you will address on the Board, nearly every profession or trade has something to bring to the Board table.
Continue Reading Effective Communication Key to Building Strong Community