Departments

A couple will receive nearly $1.2 million to settle their lawsuit against a Molokai, Hawaii, condo association. The husband and wife claimed that they became targets for abuse after attempting to elect new board leaders for their condominium. Two insurance carriers for the association and its directors will pay the couple $1.175 million, as part of a recently approved settlement.

Facts: A homeowner purchased eight lots in a gated community. The lots were later re-platted into three lots. The association’s declaration wasn’t amended to reflect the re-platting, however. The owner’s property was still considered by the association to be made up of the eight lots into which it had originally been split.

Facts: The sale of any unit in a condo building triggered the condo board’s “right of first refusal” under the bylaws to purchase the unit before it was offered to an outside buyer. When the board learned that a member had entered into a contract with an outside buyer, it exercised its right.

It’s crucial for associations to comply with the Fair Housing Act (FHA). It not only makes living in the community easier for members with disabilities, but it also helps you avoid a lawsuit stemming from a member’s accusation that you haven’t accommodated their needs. Parking is an especially hot topic when it comes to reasonable requests for accommodation by members and their renters.

When a homeowner in your community makes a reasonable request for accommodation in order to modify their property, consider very carefully how you’ll handle your approval or denial of the request. In a recent Alabama case, a trial court determined that an association’s “conditioned approval” of a disabled owner’s new garage was actually a constructive denial of his reasonable request for an accommodation. 

Community Associations Institute (CAI) has established a chapter in New York City. The Big Apple chapter will represent condominiums, cooperatives, and homeowners associations in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx, and Staten Island. Dozens of community association leaders in New York and neighboring states banded together to lay the groundwork for the Big Apple chapter, which will be “in organization” until it meets CAI certification requirements, a process that generally takes two to three years. CAI has certified more than 60 chapters.

By Donna DiMaggio Berger, Esq.

Q: My association’s board and I have carefully planned for the future of the community I manage, but we’ve run into unexpected budgetary problems in the past despite that. It seems inevitable that it will happen again at some point. How can we effectively respond to unforeseen budgetary challenges in the future?

If a member violates a rule, you might be tempted to deem him a “member not in good standing,” and use that status to deny him certain privileges in the hopes that he’ll rectify the situation. But in order to do this, the association’s rules must provide for using good standing as a basis for revoking privileges.

Take advantage of interior landscaping to do more than just improve the aesthetic of your community’s common areas. Interior landscaping improves indoor air quality (IAQ) and can even lower your energy costs. Plants filter air by absorbing pollutants and they produce oxygen—which is especially helpful in sealed, energy-efficient buildings that have less exchange of fresh outdoor air for stale indoor air. Plants also maintain an appropriate humidity level, keeping it lower than the level at which it can cause mold and bacteria to grow. You can realize cost savings benefits, too.