Recent Court Rulings

Facts: Two homeowners who owned a single lot purchased the lot next to theirs for the purpose of expanding their home. After they had purchased the second lot, they asked their community association to approve their plans to expand their home by converting their existing garage into livable space and building a new garage onto the house. To do this, they would annex a portion of the second lot into their lot, construct the new garage over the original property line and onto the annexed portion, and then sell the remainder of the second lot as a separate home site.

Facts: Homeowners sought to invalidate a covenant adopted by their community association prohibiting the rental of their homes for less than 30 days. A trial court ruled in favor of the homeowners without a trial.

Facts: A townhome owner in a planned community didn’t pay his annual assessments for seven years. The association sued him for the delinquent amount. A trial court ruled in favor of the association and awarded full payment of unpaid annual assessments plus attorney’s fees and costs.

Facts: A homeowner reported to the New Mexico Department of Agriculture an incident of hazardous environmental exposure to an employee of a landscaping company that had been hired to do lawn maintenance by the association. The employee was African American. According to the homeowner, the landscaping company used “unsuspecting” African-American employees to apply toxic pesticides without any training or knowledge.

Facts: An association’s governing documents prohibited the use of homes in the community for commercial purposes. Two homeowners announced their intention to open a drug rehabilitation facility in their own home in the community. They asked the association for a reasonable accommodation, but didn’t specify what kind of accommodation they wanted and didn’t provide any supporting documentation that they were entitled to an accommodation.

Facts: Despite the fact that assessments were limited to the annual maintenance charges specified in the amended declaration of covenants and restrictions, an association charged lot owners additional assessments over the course of several years. The association based its authority to do so on its bylaws. These charges were used for the planned community’s common expenses.

Facts: A member purchased a condo unit in a building. After he moved in, he noticed that the floor produced unusually loud noises and flexed abnormally when he walked on it. It was determined that structural problems with the second story unit’s subfloor were causing the problems.

Facts: An association sued two members for not paying maintenance fees. The members filed a counterclaim alleging that the association had caused monetary damage to them by “engaging in bad faith conduct” by its involvement in a lawsuit filed by a group of other members in the community who accused the association of withholding financial documents. The members asserted that they had been rejected for a reverse mortgage loan on their unit because of that lawsuit. A trial court ruled in favor of the association without a trial. The members appealed.

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.