Re: It never ends - condo assoc!

Posted by poor lawyer (24.88.34.92) on August 17, 2002 at 23:08:14:

In Reply to: Re: It never ends - condo assoc! posted by Jo on August 17, 2002 at 20:49:56:

Since you are a "stockholder" in the corporation that is the Homeowners Association, you have a right to inspect the Articles of Incorporation, the By-Laws, any amendments, etc. You should also have a right to inspect the minutes of each stockholders and board meeting as well as any budgets approved at those meetings. Of course, that would depend on the laws in your state, but those are pretty consistent standards in all jurisdictions.

Also, the Articles of Incorporation can be had from your Secretary of State's office as well. And the By-Laws, the Master Deed, Covenants and Restrictions, etc.. should all be on record in the Deed Books at your county courthouse.

As a member in the Association, you should have at your house in your records copies of all those documents. They greatly affect you and your property. You should also keep all minutes of meetings (which you should attend all of them) and any documents which are sent to you by the association. (Get a large folder at WalMart or something and keep all your Association documents in it)

I would also suggest getting a copy of your states "Horizontal Property Act" or whatever the title of the statute is that regulates Homeowners associations. You can usually find this on your state legislatures website.

(At my lawfirm, we always provide every person who is purchasing property subject to an HOA with all of those documents. We will charge for the copies, of course, but the few dollars it costs is a small price to pay to be informed of the rights and obligations you have as a homeowner in the regime.)

There probably won't be anything in any of those that will help with your assessment situation. Usually they are drafted strongly in favor of the Association and its rights to collect assessments. However, there may be something in there about How long an assessment must be delinquent before the HOA can foreclose, or about them having to accept partial payments..no telling until you can read it.

Challenging the assessments probably won't do you any good. I've never seen somebody successfully challenge an assessment. Since assessments are determined by the HOA, and since the HOA includes all the members, if you had wanted to challenge the assessment you probably should have done so when it was being proposed. As long as the assessment was properly voted on in accord with the Master Deed, By-Laws, Horizontal Property Act, etc, and so long as it was applied to all the properties in the regime pro-rata (the percentage share for each apartment should be listed in the Master Deed), the courts won't touch it.

"Regular" assessments are those that are assessed "regularly," whether monthly, quarterly, yearly, whatever. They are for the normal maintenance, repair, etc to the property. These will always occur unless and until the HOA is dissolved.

"Special" assessments are for one-time repairs and maintenance. The law treats them as regular assessments, the only difference being that the specials were for a specific item or items, whereas the regulars are for continuing items.

For example, your regular assessments go towards, possibly, pest control, lawncare, taxes, insurance, annual painting of the property, stuff like that.

A special assessment is more for big-ticket items or repairs that can't be taken care of through the regular assessments or the built up reserve. It could be for such things as: addition of a swimming pool, re-siding the building(s), repairing or replacing a roof that was damaged in a storm, etc...

Usually, the HOA will secure a loan from a bank to purchase whatever is going to be gotten, i.e. addition of a swimming pool. In order to get the loan, the bank requires the HOA to assess a special assessment to pay off the loan. The bank then has a lien against the HOAs right to the special assessments.

I have seen some very large special assessments before. One of the HOAs we represent is a large beachfront condominium complex. It was severelly damaged by a hurricane sometime ago, and in order to repair the property they had to assess about $20,000 against each apartment. I know that seems large, but it was either that or tear it all down (and thereby "erasing" all the apartments).

Hope that helps a little. Let me know how things go.

poor lawyer, esq.

Follow Ups:

Post a Followup