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ISSUE # 110
CIC Info Bytes 02/20/25
🔊 Listen to the Podcast of Issue# 110
CIC Info Bytes are frequent, succinct updates providing educational and engagement opportunities that help your community thrive! Please forward and share this newsletter with your peers, neighbors and colleagues so they can connect and join.
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EVENTS
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QUOTE
💡The entire institution of common interest housing rests on the resources of individual owners—their money, judgment, loyalty, commitment, organizational expertise, and social skills. There is virtually no institutional support for them, except for the professionals they are able to hire to advise them and to carry out delegated tasks. — Evan McKenzie | Rethinking Residential Private Government in the US: Recent Trends in Practices and Policy
Private Communities and Urban Governance: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives | 2016
March 21, 2025 is the NEW deadline to file your condo, co-op or HOA.
Trials and Tribulations of a Volunteer Director - Part XXV
Trials and Tribulations of a Volunteer Director - Part XXV
View parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV, XVI, XVII, XVIII, XIX, XX & XXI, XXII, XXIII and XXIV.
PART XXV: Covenant Crisis
National news has recently recaptured the idea of a potentially looming constitutional crisis. In essence, our government is supposed to have checks and balances provided by three independent branches:
legislative (“Congress” / the House and Senate which authorize spending “the purse”),
executive (the “White House”); and
judicial (the “courts”)
A flurry of executive orders from the White House have triggered a legal response from dozens of states. Federal courts have intervened with various forms of injunctive relief. But what happens when the White House and federal agencies stop abiding by judicial orders? That’s a constitutional crisis.
How many times has your condo, co-op (CIC) or HOA knowingly failed to follow the law or its own written governance? That is, in essence, a covenant crisis. CICs lack fundamental institutional support. Unlike the robust three-legged-stool of government checks-and-balances, the checksums for association governance and operations are:
the board
the owners; and
potentially a manager, attorney or consultant
Whether in government or your association, checks-and-balances rely on action. Someone has to step in to do the right thing or challenge what’s wrong in a timely manner.
Does your condo, co-op or HOA have at least one person present at every Board meeting who has state law and your governing documents committed to memory? Is that person willing to speak up? If not, chances are high that your association is involuntarily violating state law and your governing documents on a regular basis.
But what happens when the Board decides to do what’s convenient instead of what’s required? Board member A says “wait a minute,” but a majority of the Board plows forward. If nobody takes corrective action, your association ends up in a covenant crisis. There are some who would relegate this conclusion to obscurity by theorizing that many violations are “technical” in nature: the meeting notice sent 4 days late, the reserve study missing one of eight requirements, etc. These naysayers argue that “technical violations” have no material consequence. But they are incorrect.
If the law and your governing documents don’t matter for the “small things,” how can they matter for the “big things”? Who gets to determine what matters? The 2022 WA supreme court decision in Bangerter v. Hat Island Community Association has an answer that anyone in any state would be wise to following:
Discretion is not reasonably exercised when:
the procedures laid out in the governing documents and relevant statutes are not followed
the information used in the decision-making process is not reasonably accurate
Courts do not owe deference to an association's interpretation of its governing documents, but courts do owe appropriate deference to an association's reasonable discretionary decisions.
Follow the law and your governing documents. Follow them to the letter! Don’t debate what you don’t control. Avoid assumptions. Focus on doing the right thing, at the right time, for the right reasons based on accurate information that complies with all of the above. DONE!
Anyone who has followed Florida’s condominium meltdown knows that bulk buyouts and deconversions (resulting in termination) are alive and well. What you may not know is that condominiums in America’s Heartland are in crisis.
Common interest housing developments (CIDs) are the predominant form of new residential housing construction in most major metropolitan areas in the US. They include condominiums, planned developments of single-family homes governed by homeowners’ associations, and housing cooperatives. All three forms of CID have shared property ownership, mandatory-membership owners’ associations, and residential private governments run by elected volunteers that regulate the use of the property and collect fees from the owners to maintain it.
Believers in market sovereignty attribute the rapid proliferation of private neighborhoods to consumer demand rather than the preferences of developers and local governments, and they insist that only the most minimal regulation of these private governments is needed, or even justified. The free market paradigm assumes that residential private governments will continue to function in perpetuity, without meaningful governmental regulation, oversight, or other institutional support (McKenzie 2011).
However, there is substantial evidence highlighting the potential of CID private governments to make grievous errors, with disastrous consequences for owners and in some cases entire neighborhoods. Examples are mounting of condominium governments that have become insolvent or failed to perform their responsibilities due to financial fraud and embezzlement, disastrous board decisions, under-funding of necessary reserves, and hostile takeovers (McKenzie 2019).
The ultimate fate of a failing condo association is termination, where the condo association’s corporate existence ends, the condominium ownership scheme is dissolved, and all the condo units are sold to a bulk buyer who in most cases turns the former condo project into a rental apartment complex..
Chicago’s “deconversion” waves and the fragility of condominium associations
— Evan McKenzie | Condominium Governance and Law in Global Urban Context | 2021
Condominium Deconversions — Kelly Elmore and Omar Malik | KSN Podcast | April 13, 2022
Fire and Brimstone
Fire and Brimstone
Issue# 106 provided information about the “WUCIOA Association Next Steps” webinar headlined by attorney Marlyn Hawkins and supported by manager Scott Roth (who plagiarized WUCIOA.info in his presentation to the City of Lacey last July). Marlyn’s message was full of fire and brimstone.
Consider the excerpts below in context with What Does the Industry Say from Issue# 109 and you will quickly grasp CAI’s legislative advocacy which defaults to oppose reasonable accountability and transparency improvements to state law. A significant portion of CAI’s opposition centers on prescriptive requirements that eliminate the need for discretion and/or interpretation. Prescriptive, plain language statutes eliminate some of the need for attorney intervention.
It does, and this is because of the tweaks that have been made – not what the committee [that’s the LAC’s attorney-centric WUCIOA drafting committee] did, it does really focus on owner rights and transparency and it goes a little too far in my opinion…
…The committee, like I said, we tried to fix some of the bad case law, but the tinkering has really introduced a few poor governance concepts that I know we’re [that’s CAI’s LAC] in the process of trying to fix…
About the value of restatements: “Any one dispute is going to be $20,000 or $30,000 if you end up in a dispute about what something means…” [Many disputes are resolved at little to no cost. If every dispute cost this much, associations would be in dire straits.]
There’s an entire section on master associations…I don’t really know what it means from someone who’s done this work for a very long time. It’s not part of what the committee drafted…
…What are association records? [The language comes from UCIOA]. There’s a lot more on that in WUCIOA, unfortunately, it is one of the tweaks that the homeowner group got a hold of. And it is pretty insane in terms of, basically, you’ve got to get it, you’ve got to turn it [the records request] around in a certain amount of time…
…A lot of the communities I represent do not have good records, and it’s not because of the management… [Poor record-keeping often follows from lackluster management and management transitions. Far too many communities fail to realize the value of – and are reluctant to pay for – continuity in the form of excellent record-keeping.]
…Good governance says the meeting is not where the work takes place. [Individuals any any number of directors that do not constitute a quorum can still work outside of meetings. The emphasis in Washington and many other states is to ensure that the deliberative process is open to the members.]
…They’ve redefined what executive session is, and it is far too narrow…It’s got a list, but I tell you what in my documents I put more.” [Who is they? WUCIOA’s executive session language comes from UCIOA authored by the Uniform Law Commission. Marlyn’s position appears to disfavor virtually any concepts and language, especially related to precise governance requirements, that CAI’s LAC drafting committee did not themselves create. Sad.]
Contrary to the headline of the article below, most reasonable homeowners want alternative dispute resolution and improved foreclosure protections. Homeowner disunity is the largest single factor holding back substantially more homeowner-centric reforms. Check out Colorado’s two 2025 CIC-related bills on the HOA United Legislative Tracking Tool.
— Robert Tann | AspenTimes | February 12, 2025
Following on Where’s the Enforcement from Issue# 109, consider white collar crime in total. Florida is the only state to elevate certain condo, co-op and HOA injustices to the level of a criminal offense.
…Part of the justification for the prosecution of any crime is that wrongdoing calls for retribution. But another part of it is deterrence: telling other would-be criminals, Don’t you dare. “It’s sent a very strong message about corruption in leadership ranks and how that’s really something to be avoided at all costs,” said Leslie Caldwell, who was the assistant attorney general for the criminal division of the Justice Department, after the Enron convictions.
The belief underlying statements like Caldwell’s is that deterrence works, that white-collar criminals are “rational offenders who weigh the consequences of their actions,” wrote researchers from Gonzaga University in a 2016 paper, and so, “the public will be deterred from committing crimes based on the certainty, severity, and swiftness of the consequences.”...
No One Agrees on the Best Way to Deal With White-Collar Criminals — Bethany McLean | Bloomberg | February 14, 2025
Washington, DC: The District is in denial.
Families in D.C. who purchased and moved into condos on Talbert Street in Southeast said they were living in crisis. The District gave more than $6 million to developers to build the homes, but they were deemed unlivable four years later and families were kicked out…
…In 2021, Davina and other families learned their first homes were dangerous. They said the walls started separating and sewage seeped through floors.
In November, a judge ordered that the families have a right to sue the District for its unfair or deceptive trade practices. Days later, the council, with support from the mayor passed an emergency law saying that it couldn’t and won’t be held liable.
$6M down the drain after District funds unlivable condos for first time homebuyers — Phylicia Ashley | WJLA | February 18, 2025
Prior Coverage: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52 & 53
Energy
Energy
What are the most efficient systems to heat a typical two-story single-family home in Germany?
This study evaluates 13 residential heating systems' environmental, economic, and eco-efficiency performance for a typical German two-story dwelling. The life cycle assessment method is employed to quantify the environmental impacts...
...Among heat pump systems, the water-source heat pump demonstrates the lowest environmental impact. Additionally, integrating a PV system into heat pump systems reduces the environmental impacts across all heat pumps. The evaluation indicates that the air-source heat pump is the most economical system, while the pellet boiler with solar thermal support and the heat pump with ice storage incur the highest costs. However, the cost differences among the heating systems are relatively small, making it challenging to establish a clear ranking based solely on economic evaluation. An eco-efficiency assessment, which combines environmental and economic aspects into a single indicator, reveals that the most eco-efficient systems are the air-source heat pump, both with and without a PV system, and the wood gasifier heating system. In contrast, the ice-storage heat pump and the pellet heating with solar thermal support show the lowest eco-efficiency.
3.1 Simulation Results
The reference building has an annual heating requirement of 8066 kWh, which equates to 42.5 kWh/m2. Additionally, the annual demand for hot water is 2761 kWh. Table 7 displays the fuel and electricity demands of the heating systems for space and hot water heating.
— Gabriel Naumann, et. al | Journal of BUilding Engineering | December 01, 2024
Research - Munich Institute of Integrated Materials, Energy and Process Engineering (MEP)
A perceived lack of thermal delight might keep some people from switching to heat pumps.
…In 1979, US architect Lisa Heschong’s concept of “thermal delight” held that building designers were forgetting the importance of enabling pleasure through heat. Our research participants had not forgotten, however, and confirmed that we seek the most joyous route to warming our bodies.
While the necessary speed of the net zero transition entails a clean sweep that substitutes fossil-fuelled heating for low-carbon, electric alternatives, our research shows that this may be unappealing to many households…
Heat pumps have a cosiness problem — Aimee Ambrose | The Conversation | February 17, 2025
The Cost of Net Zero
The Cost of Net Zero
Federal funding (generally grants) is putting a kink in climate-minded endeavors.
More than $500 million in federal funding for clean energy in Washington state is being held up by the Trump administration. Washington state leaders say Trump officials have ignored court orders to release that congressionally mandated funding. Most of the money was intended to help the state’s low-income and moderate-income residents adopt climate-friendly technologies like solar panels and heat pumps…
Washington state clean-energy funding re-frozen by Trump White House — John Ryan | KUOW | February 14, 2025
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Bellevue, Washington: Bellevue Towers completed a multi-year project installed multiple transforms to pull 800amps through 7 garage levels to support up to 312 Level 2 EV chargers. EV charging equipment from SWTCH ($150 annual subscription per charger) will bill owners based on actual usage with a $0.02 /kWh markup on the electricity.
The declaration limits capital improvements to $250,000 without a vote of the owners, so a majority vote was obtained to move forward with a $500,000 reserve loan to pay for the general infrastructure cost of around $480,000. Each owner who installs a charger will pay $4,642 for the charger, labor and materials, with a portion of that expense used to repay the loan over time.
Washington state condo tower makes ready to install 312 EV charging stations — Charles Morris | Charged EVFI News | January 27, 2025
Environment
Environment
Clouds could be key to understanding global warming.
For the past few years, scientists have watched, aghast, as global temperatures have surged — with both 2023 and 2024 reaching around 1.5 degrees Celsius above the preindustrial average. In some ways, that record heat was expected: Scientists predicted that El Niño, combined with decreasing air pollution that cools the earth, would cause temperatures to skyrocket.
But even those factors, scientists say, are not sufficient to explain the world’s recent record heat.
Earth’s overall energy imbalance — the amount of heat the planet is taking in minus the amount of heat it is releasing — also continues to rise, worrying scientists. The energy imbalance drives global warming. If it rises, scientists expect global temperatures to follow.
Two new studies offer a potential explanation: fewer clouds. And the decline in cloud cover, researchers say, could signal the start of a feedback loop that leads to more warming…
Scientists have a new explanation for the last two years of record heat — Shannon Osaka | The Washington Post | February 14, 2025
Housing Affordability & Homelessness
Housing Affordability & Homelessness
Will states like Utah embrace ADUs as California, Washington and others already have? These two bills aren’t going anywhere fast.
Two bills intended to increase Utah’s affordable housing options stalled in the Utah House Political Subdivisions Committee Friday.
Committee members chose to take no action on either HB88, which mandated that urban municipalities allow accessory dwelling units (ADUs) in residential zones, or on HB90, that stated single-family home lots in those communities could be as small as 6,000 square feet.
The sponsor of both bills, Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful, said he was trying to apply the “lightest touch'' to increasing housing density as a way to address a housing problem that is worse in Utah than in much of the country…
Are tiny lot sizes, 'granny flats' the solution to Utah’s housing crisis? — Lisa Riley Roche | Deseret News | February 08, 2025
California: What happens when the insurer of last resort needs cash to pay claims? It assesses insurers in the state who can pass on up to half their assessment to policyholders.
California’s insurance commission plans to impose a $1 billion assessment on private insurers to shore up the FAIR Plan, the state’s insurer of last resort, after last month’s devastating Los Angeles wildfires.
Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara said the assessment is necessary for the FAIR Plan to continue paying out claims to survivors of the fires, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures and resulted in insured losses of as much as $75 billion, according to one analysis.
“The FAIR Plan must pay claims just like any other insurance company,” Lara said in a statement Tuesday.
The assessment is the first for the state-backed program in three decades, and the largest in its history. Under recently updated California regulations, insurers can pass up to half of the amount of the assessment onto their policyholders.
California Levies $1 Billion Assessment on Insurers for LA Fires — Leslie Kaufman, Michelle Ma, and Eliyahu Kamisher | Bloomberg | February 11, 2025
As of Feb. 9, the FAIR plan said it has received more than 4,700 claims for damage caused by the Palisades and Eaton fires. About 45 percent of the claims are reported as total losses.
California’s insurer of last resort runs out of money to pay L.A. fire claims — Anna Phillips | The Washington Post | February 11, 2025
Housing Market
Housing Market
Do December 2024 delistings forebode challenges in 2025?
An uptick in December delistings is the latest sign of dysfunction in America’s housing market.
Nearly 73,000 homes were pulled from sale after they failed to find a buyer in the final month of last year, data from real-estate analytics firm CoreLogic show.
Delistings tend to spike in winter when fewer people are actively looking for a home. But the trend last December was unusually strong, representing almost one in 10 properties on the market, and a 64% increase from the same month of 2023…
As Buyers Fail to Show Up, More Homes Are Being Pulled From Sale — Carol Ryan | WSJ | February 13, 2025
Japan: Condo prices and sales are down.
The average price of a condominium in the 23 municipalities of central Tokyo was ¥111.8 million in 2024, according to the Real Estate Economic Institute based in the capital. This was a 2.6% year-on-year decline, but the figure remained firmly above ¥100 million as the cost of both labor and materials rose. A total of 8,275 units were sold, a decrease of 30.5% from 2023...
...The average price of a condominium in the 23 municipalities of central Tokyo was ¥111.8 million in 2024, according to the Real Estate Economic Institute based in the capital. This was a 2.6% year-on-year decline, but the figure remained firmly above ¥100 million as the cost of both labor and materials rose. A total of 8,275 units were sold, a decrease of 30.5% from 2023.
Some 26,000 units are forecast to be sold in 2025, a rise of 13.0%, with high costs for construction and labor expected to keep prices elevated.
Average Condominium Price in Central Tokyo Tops ¥100 Million for Second Straight Year — Nippon.com | February 06, 2025
Santa Rosa, California condo market explained.
…In the world of condominiums here in the North Bay, Sonoma County, with a population of nearly 500,000 people, is on pace to experience increased activity by both sellers and buyers within this market niche. According to BAREIS MLS, Sonoma County limped through 2024 with shallow activity when it came to the volume of available new listings – inevitably tempering the demand or ability for those interested to buying into this marketplace.
Condos in Sonoma County, on average, are typically configured as two bedrooms, two baths and boasting 1,069 square feet of living space. In 2024, buyers purchased 337 units at a median value of $444,000, reflecting an average of $421 per-square-foot and essentially flat with values from the prior year. This segment of the market started out 2024 with an absorption rate of 55%, then surged in the early months to as high as 185% before waning as the year wore on and closing out the year at 39%, riding the roller coaster of interest rate moves throughout the year….
What does future hold for Sonoma and Marin county condo markets? — Jeff Schween | The Press Democrat | February 07, 2025
Condo Connection's financial coverage is indexed to our Dollar$ and $ense page dedicated to all things CIC finance.
United States debt is soaring. Is it a crisis?
There are problems and then there are crises. It’s certainly a problem that in the next few years, US federal government debt is projected to surpass its World War II-era peak.
But US sovereign debt is unlikely to become a crisis, according to a paper released last week by economists at the Brookings Institution, a think tank. By “crisis” they mean “a sudden, large and sustained downturn in demand for Treasury securities.” The paper lays out four scenarios in which that could happen, and concludes that none of them is likely:
A big holder of Treasuries (like China) could abruptly start selling. Even China holds just 3% of outstanding US debt and a selloff wouldn’t necessarily change other investors’ view on the value of Treasuries.
The US could fail to raise its debt ceiling. If that happened, it might not last long — since market turmoil would prompt Congress to reconsider — plus the Fed and Treasury could temporarily calm markets.
The Fed — presumably under duress — could signal it’s willing to tolerate higher inflation to lower the value of US debt. The authors argue this simply wouldn’t work since so much US debt is short-term and would quickly need to be rolled over at higher interest rates.
The US could decide that default was its best option. Again, the authors think this option — a “strategic default” — is unlikely because it wouldn’t solve much. It would hurt US investors, who own 70% of US federal debt, and would make new borrowing near impossible.
Instead of a crisis, the researchers see US debt as an ongoing and “ever-larger transfer of consumption from future generations to current generations.”...
Assessing the risks and costs of the rising US federal debt — Wendy Edelberg, Ben Harris, and Louise Sheiner | Brookings Institution | February 2025
Could the US Have a Sovereign Debt Crisis? — Walter Frick | Bloomberg | February 16, 2025
Get the FACTS about the US Federal Budget!
Just the Facts About the US Federal Budget: Steve Ballmer Talks Through the Numbers — Steve Ballmer | USA Facts | August 1, 2024
How to Read This Chart Newslette — Phillip Bump | The Washington Post | February 15, 2024
Inflation kicks off 2025 with leaps and bounds.
US inflation picked up broadly at the start of the year, further undercutting chances of multiple Federal Reserve interest-rate cuts this year at the same time the Trump administration presses forward with tariffs.
The monthly consumer price index rose in January by the most since August 2023, led by a range of household expenses like groceries and gas, as well as housing costs. Excluding often-volatile food and energy costs, the so-called core CPI climbed 0.4%, more than forecast, fueled by car insurance, airfares and a record monthly increase in the cost of prescription drugs.
Inflation tends to come in higher in January, because many companies choose the start of the year to hike prices and fees. That pattern has been exacerbated in the post-pandemic era, and several forecasters suggested that the jump in price growth last month won’t be repeated going forward…
US Inflation Tops Forecasts, Bolstering Case for Fed to Hold — Augusta Saraiva | Bloomberg | February 12, 2025
Wall Street’s Top Trends So Far in 2025 — Lu Wang and Lynn Thomasson | Bloomberg | February 14, 2025
Eggcellent inflation: a 700% increase in the cost of eggs over the past 2 years.
The wholesale cost for a dozen large eggs in the Midwest now averages $7.08, a roughly sevenfold increase from two years ago, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
Waffle House 50-Cent Egg Markup Shows Strain on US Restaurants — Daniela Sirtori, Brett Pulley, and Deena Shanker | Bloomberg | February 05, 2025
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Eggs-istential Inflation Scrambles Bond Markets — John Authers | Bloomberg Opinion | February 12, 2025
Are you fascinated by case law? Maybe you should be?
Are you fascinated by case law? Maybe you should be?
California: Garden Park Village HOA. Cameras have been installed and fines are adding up for fences that are too tall, umbrellas on patios, garbage cans left out too long, unattended vehicles outside garages (even if they are unrelated to the owner) or temporarily unattended to unload items such as groceries, trees and gardens that predate owners’ property purchases, and more. Inspectors are climbing atop carports to discover violations in areas that would otherwise be invisible to passersby.
A vote to recall the Board is scheduled for March 2025.
Residents blast San Jose HOA over excessive fines, seek board recall — Hilda Gutierrez | NBC Bay Area | February 12, 2025
California: No duty of care = no duty to enforce.
Recently, a California court ruled in favor of an HOA after residents sued following an altercation “resulting in significant alleged injuries to one or more of them.”
The reason? “Imposing a duty on homeowners associations or their managing agents to intervene and attempt to resolve disputes between homeowners (or their tenants) would place an untenable burden on these entities,” the court ruled, according to legal filings…
So then, when are HOAs expected to manage tenant disputes, and when are they out of their control?
This is an appeal following summary judgment in favor of cross defendants and respondents Regent Real Estate Services, Inc. (Regent), a management company, and Greenhouse Community Association (Greenhouse), a homeowners association. Regent and Greenhouse were unfortunately dragged into litigation that should have remained between two sets of homeowners–Eric Woolard and Breonna Hall, the defendants and cross-plaintiffs on the one hand, and plaintiffs and cross-defendants Eric Smith and Stacy Thorne on the other.1 As relevant to this appeal, the trial court properly granted summary judgment to Regent and Greenhouse on Woolard and Hall’s cross-complaint. On appeal, Woolard and Hall only raise the negligence cause of action. Woolard and Hall have failed to establish, or even articulate, a duty of care that was breached by Regent and Greenhouse…
Tenants Sue Their HOA Over Neighbor Dispute and Lose — Yaёl Bizouati-Kennedy | Realtor.com | February 19, 2025
Woolard v. Regent Real Estate Services - CA 4th District Court of Appeal | 12/03/2024
Homeowners SHOULD expect their associations to enforce reasonable restrictions specified by the governing documents. Determining the line between a true neighbor dispute and a violation of the governing documents is critical. State laws generally do not require condos, co-ops and HOAs to explore all remedies to every conceivable nit.
…You could ask your homeowners association to intervene in your privacy dispute, or you could file an action against your neighbor directly. Before you do anything, consider the most practical options and the potential consequences…
Can I Sue My HOA for Something My Neighbor Does? — Jill Terreri Ramos | The New York Times | February 15, 2025
New York City, New York: The Rutherford was a bit raucous…
3 Parrots, 1 Shared Wall, 2 Ruptured Lives…
Long before the complaints about shrieking parrots, many years before lawyers were hired and stern letters exchanged, and more than a decade before the Department of Justice literally turned the building into a federal case, the Rutherford, a 14-story co-op in the Gramercy Park neighborhood of Manhattan, was a pretty tranquil place to live…
Ultimately, the Justice Department would bring a discrimination suit against the building that would hinge on a brief 2016 letter from a psychiatrist. The letter stated that Ms. Lesser’s parrots were not merely pets but emotional support animals — animals, Ms. Lesser would later explain in a deposition, that helped her manage depression and anxiety. The full implications of this would not be evident for years. An emotional-support parrot sounds like a zany detail in a laugh-tracked sitcom, but this story evolves into something grimmer and more perplexing, and ends with two lives altered forever…
…Last year alone, the number of noise complaints in the city exceeded 750,000. New York is the country’s most densely populated city, which makes features beloved by urban dwellers, like theater and thousands of restaurants, possible. But stacking people by the millions has an inevitable downside…
That’s especially true in buildings with thin walls, like the Rutherford. A small studio there can cost $500,000 or more, but the place was not designed for luxury. It opened in 1961 as a rental that catered to nurses at a nearby hospital.
Developers in this era used “cheap materials,” said Steve Troy, the Rutherford’s current board president, in a candid appraisal during his deposition in the case brought by the Justice Department. With 175 units in the building, the board regularly hears gripes about dropped shoes, barking dogs and loud TVs.
“If we didn’t correct the noise complaints,” Mr. Troy said, “the whole building would be a cacophony.” Over time, other residents began complaining about the parrots…
…Dealing with the Justice Department was another ordeal. (“If it had a Yelp page, I’d leave a negative review,” she said.) The department’s lawyer kept reminding her that he’d do what was best for the United States, not her. She had no control over what happened…
How Pet Parrots Started a War Inside an NYC Apartment Building (free 🔗) — David Segal | The New York Times | February 16, 2025
North Carolina: An eggcellent case!
Plaintiffs appeal from the trial court’s judgment ordering them to pay $31,500.00 in homeowners association fines for violation of restrictive covenants, specifically, keeping chickens on their lot based on the jury’s verdict that the Plaintiffs’ chickens were not "household pets." Because the trial court did not interpret the language of the restrictive covenants correctly, and made rulings based on a misapprehension of the law regarding the restrictive covenants, we reverse the judgment and remand for entry of judgment notwithstanding the verdict in favor of Plaintiffs.
…The covenant here is also a negative covenant, allowing landowners to keep animals including horses, dogs, cats, and other household pets if they "are not kept, bred, or maintained for any commercial purpose." Here, as in Russell, "the restrictive covenant and the surrounding context fail to define" the term "commercial purpose." Russell again stresses that restrictive covenants must be construed strictly, and any ambiguity must be "resolved in favor of the unrestrained use of land."
...Here, even assuming Plaintiffs sold eggs, evidence of their sale of eggs alone is not sufficient to create a jury question as to a "commercial purpose" for their keeping and maintaining chickens on the lot. Based upon the proper interpretation of the covenants as a matter of law and the absence of evidence of a commercial purpose for the keeping of the chickens, the trial court should also have allowed Plaintiffs’ motion for JNOV on this issue as well…
Schroeder v. The Oak Grove Farm Homeowners Association — North Carolina Court of Appeals | Decided April 16, 2024
Keller, Texas: Neighbors funding action is a great idea so long as no association funds were used in the process!
“The Heritage HOA formed and initially funded the Legal Task Force with $10,000. In addition, thanks to the generous support of our neighbors, fellow KISD parents, Fort Worth City Council Members (Blaylock, Crain and Lauersdorf), and many others who care deeply about the education of our children, we have raised an additional $30,000 in private donations,” the press release continued.
Fort Worth HOA forms legal fund to fight Keller ISD split proposal — Rachel Snyder | WFAA | February 12, 2025
200 bills are being tracked across the United States. Click the link above to view them all and see which states are making waves.
MINNESOTA: HOA United contributed to the MN CIC Working Group.
…A few states have started to “nibble at the edges” of HOA reforms, but no state has passed the kind of comprehensive legislation recommended by the working group, said Rep. Kristin Bahner, DFL-Maple Grove, one of the lawmakers leading the HOA reform efforts….
Some of the working group’s recommendations include:
Creating a reasonability standard for rules and fines assessed by HOAs.
Barring HOAs from foreclosing on homes over unpaid fees of less than $2,500.
Requiring HOAs to provide plain-language explanations of their rules and homeowners’ rights and responsibilities.
Prohibiting municipalities from requiring common elements in new developments that would necessitate the creation of an HOA.
Requiring HOA board members, property managers and contractors to disclose any conflicts of interest.
HOA reform group releases recommendations to the Legislature — Madison McVan | Minnesota Reformer | February 14, 2025
WASHINGTON: CAI openly opposes SB5686 that would establish a reliable, recurring source of foreclosure mediation funding and expand foreclosure meditation to include condos, co-ops and HOAs.
CAI has also opposed HB1500 that increases accountability for entities that profit from providing resale certificates. You will not be surprised to know that CAI also opposes HB1501 that would incentivize CICs to substantively engage with their members.
CAI has positioned itself as a defender of associations while effectively abandoning the homeowner members who provide substantially all the funding and free labor that makes associations work.
The business industry (CAI) would have the public believe that condos, co-ops and HOAs can be separated from their fundamental nature as membership organizations and that the institution of an association is at odds with its members. While an association's needs differ in many ways from those of its members, it is impossible to completely compartmentalize the needs of either in relation to the other.
Given all this context, casual readers might be puzzled by articles like the one below published in an industry journal. Puzzle not: high-level public policy is deliberately misaligned with legislative action and engagement.
…"The goof was in failing to recognize that the actual nature of the relationship between an association board and the owners was nothing like the relationship between a board and corporate shareholders. What associations should be mimicking instead is the relationship between partners in a partnership. After all, co-owning property "partners" owners in caring for the valuable asset they share in common.
"Both corporations and partnerships concentrate decision-making authority in a small subset of owners -- a "board" -- to whom everyone else has entrusted the task of making and implementing consequential decisions. The key difference is that corporate shareholders have no role in decision making, while partners in a partnership usually get the chance to influence the partnership's decision-making. Corporate decision-makers decide first, then disclose. Partnership decision makers first listen to stakeholder concerns, consider what they've heard, and only then decide how to proceed.”
Listen First, Then Decide — Terry Leahy | WSCAI Journal | October 2024
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