Why landlords should give condo boards a copy of the lease
Why landlords should give condo boards a copy of the lease
Make sure bylaws are followed even if you don't want to read them
I didn’t understand why my attorney was nagging me so much to read my bylaws. Who on Earth wants to read a 103-page document? But she kept insisting that I should not close on a six-digit deal without knowing what I’m getting into. I set aside a day and read and read and read.
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Nothing in the deal alarmed me. But then I got to the Rules and Regulations, noticing that they had not been updated since the early ‘90s. I hesitated for quite some time over the no-pet policy that had been active for almost three decades. (At the time, I didn’t realize that condo bylaws outrank Rules and Regulations, and the latter can be revisited and changed each year. It turns out the no-pet rule was not registered with the City of Chicago so I was able to get that rule waived a few months before becoming the condo board president. Then I actually did remove it when I joined the board.)
Recommended Read: “Can Pet-Friendly Homes Bring Better Tenants?”
Still, I found it peculiar that unit owners who’d lived in the building for decades never challenged this. I ponder on whether I opened the floodgates a little too wide because we had a short stint where tenants were sneaking in pets, although some landlords (i.e. condo unit owners) still didn’t want pets on their property. But imagine how a tenant feels to see dogs and cats in some people’s windows while these pet-loving folks are rejected for furry, four-legged friends. The landlords aren’t wrong, but it’s a tougher sale.
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But it wasn’t just pets. It was the overall lack of communication between what landlords were telling their tenants versus what condo unit owners were allowed to do, according to the condo bylaws and Rules and Regulations. When a property owner agrees to live in a condominium (or homeowners association, which is often used interchangeably but the latter usually refers to a block of single-family homeowners who have no shared communal areas), this person is agreeing to all the terms.
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Of course voting someone off the board means that some rules can be changed. But overall, if the bylaws are registered with the residential city, then it’s the law. Without a bylaw addendum, owners must follow those rules.