Many of our communities have asked whether it is permissible to conduct association business, particularly board meetings at which binding votes are taken, via e-mail or other similar means during the COVID-19, Coronavirus pandemic. The short answer is, no. Community associations are still required to...
All too often after a lawsuit is filed our clients come to us and say, “We required the contractor to name the association as an additional insured and obtained proof of insurance by requiring them to submit a certificate of insurance,” why then are we...
In the summer of 2017, Becker secured a landmark $9 million-plus jury verdict against the subsidiary of a national developer on behalf of a condominium association located along the Hudson River. The award included punitive (treble) damages for violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud...
For every condominium and homeowner association, “control” is eventually transferred by the developer to an owner-controlled governing board after construction. This is called “transition.” A successful transition is one in which the owner-controlled board works with the developer to ensure appropriate governance, adequate financial resources,...
Q: The governing documents require approval of two-thirds of the owners in order to amend. Our board of trustees is indicating that we need to modernize our governing documents to comply with the Radburn Law. It is my understanding that this only needs to be...
Part Three of a Three-Part series: The leak came from another unit, how is it my responsibility? In week one of our three-part series, we learned that the association is generally not responsible for property damage in a unit barring some negligence on its part...
Part Two of a Three-Part series: They are responsible, shouldn’t their insurance carrier provide coverage? Last week in part one of our series, “Who pays when causation, claims and coverage cross?” we discussed responsibility for property damage. We learned that responsibility is not as simple...
Part One of a Three-Part series: My oriental carpet was damaged by a roof leak; shouldn’t the association pay for the cost to replace my carpet? The answer is, “it depends.” Having insurance does not always equate to a legal responsibility for damage caused (or...
We often see complaints from community associations regarding smoking, cooking smells or noise emanating from one unit to another. This leads to the question: what, if anything, can the association do? While many communities have restrictions in the governing documents prohibiting acts which may be...
Q: Our community has a resident who leaves their unattended, large service dog on the balcony. The dog barks once or twice every time it sees anyone walk by. This goes on all day and evening. The tenant is a renter and efforts to have...