Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Variations on low cost housing

[Tim Mensch (tim-coho-l]

Marganne wrote:
> In cohousing, when a unit sells or is rented, doesn't the community 
> have some say about who moves in?
Legally, under most typical cohousing legal structures, no. Condos can 
be sold to anyone, and any restriction as to who you can sell to would 
be seen as a potentially discriminatory. Restricting whether you can 
rent units at all may be possible, but likely not WHO rents a unit, for 
the same reason.

You can offer recommendations in your seller disclosure packets--like 
that a potential buyer should meet with the community and understand 
what they're getting into. But the community can't have an official say 
in who moves in--if the legal structure is a condo, then the buyer has 
to make the choice, as I understand these things.

It's different if the community is structured as a co-op, but in that 
case I understand that it's much harder to get a loan--because how is 
the bank to know whether the community will ever approve a buyer?

Tim

--
Tim Mensch

Currently at Wild Sage (Boulder, CO): http://www.wildsagecohousing.org

Founding member of Tumblerock, a Boulder, CO area community in its forming 
stages: http://tumblerock.org