Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: renter and resale policies

[Joani Blank (joani]

At 05:10 PM 5/31/2006, Gina Cruse wrote:

> Can we require prospectives to attend a meeting and
> meal before they make a decision about renting or buying?

The COA/HOA cannot require prospective renters or buyers to do 
anything. BUT you can invite/expect every current owner to sign some 
sort of agreement in which they agree not to sell or rent to someone 
who is not willing to "participate."  In our participation agreement, 
that just about all owners signed it says that the signer understands 
that the maintenance and management of the community are done by 
community members and "I agree to do my share."  It also says that I 
agree to participate in the preparation of common meals which is 
structured separately from all other work in the community.

Not included in the participation agreement described above, we have 
an informal agreement that  if we sell our units, we will insist that 
prospective buyers come to at least one common meal--preferably two, 
plus a meeting, a workday or both.

(In the first community I was in that had a similar agreement, I was 
asked to sign it as a condition of becoming a member of the group; 
this was before our group had moved in and become an HOA.)

I do recommend that folks in cohousing try to avoid using the word 
"require" and "requirements" and start using "expect" and 
"expectations" especially when explaining cohousing to a prospective 
buyer or renter.This feels much more like explaining an aspect of the 
community culture unique to your community, much less like telling 
him or her what the "rules" are, with the implication that there are 
specific, perhaps even dire, consequences for violating those rules.  Yuk!

> Can we require  people
> to be on a team or contribute in some way to our community?

How about expecting it from the get-go.

Joani Blank
Swan's Market Cohousing
Oakland, CA