Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: limits on rentals and absentee landlords?

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

 Our zoning agreement with our local government required that a maximum of
4 homes (out of 33) could be rented out at one time. Initially we worried
that this might be a problem for our homeowners with competition for the 4
slots, but we've never gotten up to 4 houses rented out at a time.

"Rented out" is a bit tricky, though. For about 10 years we had an older
couple who owned 2 houses here, their own and another that their adult
daughter and her family lived in. Currently we have a resident whose son
lives across the country but it is he who owns her home. Would cases like
these be considered "rentals" in the sense that your coho community is
concerned about, if the owner and renter are close relatives and/or the
owners remain in the community in a different house, or any other somewhat
ambiguous situation?

After an unpleasant absentee-owner experience that went on for 4 years,
where the owner was obviously never coming back and was using the house for
rental income, we adopted a policy that a house can't be rented out for
more than 2 years; at that point the owner must either move back in or sell
the house.

I think our policy is a reasonable approach to permit owners to go away for
a year or two and rent out their house while discouraging wannabe absentee
landlords from buying a house here in order to use it for rental income for
some indefinite period. You have to live in your house for at least one
year before you can rent out the whole house.

   Muriel @ Shadowlake Village


On Thu, Jun 29, 2023 at 5:54 PM Sharon Miller <slmiller.325 [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

> Do any of your communities have limits on the % of units/homes that may be
> rentals? Or have limits on how many years an absentee landlord may rent a
> home he/she lived in at one point?
>
> Thank you!
> Sharon Miller
> (For Sharingwood Co-Housing, Snohomish, WA)
>
> --
> Sharon L. Miller
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