Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Limits on rentals with or without absentee landlords

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Jul 1, 2023, at 10:38 AM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
> [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
>> On Jun 30, 2023, at 7:41 PM, Patricia Looney-Burman <burloon65 [at] 
>> gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> To those communities who have limits rentals:  how do you enforce your 
>> policy of how long an owner(s) can rent out their property—or do you have an 
>> enforcement policy?
> 
> People leasing their units are supposed to report to the Board about their 
> plans. We haven’t had trouble saying no to requests for extensions. And after 
> one resident has had to pay condo fees on an empty unit because they don’t 
> want to return and can no longer rent, they are the ones who object when the 
> next person wants to rent longer. We’ve had 3 units that were empty for a 
> year or more because they couldn’t be rented again. The original owners, 
> except one, returned eventually.

I forgot to mention another tension around renting. The community becomes 
attached to the renters and it’s painful if they can’t stay but the owner 
doesn’t want to sell. It puts the renting household and the community in a 
holding pattern that is uncomfortable. There have been tensions around this 
with members having divided loyalties.

Sometimes another unit becomes available and the renters just take that one but 
this is iffy.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org