Cohousing-L Mailing List: Oh NO, more legal stuff from Rob

[Rob Sandelin (Exchange) (Robsan]

A condo attorney told me once that one rule of thumb to figure what 
should go into your bylaws vs. the CC&R's is that CC&R's should never 
change once you file them, so never put anything into the CC&R's that 
is likely to change. Anything that will likely change in the future, 
should go into your homeowners association bylaws.=20

Your bylaws should be reviewed annually, updated with any new 
decisions, and copies of such should be given to everyone.  We did not 
do this at Sharingwood, and a person selling her home passed on some 
very old documents to the bank and it caused quite a bit a hassles for 
the buyers. Fortunately the buyers had excellent credit and could 
withstand the problem, if they had been marginal, I think the bank 
would have simply bailed. Another good thing to watch out for is be 
very careful about creating rules that effect the value or sellability 
of a home as the banks will generally be unhappy about such things.  
Getting an intial mortgage is great, but you will need to be able to 
resell the homes too.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood