Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Membership definitions

[Diane Simpson (dqs]

I am disappointed that no lawyer on the list responded to this question. I
just returned from a condo conversion seminar and that is why I am
particularly attuned to this question.

If you are talking about "membership definitions" the first thing you have
to ask yourself is..."membership of what?" Are you a member of a forming
group? A cooperative? Or a condominium association? The rules are different
for each one. The lawyer at tonight's presentation was very clear that
there are specific legal rights that accrue to members of a condominium
association.

Rob raised an interesting point when he said:
'However, lest we put too much stock in the legal documents, Rob reminds us
that while we need some legal definition somewhere, "you can create your
own membership and group process outside of these documents, almost all
groups do. Just be sure the banks don't see this if you document it." '

I am wondering what would happen if a situation arose that somehow involved
the banks, and the groups' "rules and regs" were not in agreement with the
condo documents. Has anyone on this list ever run into that situation? How
did you handle it?

--Diane:-)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>"Membership" affects several things, which can be divided into 3
>categories, each of which should be done differently:
>- Decision-making - by consensus, where individuals have blocking power but
>the "fallback" voting, if any, may be by "owners"
>- Allocation of Capital Costs - by unit/household
>- Allocation of Operating Costs - there was no firm recommendation from
>list-members; some say by individual, some say by household. I suggest by
>individual.

       @@                   DQS [at] WORLD.STD.COM                  @@
      @@@@      Diane Simpson  http://world.std.com/~dqs      @@@@
      |  |                 COHOUSING NEXUS                    |  |
      | "|              263 Chestnut Ave. #1                  |" |
      | V|        Boston, MA 02130-4436 617-522-2209          |V |
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++