legal form
From: Lynn Nadeau (welcomeolympus.net)
Date: Thu, 3 Oct 2002 12:17:00 -0600 (MDT)

Many cohousings use some form of condo legal form. You'll need to look at 
your state real estate law - a knowledgeable lawyer could greatly help - 
since states differ in what is required of various entities. 

For reasons I don't know, we chose to be a Non profit miscellaneous 
mutual benefit corporation, with a Homeowners' Association. We're not 
501c3 but are nontheless classed as a nonprofit. All we have to do is an 
annual $10 update with the state, giving our officers and address. We 
thus have (brief) Articles of Incorporation, and then have our project's 
Bylaws, CC&Rs (roughly equal to How-we-govern, and What-we-govern) plus 
"policies, rules, regulations" which are things we adopt as a community, 
but which don't need to be in the former documents. Something like pet 
policy, for example, needs to be able to evolve without resorting to 
official changes in Bylaws and CC&Rs. We've updated and refined our 
documents, but our original legal form has been unchanged. 

At the outset we had a category called Associate Member, which at that 
point we all were,  before our individual lots had legal existence and 
could be owned (lot ownership now defines membership). We had a separate 
agreement called an Associate Member Agreement which outlined stuff like 
the investment required, and how to get out if you change your mind (we 
said you had to wait till a new member joined, which replaced your 
investment, so we could freely spend all the initially invested money in 
the development of the project.) Each of us signed such a document. When 
our lots became buy-able, the Associate category ceased to be relevant, 
and either you paid in full and bought your lot, becoming a Member, or 
you sold your Associate Membership to someone else who wanted to buy in. 

Look around where you live, and notice what legal form is used by 
organizations which are somehow similar to yours - retirement 
communities, other housing projects, condo associations. This may give 
you some ideas. 




Lynn Nadeau, RoseWind Cohousing
Port Townsend Washington (Victorian seaport, music, art, nature)
http://www.rosewind.org
http://www.ptguide.com

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