Cohousing-L Mailing List: Ratifying Condo Documents

[Deirdre Slate (dslate]

Hello,

Here in Massachusetts and I expect other states too will require  
cohousing communities to legally be set up like condos.  When you are  
set up like a condo you have to have special documents in place  
including a master deed, bylaws, declaration of trust , and so on.   
We were wondering here at Camelot cohousing how do groups consense on  
these documents?  Assuming that a lawyer drafts these up, are there  
sections that groups have wiggle room to customize themselves?  How  
do you give your input to the lawyer?  After looking at some other  
cohousing community documents from the area it seems that they vary  
differently from group to group especially the bylaws.   When given  
the documents to redline, we may not have much time to add our  
input.  Does anyone have a suggestion on how we should be prepared to  
handle this aspect of setting up our community?

Thanks
Deirdre