Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: allocation of repair costs

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Jul 2, 2008, at 2:49 PM, S Fassnacht wrote:

> My very non-technical definition of an air-space condo is that a
> unit's residents own everything that the air inside their unit
> touches

Having familiarity with condo law in several states, I've never heard  
this term although your definition fits that of other condos I'm  
familiar with.

A chimney is certainly difficult because it is both touching the air  
inside the unit but is also in the walls.

Do you have adjacent walls -- not free standing homes? If the walls  
are adjacent, then you might reason that like the pipes, the chimney  
affects more than one unit and it thus in the community's best  
interest to maintain it. In fact, if the units are adjacent, they may  
share at least some part of the chimney.

You might check state laws. Our condo law has many provisions that set  
defaults with the wording "Unless the Bylaws [or other legal  
instruments] state otherwise} this is the law. That way if something  
is left out of a Declaration or the Bylaws, there is something to fall  
back on.

These laws are often online and written in plain English these days so  
you probably won't need a lawyer to understand them.

[Said she, having just spent the better part of one day trying to  
understand the DC regulations on noise and finally ending up with an  
email exchange between my Council Member's office and the city's  
General Counsel before getting an explanation of why none of the  
section references had any numerical similarities to each other and  
what exactly  "noncommercial public speaking" included.]

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