Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: renter's role in decision making

[Philip Dowds (rphilipdowds]

Well:  At our place, each dwelling unit owes its assessment whether it’s 
occupied by owners, or by tenants, or by nobody (it's vacant).  Somewhere, 
however, there is an owner of record, and that owner of record is legally 
responsible for paying the assessment; should that owner fail to pay up, we 
(the association) can litigate, place a lien on the property, and so on.

In most cases, an absentee landlord is not running his/her unit as a charitable 
enterprise.  S/he expects that the rent paid by the tenant will cover debt 
service, taxes, assessments and so on.  In other words, the rent-paying tenant 
is indeed paying for community costs and expenses, even if the cash flow for 
that payment passes through the landlord.

But is this relevant?  If Ralph Renter lives among you for free, because the 
absentee landlord is a nice rich guy who doesn’t need to collect any rents, 
then he is appropriately excluded from your community?  But if Ralph's high 
rent means he is paying his fair share plus the landlord’s profit, then he is a 
welcome participant in community life and decisions?

RPD

On Jul 30, 2014, at 8:47 PM, regine via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
cohousing.org> wrote:

> RPD:  What is the basis for your statement that the tenants rent covers HOA 
> dues.  Is it part of your by laws or something else?  Regine
> 
> Sent from AOL Mobile Mail