who pays for maintenance of limited common elements

For 12+ years (age of condos), our HOA has paid for maintenance of limited common elements (decks, patios, concrete, etc.). Now Board wants to require HOs to pay. Legally, this can be done for future maintenance. Question: for maintenance work which is already voted on and approved by the Board as a HOA expense, and for which a contract has been signed, can Board change their policy and require HOs pay for this maintenance? Issue is specifically for repair/painting of decks, and, for replacement of concrete stoops. Thank you for your thoughts on this.

BonnieE,

Perhaps you don't have, nor ever had access to the documents and Master Deed as I've described below, but it sounds like you do.

If you do, check your Master Deed, and Articles of Incorporation. You should also check if you have Descriptions of Common Elements CE, Limited Common Elements LCE, Reserved Common Elements RCE, and who is responsible for and has the power to designate/redesignate for the repair and maintenance of each.

Define the word maintenance. Is your BOD defining maintenance as the routine sweeping, clearing of snow, etc.? Or does maintenance mean to replace the materials that make up the LCE's (wood, railing, concrete, etc.) By your post, it is the later with respect to repair/painting of decks, and, for replacement of concrete stoops.

That transfers a lot of responsibility to the individual unit owner. I wouldn't be happy about that because it means there is a financial matter that is preventing the BOD to allocate funds to repair or replace the LCE's, and my guess is probably the CE's as well. To me, that spells financial dire straits.

The solution is to special assess, not will over ownership of the elements. In my opinion, that is a stopgap measure and could be the beginning of the dissolution of a COA/HOA. Who's going to enforce consistency of style, won't owners be resentful they are told what to replace, and when if they don't then own the LCE? However irrational that may be, owner resentment or suspicion should not be negated.

Who pays for the maintenance of Limited Common Elements in my COA? Each unit owner pays by their monthly maintenance dues.

Unless there is a negligent act or omission, misuse or neglect, of the individual unit owner, his/her family, or guest, EACH unit owner of the COA pays for the maintenance by their monthly maintenance dues. Isn't yours the same?

Therefore, what I consider to be the penultimate question to you is, if your BOD is going to shift responsibility FROM all the unit owner's maintenance fees to pay for the maintenance of your Limited Common Elements TO the indivdual unit owner than.....are the maintenance fees going to go down? If not, then the owners are getting double taxed!!!!!

The benefit of living in an HOA/COA is the collective bargaining power of the group. The amount of money that comes out of the HOA/COA coffers to pay for the maintenance of the elements SHOULD be less than what it would cost the individual unit owner. That's the basis for the erronious phrase "maintenance free". The owners are still contributing but SHOULD be doing so less and with hands free peace of mind. Okay, so it doesn't always work that way, but it should work that way more often than not.

I digress.

In my COA, the general sweeping, routine cleaning and snow clearing of any balcony, terrace, patio or deck (LCE) is the responsibility of the owner of the unit that is appurtenant to the LCE. All other maintenance of balconies, terraces, patios and decks shall (must) be the responsibility of the COA (the collective purchase power of the residents maintenance dues to fund).

Interesting enough is a Reserved Common Element (RCE). My Board shall (must) have the common power in it's discretion to: designate certain General Common Elements (roadway's, clubhouse, pool, driveways, parking areas, curbs, and sidewalks subject to easements) as "RCE's" on an exlusive basis for a specific time period to the Condominium Association and/or to any or less than all of the Owners; and establish a reasonable sum of money to be charged to the reserving pary for the use and maintenance of the Reserved Common Element. Thankfully my Board cannot excersise the common power to designate certain LCE's as RCE's.

Best of success!!
GeraldT1
NNJ

In our HOA, our documents clearly state that in order to change any of the maintenence responsiblities there must be a full memebership vote with 2/3 approval of change. Check your documents. I would also add that I think making the change over when there are existing repairs to be done would be unwise and unfair and does beg the question about adequate funds and management issues.

This might be a 2006 topic, but I'm glad it's been reposted because our townhome association appears to have the same problem. Any comments or suggestions on the following will be most appreciated!

In our situation, a homeowner brought a unit, which has a storage shed (I believe the unit had been foreclosed on). Last November, he sent a letter to our property manager saying the shed's roof was leaking heavily - how long it had been that way, no one knows, but the water damage had spread to the wall where it was attached. He got a bid to fix everything (and negotiated a lower price, but it still came to $1800 or so) and so he asked the Board to pay $1000 of the work and he'd take care of everything else, as there was a chance there was even more damage in the area.

We sent over our handyman to look at the roof and he said it wasn't installed properly. This thing has a skylight on it and apparently the previous board authorized the homeowner to install the roof, including a skylight and after two years, the Association would become responsible. Why the previous board would agree to warrant something it didn't install in the first place, I'm still trying to find out.

On top of everything else, the work was done 12 years ago, around the same time the Association switched property management companies. It appears there's virtually no documentation related from this work, except a letter from president at that time agreeing to all this. One of the board members spoke to him and the former president said he vaguely remembered the incident, but had since tossed all his Association records (I know, another problem in itself).

We didn't meet in December due to the holiday and in the meantime, I've thought about this some more and think we'll have to have a chat with our attorney. When I joined the board nearly 10 years ago, I remembered hearing discussion about various repairs of the storage shed roofs and didn't think a lot about it at the time. The sheds are on the units that don't have an attached garage (I have a garage but no storage shed) and so I assumed they were installed at the time the units were built and so the Association would be responsible.

But with this discussion of limited common elements, it seems to me that if the shed can be construed as such, the previous owner had a responsibility to ensure the item was installed properly and notify the property manager if problems developed. I'm pretty sure none of this has happened, nor do I see any documentation anywhere that even indicates who's responsible for the darn things (some of them WERE installed after the units were built and not everyone obtained an ACR).

Meanwhile, we're having money problems, like more HOAs, so if the Association is responsible for this stuff, we're going to have to hike our assessments well beyohd the 5% limit (that's the highest the Board can raise monthly fees without a homeowner vote - and in this economy, that ain't gonna happen).

Any ideas on how to begin to clean up this mess?