Month: September 2012

As more military personnel are being called to active duty, you may find that service members in your community are falling into financial hardship from decreased income, and they may be having difficulty receiving notification of pending litigation against them. The Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) protects these persons called to active duty from debt collections, foreclosure, and eviction.

Some associations have tried to perform a reserve study using their members to save money. Not only may the members lack the engineering experience to accurately evaluate the property, but their judgment may not be objective. They may be reluctant to apply accurate assessments of the costs that must be set aside to perform long-term repairs, because members “know where they live.”

Federal agencies recently released a new set of criteria to help members and inspectors determine whether recent renovations or construction definitively has defective drywall. During the housing boom, it is estimated that more than 500 million pounds of possibly defective Chinese drywall was used throughout the country.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently affirmed the right of condominium associations to enter into exclusive marketing contracts and bulk-billing agreements with video service providers, but it also expressly reserved the right to change its mind down the road if circumstances warrant.

This FCC order was a follow-up to its original order banning exclusive contracts between condo buildings and cable companies as unfair competition. The FCC had sought comments in that original order about whether the prohibition should extend to bulk billing and marketing.