Departments

The Fair Housing Act's ban on retaliation applies not only to prospective members who claim to be victims of housing discrimination, but also to anyone who helps or encourages alleged discrimination victims to pursue their rights under fair housing law. Those provisions protect employees from adverse employment actions—such as being fired, demoted, or harassed—for opposing discriminatory practices or advising aggrieved residents to contact fair housing agencies.

Facts: An association board had determined that it would be in the association's best interest to completely restate the association's covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CCandR) to bring the documents up to date with current law, delete obsolete developer references, and clarify ambiguous provisions that had caused confusion.

If your association is considering amending or passing a lease restriction bylaw, be sure that there's no possible discriminatory reason for the passage of the bylaw. A valid reason can include concerns about property values, since members tend to take better care of their units and common areas than renters do, or because lenders are sometimes reluctant to offer mortgages to new buyers buying into a community with a high rental rate.

An association in Oregon has filed a $3.2 million lawsuit against the federal government and other previous owners of the military camp that preceded the community, citing asbestos contamination. The association says it discovered asbestos material in a six-acre site where demolished military buildings were buried. The government purchased the site in 1942 for use as a U.S. Army combat engineer training camp.

Facts: A condo association filed a construction defect lawsuit against its developer. The developer asked the court to move the lawsuit out of court and order the association to arbitrate the claim. Arbitration, a form of alternative dispute resolution, is a legal technique for the resolution of disputes outside the courts, wherein the parties to a dispute refer it to one or more persons or “arbitrators” by whose decision they agree to be bound.

Automatic fire sprinkler systems with antifreeze solutions have had more than 60 years of successful use in residential and commercial buildings. However, a grease fire in a kitchen where a sprinkler system deployed with a reported 71.2 percent concentration of antifreeze raised concerns about the safety risk of antifreeze solutions in residential sprinkler systems.

Facts: A member entered into a lease agreement for her condominium with an African-American woman. Shortly thereafter, the condominium members adopted amendments to the bylaws that included a restriction on members' ability to lease their property.

Facts: A condo association sought a court order requiring a member to give it access to her condominium to perform repair work on her balcony. The association was concerned with the structural integrity of the concrete balconies on each of its units. The member's balcony was inspected and was found to have suffered moderate corrosion requiring repair.

The trial court found that the association did not meet its burden of showing irreparable harm if the member continued to deny balcony access for repairs. The association appealed.

Facts: According to the records of the association, a member was behind in his assessments. In July 2007, the manager sent the member a “Notice of Intent to File Lien.” The notice included a statement of assessments owed to the association. The following month, the member demanded an explanation of the assessments and alleged that a portion of the assessments already had been paid. The manager then sent a “Notice of Lien,” which included a statement of assessments owed.

Facts: A condominium community is comprised of a six-story building with 96 units and a 43-story building with 520 units. There is a common garage connecting the two buildings, and they share common heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems.