Facts: In 2006, an association contracted with a roofing company to replace all the condominium building roofs in its community. The roofs had sustained hail damage and were leaking. The company performed the work, addressing the problem not by replacing the existing roofs, but by building metal roofs directly over the existing ones. However, the newly installed roofs began to leak, causing interior water damage.

Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn recently signed into law two bills designed to dramatically increase the state's solar energy. House Bill 6202, referred to as the “Solar Ramp-Up Bill,” passed the Illinois General Assembly on May 27. House Bill 5429, sponsored by Rep. Sara Feigenholtz (D-Chicago) and Sen. Michael Noland (D-Elgin), initiates the Homeowners’ Solar Energy Act to protect the rights of individual homeowners to install solar energy panels on their personal property.

Finding good management employees can be tough. Especially, in today's job market, you may find yourself wading through piles of applications from unqualified candidates if you advertise a job opening using traditional recruiting methods.

But there's one recruiting resource that many management companies overlook—their own employees. You can turn your employees into a recruiting team by implementing an employee referral program that pays them for referring job candidates whom you hire, says Patricia Anderson, a Colorado-based human resources consultant.

Many condominium associations provide storage rooms or lockers for their members for a fee. This is one way for an association to generate additional monthly income and provide a nice amenity for members living in smaller units.

On July 21, 2010, basic FDIC insurance coverage was permanently increased to $250,000 as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) insures the safety of checking and savings deposits in member banks. The standard maximum insurance amount of $100,000 had been temporarily raised through Dec. 31, 2013. That increase is now permanent.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Recently, a Montana mixed-use condominium association board voted to amend its governing documents to specifically prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries in the community. The association had sent out a survey to its members regarding medical marijuana in February 2010 asking the owners of the association how they would like to address medical marijuana and its place in the community. In that survey, 73 percent responded, with 72 percent in favor of prohibiting medical marijuana dispensaries in the community.