What You Need to Know

Whether you are a buyer or seller when it comes to real estate contracts, you must strictly follow the statutes. 

Hollar v. MarketPro South, Inc., 2023 WL 157643 Slip Opinion (U.S. Dis. Ct. Utah 1/11/2023)

Continue Reading Cancellation of an Offer to Purchase – Strictly Follow the Statute

What you can’t do:

  1. Breed, size, and weight limitations may not be applied to an assistance animal.
  2. Pet conditions and restrictions such as pet deposits cannot be applied to assistance animals.
  3. You may not ask an applicant or tenant to:
    • Provide access to medical records or medical providers or
    • Provide detailed or extensive information or documentation of a person’s physical or mental impairments.
  4. A request for a reasonable accommodation may not be unreasonably denied, or conditioned on payment of a fee or deposit
  5. The response to a reasonable accommodation may not be unreasonably delayed.
  6. You are not entitled to know an individual’s diagnosis or require disclosure of:
    • Medical records,
    • A diagnosis or
    • The severity of a disability.
  7. You may not insist on specific types of evidence if the information which is provided or actually known to the association meets the requirements of the FHA (Fair Housing Act).
Continue Reading 7 Things You Need to Know about Emotional Support Animals in 2023

Recently, Attorney Naomie Kweyu Husch Blackwell LLP, scored a huge bench trial win in a southeastern Wisconsin circuit court on a foreclosure and money judgment action.

Summary

If you want the best chance of collecting outstanding assessments, late fees, interest and attorney fees, you need to be organized, have a collection policy and follow your documents. Doing so can make a big difference to your association, as one of our clients recently learned – read more below:

Continue Reading Association Successfully Recovers ALL Attorney’s Fees From Unit Owners Who Refused to Pay Attorney Fees

Need to Know:

  1. Unit Owners and association members often say mean and rude things about Board members, even though those Board Members are volunteers. 
  2. For a Board Member to have a viable claim for defamation the Board member must recognize that the courts view them as limited public figures, which means they MUST be able to allege and prove that.
    • The defendant published a false and defamatory statement about the plaintiff, and
    • The statement was made with actual malice, i.e., with knowledge the statements were false or with what amounts to conscious disregard of their falsity.
Continue Reading Defamation Claims by Directors and Officers Against Members – What you Need to Know
Documents

Facts:

The plaintiffs, the Channons, planned to sell their condominium unit.  The Illinois Condominium Property Act required them to obtain specific disclosure documents from the Association or its agent prior to a sale, and to provide them to potential buyers on request.  The Channons then entered into a “standard sales contract” with a potential buyer who asked for the disclosures.  The Channons obtained the disclosures from the property manager, Westward Management, for a fee of $245.  After obtaining the disclosures, the Channons filed a class-action lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court alleging that the property manager charged “unreasonable fees for the statutorily required documents” and that the property managers conduct “violated the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (“Fraud Act”).”

Continue Reading Fee Limits for Statutory Mandated Documents – How Much Can the Association Charge?
Association Academy.230119

As we approach the new year, Husch Blackwell’s Condominium & HOA Law Team is excited to launch a fresh new approach to our Association Academy. Join us for the first installment of our new series, Lunch with Lawyers, as we dive into legal trends to watch in 2023. Grab your lunch, log in and set the stage for a successful 2023.

Continue Reading Association Academy | Lunch with Lawyers: Legal Trends to Watch in 2023
Webinar

We are excited to announce a new format for our Association Academies in 2023: Lunch with Lawyers.  Although we will miss seeing you in person, we are excited to see you virtually. This new format will be more interactive, with plenty of time for Q&A.  Luncheons will be held every other month from noon to 1:00.  Save the dates and start planning for 2023.  Happy New Year and we look forward to seeing you.

Lunch with Lawyers 2023 Program Dates
Save the dates below for upcoming programs in 2023. Additional details, including registration, will be provided closer to the program dates.

  • Thursday, January 19
  • Thursday, March 9
  • Thursday, May 18
  • Thursday, July 20
  • Thursday, September 21
  • Thursday, November 16
Money Exchange

Facts

In early 2019, the Golden West Patio Home Owners Association (“Association”) implemented a plan to have units tented and fumigated to eliminate a terminate infestation. During fumigation, Artedi Cortez (“Owner”) refused to cooperate, as he believed there were other viable treatment methods which did not require tenting. The Association disagreed and sought a court order requesting the temporary removal of the Owner from his property to allow for fumigation to occur. The court granted the order for temporary removal in May 2019 and this decision was not immediately appealed by Cortez.

Continue Reading Attorney Fees and Associations