In 2022, the Wisconsin legislature adopted additional provisions to the Condominium Ownership Act that affect all Wisconsin condominium associations. Because the new statutes require condominium associations to take affirmative action, your association needs to be aware and get prepared.
Continue Reading Recent Changes in the Wisconsin Condominium Ownership Act that Affect Your Association: Record Keeping, Financial Records, Audits, and Website Requirements

2021 Senate Bill 283 is being proposed to create Section 710.20 of the Wisconsin Statute relating to the maintenance and repair of private roads with access easements.  Essentially the bill, if passed into law, would require all persons that have a right to use a private road or driveway to contribute to the maintenance and repair costs.  If the parties have a written agreement as to how the costs should be shared, that written document would control.  In the absence of a written document, or the written document does not address the costs, the costs would be shared based on the amount and intensity of each person’s actual use. 
Continue Reading Wisconsin 2021 Senate Bill 283 – Maintenance and Repair of Private Roads

Facts

A unit owner stopped paying assessments.  The condominium association properly recorded and perfected a lien against the unit for those assessments.  Under the applicable Oregon statute, the condo association lien is prior to all other liens, except tax liens and a first mortgage or deed of trust.  An exception exists, such that the condominium association can gain priority over the first mortgage if (among other things) “the association gives the first lienholder formal notice of the unpaid assessments, and the lienholder ‘has not initiated judicial action to foreclose the mortgage * * * prior to the expiration of 90 days following the notice[.]’”  In this case, five days after the association recorded its lien, the bank filed a judicial foreclosure action against the unit, but did not name the association as party, and therefore the foreclosure suit would not have terminated the lien rights of the association.  To correct this issue, the bank filed an amended complaint naming the association as a party.  Five months later the trial court issued a dismissal of the claim against the association, without prejudice, for failure to prosecute.  Five months after that the association sent the bank notice of the unit owner’s default on assessments.  The bank took no action in the next 90 days to reinstate the dismissal or file a new action against the association.
Continue Reading Lien Priority Statutes and Why They Make Sense

When faced with a request by a homeowner or condominium owner to install solar panels at your association, your Board needs to determine a number of things:

  1. Whether there are restrictive covenants or rules that prevent the installation;
  2. What “solar access rights” if any exist under their state’s laws;
  3. What if any restrictions the Association wants and can place on the installation, maintenance, repair, replacement and removal of the solar panels;
  4. Who is paying for any of the maintenance, repairs or removal of the solar panels.

Continue Reading Solar Panels – What Your Association Should Do When Someone Requests to Install Them

Most condominiums and homeowner associations (HOAs) are nonstock corporations under Wisconsin Chapter 181.  As such their members can make decisions one of three ways:

  1. Holding a meeting;
  2. Action by written consent (181.0704 Wis. Stat.). This may be used unless “limited or otherwise provided in the articles of incorporation or bylaws…”  For an association to act by written consent, the action must be “approved by members holding at least 80 percent of the voting power, or a different percentage, not less than 50 percent, specified in the articles of incorporation or bylaws.”  The written consents must be signed and dated after the date of the last meeting of the members and kept with the minutes
  3. Action by written ballot (181.0708 Wis. Stat.) This may be used “if permitted by the articles of incorporation or bylaws, any action that may be taken at an annual, regular or special meeting of members may be taken without a meeting if the corporation delivers a written ballot to every member entitled to vote on the matter, the ballot sets for the proposed action and provides an opportunity to vote for or against the proposed action.”  “Approval by written ballot … valid only when the number of votes cast by ballot equals or exceeds the quorum required to be present at a meeting authorizing the action, and the number of approvals equals or exceeds the number of votes that would be required to approve the matter at a meeting at which the total number of votes cast was the same as the number of votes cast by ballot.”

Continue Reading Condo and HOA Virtual/ZOOM Meetings in Wisconsin – How Legal Are They?

On September 1, 2020, Wisconsin’s WB-14 form become the standard form used by real estate brokers on behalf of their clients to purchase condominiums.  As drafted, it is a trap for the Seller, and any Broker using it should, at a minimum, cross out lines 158-160.  Although this new form offer may make the broker’s job easier, it puts Sellers (but not real estate brokers) at significant risk for no particular reason.

Specifically, WB-14 includes on lines 149-166 a “Contingency for Additional Condominium Information”.  If checked, which it likely always will be, it requires the Seller to deliver to Buyer at Seller’s expense, within 10 days of acceptance, if they exist, the following:

  1. Line 152 – Association financial statements “for the 2 two years.”
  2. Line 153 – Minutes of “the last 3 Unit owners’ meetings.”
  3. Line 154 – Minutes of “Condominium board meetings during the 12 months prior to acceptance of this Offer.”
  4. Line 155 – “Information about contemplated or pending Condominium special assessments.”
  5. Line 156 — The Association’s “certificate of insurance.”
  6. Line 157 – “The balance of reserve accounts controlled by the Association.”
  7. Line 158 – “Any Common Element inspection reports … held by the Association.”
  8. Line 160 – “Information regarding any pending litigation involving the Association.”

Continue Reading Wisconsin’s WB-14 Residential Condominium Offer to Purchase (CONDO SELLERS BEWARE)

As many of you know, on July 30, 2020, Governor Evers of Wisconsin issued Executive Order #82 declaring a public health emergency to combat COVID-19, and Emergency Order #1 requiring individuals, with certain exceptions, to wear face coverings if:

  1. “The individual is indoors or in an enclosed space, other than at a private residence; and
  2. Another person or persons who are not members of individual’s household or living unit are present in the same room or enclosed space.”

Neither order defines “private residence” and the statutes are of very limited help on whether the common element and/or limited common element of a condominium association is part of a unit owners “private residence.”  The manner of condominium ownership does very little to clarify the issue, since the common elements are owned by the various unit owners.  Hence, each unit owner has a real property ownership interest in the common element. 
Continue Reading Must Wisconsin Condominium Residents Wear a Face Covering (Mask) in Indoor Common Element

Yesterday, Governor Ever’s signed Emergency Order #15 which reiterated the public health emergency relating to COVID 19.  It’s title: “Temporary Ban on Evictions and Foreclosures” also implies that foreclosure actions can not be filed or advance.  That is not the case.  Here is what the Order states relative to Foreclosures:

“7. Mortgagees are prohibited from commencing a civil action to foreclose upon real estate.

8. Mortgagees are prohibited from requesting or scheduling a sheriff’s sale of the mortgaged premises.

9, Sheriffs may not conduct sheriff’s sales of mortgaged premises nor may sheriffs act on any order of foreclosure or execute any writ of assistance related to foreclosure.

10. Nothing in this Order shall be construed to affect the ability to commence a civil action to foreclose upon real estate under Section 846.102 [abandoned premises] of the Wisconsin Statutes.

11. No provision in this order should be construed as relieving an individual of their obligations to pay rent, make mortgage payments, or any other obligation an individual may have under a tenancy or mortgage.”

The Order expires on May 26, 2020.
Continue Reading Wisconsin Governor Ever’s Emergency Order and Foreclosures