Maintenance Agreement

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Private Access

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

Solar Panels

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

Facts

A dispute arose between four condominium associations within a master association as to obligations to pay for the maintenance, repair and upkeep of a roadway easement.  The road connected the four condos and other properties.  The master deeds for each association were recorded in the 1970s.  In 2013, Plaintiff, Bayberry Group, Inc. (“Bayberry”) sought an agreement to share the costs of the road.  As a result, a Common Area Maintenance Agreement (“CAM Agreement”) was created.  The CAM Agreement covered the road and the “lawns and entirety of any … landscaping in the roadway easement.”  A majority of the associations in the master association executed the CAM Agreement, but the four defendant associations did not.  The defendants also refused to pay their share of the fees under the CAM Agreement.  Bayberry filed suit alleging the road easement is a general common element of each of the associations.  Defendants answered denying any road easement as a common element.
Continue Reading Road Maintenance – Who Pays? (Duties under Association Documents and Case Law)