Condominiums are spoke on real estate cycle
Q: When was the first condominium created in Illinois?
A: The Illinois Condominium Property Act was adopted in 1962 and was effective July 1, 1963. It is my understanding that the first declaration of condominium was recorded on July 31, 1963, in Cook County. It's been "off to the races" since then, and there are now thousands of condominium buildings in Illinois.
Notably, in the 1970s there was a trend to convert existing rental apartment buildings to the condominium form of ownership. More recently, there has been a trend, of sorts, to "de-convert" condominium buildings to rental apartment buildings. As the demand for housing continues to change, I suspect we may see many of the "de-converted" condominiums converted back to condominiums at some point. Such is the real estate cycle.
Q: The attorney for a purchaser of a unit in our association has sent a list of "what if" hypothetical questions to the board. These questions involve interpretation of the association's declaration; certain provisions of which are admittedly unclear. Should the association respond to this line of questioning?
A: The association is under no obligation to provide some sort of advisory opinion to a prospective purchaser regarding provisions of the declaration. It's one thing to address an actual issue with a unit that is being sold; like who is going to be responsible for a currently leaky window. However, to respond to "what if" hypotheticals may lock the association into a position that may not turn out to be appropriate or correct for any number of reasons when applied to an actual set of facts.
Q: The board of my association issued me a notice of violation and claims that the alleged incident is captured on the association's surveillance video. Does the board need to provide me with a copy of the video before the rules violation hearing?
A: There are going to be circumstances under which an association's surveillance camera video needs to be provided to an owner, upon the owner's request, in connection with a rules violation hearing. One situation would be if the video is going to be used by the board in the rules violation hearing. This has been established by the Illinois appellate court in the Boucher case.
As an aside, associations should have a policy in place that describes under what circumstances the association's surveillance video will be available for viewing and copying by third parties.
Q: I am the secretary of a condominium board. It has been our practice to provide owners with my notes of our board meetings and to have the notes reviewed by the other board members before the notes are sent out to the owners. Lately, the president of the board has decided to restrict the information I include in the notes to the owners. This includes limiting the information presented to the board before a motion is approved. What are your thoughts?
A: The association should be preparing minutes of its meetings. The minutes can either be distributed to the owners as a matter of routine or provided to an owner on request. The minutes would reflect corporate action taken at the board meeting.
However, I would not necessarily suggest providing notes to owners trying to capture discussions that occur at board meetings. This seems like an inefficient use of your volunteer time as a board member. Frankly, if owners want more information about what takes place at a board meeting, the owners should attend the board meetings.
• David M. Bendoff is an attorney with Kovitz Shifrin Nesbit in the Chicago suburbs. Send questions for the column to him at CondoTalk@ksnlaw.com. The firm provides legal service to condominium, townhouse, homeowner associations and housing cooperatives. This column is not a substitute for consultation with legal counsel.