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Many may recall the recent story about the airline traveler seeking to bring an emotional support peacock (Dexter) on board an airplane.  While the story received much national publicity, the reality appears to be that assistance animals and emotional support animals are becoming more commonplace in everyday life.  Stories such as Dexter’s present some interesting legal questions for non-profits, governments, and businesses alike.

Assistance animals and emotional support animals are sometimes (incorrectly) used interchangeably.  They involve different sources of law and require different analyses.  This next series of posts will seek to provide some clarity on the legal issues relating to both categories.  In part one of this series, we will focus on the legal issues surrounding the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) and assistance animals for purposes of community associations.  Our next post will address emotional support animals and the federal and state fair housing acts. Continue Reading Assistance Animals and the ADA: What Community Associations Ought to Know

  Amazon.com’s recent announcement – that in the future it may utilize unmanned drones to deliver packages to individual residences – has created a host of novel legal issues that all homeowners associations should consider and plan for. Although commentators believe that the commercial use of delivery drones may be a few years off, associations should begin planning now for whether they should regulate the use of drones within the association; how they should regulate the use of drones; and how they can minimize potential liability arising from the use of drones.

While the public has so far only been provided with bits and pieces of information about the make-up and capabilities of unmanned delivery drones, some general information is available: a drone will carry a package and will fly from a warehouse to an owner’s house, with the goal of attempting to deliver the package in a very short amount of time right after it has been ordered. The drone is designed to land, helicopter style, on an owner’s lawn and drop off the package. The drone will then use its helicopter-style propellers to vertically ascend from the owner’s lawn and return to the warehouse.

Continue Reading Drones and HOAs: How Homeowners Associations and Condominium Associations Can Be Prepared to Deal with the New Technology

You serve on your condominium or property owners’ association’s board of directors and have been receiving complaints about unauthorized cars and space shortages in the community’s parking lot. The Board would like to designate specific parking spaces for use by designated units so that each unit has a certain number of parking spaces available to it at all times. May it do so? The answer depends on (a) how parking spaces are classified in your declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions, and (b) the association’s authority to control common area / common element pursuant to the Virginia Condominium Act or Property Owners’ Association Act and the specific terms of the association’s governing documents.

Continue Reading Parking Rights and Common Area / Common Element: Can the Association (or Declarant) Do That?!

How should a homeowners association or a condominium association deal with an owner who fails to pay his dues or assessments? There are three main remedies that associations have under Virginia law: (1) file a lawsuit against the owner, (2) file a memorandum of lien against the owner’s lot or unit, and (3) suspend an owner’s privilege to use certain portions of the common area or common element (we’ll address this third remedy in a future post).

Filing a Lawsuit

Associations have a right to file a lawsuit against delinquent owners, seeking a judgment for the delinquent amount. Many associations’ governing documents will also provide that the association is entitled to recover its court costs and attorneys’ fees too. In practice, some courts are occasionally reluctant to award associations the full amount of attorneys’ fees incurred in attempting to collect delinquent assessments, so the association may only be able to recover a certain dollar figure, or a certain percentage of the delinquent amount. While each court (and judge within that court) is different, it’s been our experience that in most situations, associations are usually able to recover most of the attorneys fees incurred in attempting to collect delinquent assessments.

Continue Reading Collections Options Regarding Owners Who Fail To Pay Their Assessments

Bills recently passed in the Virginia General Assembly extend the list of items for inclusion in property owners’ association disclosure packets and condominium association resale certificates, and also broaden non-association disclosure requirements.　 Effective July 1, 2013, disclosure packets may or must (depending on the item) include the following new items:

 Restrictions on Solar Panels (HB 2305): Disclosure statements for lots within property owners’ associations and resale certificates for condominiums must include a statement setting forth any restriction, limitation, or prohibition on the right of a unit owner or lot owner to install or use solar energy collection devices on the owner’s property or unit. Va. Code §§ 55-79.97(C)(17), 55-509.5(A)(12).

Further, Va. Code　 § 55-519(B)(9) provides that the disclosure form required under the Virginia Residential Property Disclosure Act (a Virginia law that spells out, among other things, certain disclosures that most sellers of property must provide, regardless of whether the property is within a community association) must include language to notify purchasers that by delivering the residential property disclosure statement, the owner makes no representations with respect to any right to install or use solar energy collection devices on the property.

Of course, it is always incumbent on the purchaser to read the declaration, bylaws, and rules and regulations for a community association to determine whether the association has established any restrictions concerning the size, place, and manner of placement of solar energy collection devices; or, for an association with a restrictive covenant adopted prior to July 1, 2008, any restriction or prohibition on the installation or use of a solar collection device.　

Continue Reading Disclosure Packets and Resale Certificates Revisited: Recent Statutory Amendments

As any condominium association that has had to deal with one knows, the mechanic’s lien is a powerful hammer to force payment to a contractor. Once it is filed in the land records, a lien often makes it impossible for condominium unit owners to sell or refinance, costs the condominium association time and money (in legal fees) to defend, and generally embroils the condominium association in much unwanted litigation.

The good news is that removing a mechanic’s lien can be easier than you might think. Filing a lien, especially on a large condominium association, is not an easy task. The contractor has to conduct a title search and bring down for each condominium unit. And the Virginia mechanic’s lien statute is full of traps for the unwary. Because the Virginia courts view mechanic’s liens as "purely a creature of statute" and "in derogation of the common law," the mechanic’s lien statute is strictly construed. That is, it must be followed meticulously, or the lien will be invalid. Thus, painstaking analysis is required to ensure that the lien complies with Title 43 of the Virginia Code.

As a result, mechanic’s lien claims can be very defensible. Aside from the critical timing issues, which affect all mechanic’s liens (they must be filed within 90 days, and may only include work done within 150 days, of completion of the work), there are certain property identity and allocation issues that are specific to condominiums.

Here are some important points to remember:

Continue Reading Removing a Mechanic’s Lien (In the Condominium Context) May Be Easier Than You Think

LeClairRyan attorneys Doug Cuthbertson and Nicole Pszczolkowski were recently selected to give a presentation at the upcoming 2012 Conference and Expo of the Washington Metro Chapter of CAI. Their presentation, entitled "We’ve Been Sued! Now What?" will feature a discussion of practical tips for board members, community managers, and others on how to avoid litigation and what to do if they find themselves in litigation.

The 2012 Conference and Expo will take place on March 31, 2012, from 8 a.m. – 4 p.m. For more information about the Conference, please click here.

LeClairRyan attorney Will Sleeth was recently quoted in a Virginia Lawyers Weekly magazine article reporting on a Virginia state court case in which the trial judge awarded homeowners their attorney’s fees for prevailing in their suit against their property owners’ association. The article (subscription required) discussed how the ruling was a significant decision in interpreting the provision of the Virginia Property Owners’ Association Act that provides for an award of attorney’s fees in certain contexts. In the litigation, the association attempted to argue that the attorney’s fees provision of the Virginia Code only applies if an association sues an owner and loses (as opposed to if an owner sues an association). The judge ruled, however, that the provision can permit an award of attorney’s fees when an owner sues his association and prevails.

The article illustrates an important lesson that all associations should keep in mind: associations should be proactive in seeking out legal advice to ensure that they don’t become ensnared in potentially costly litigation in the first place.

Readers should be mindful that this ruling was a Virginia Circuit Court decision, and not a Virginia Supreme Court decision. Many community associations may likely continue to maintain that the Virginia Property Owners’ Association Act does not provide for an award of attorney’s fees to an owner in a situation similar to that at issue in this case.

 

In a post several months ago, we noted the General Assembly’s adoption of amendments to the Property Owners’ Association Act and the Condominium Act　that address associations’ ability to regulate the display of the United States flag.　 As we reported then, the amended Virginia Code sections (Va. Code § 55-513.1 [POAs] and § 55-79.75:2 [Condos]) follow the language of the federal Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, signed into law on July 24, 2006. It provides that no association (POA or condominium) shall prohibit an owner from displaying the U.S. flag on his own property (lot or unit) as long as the display conforms to federal law, rule or custom.　 You can find the official rules　governing flag display in Title 4, Chapter 1 at the U.S. House of Representatives’ website at　http://uscode.house.gov/uscode-cgi/fastweb.exe?search.

Continue Reading Will Your Association “Fly” Into Trouble With the New Virginia Flag Law?

 

The other week the Wall Street Journal published an interesting and somewhat amusing article about the latest trend in upscale neighborhoods: renting a goat as a means to trim a yard and eliminate weeds.

Apparently renting a goat constitutes an environmentally-friendly "carbon-emission-free" way to trim grass. The Journal reports that: "Prices can range from $200 a day for a dozen goats to upward of $1,000 for larger herds of 100 or more."

If this trend catches on, it will pose some unique issues for associations throughout Virginia. Many associations will likely look skeptically upon goat trailers carting goats smack into the middle of their neighborhood as they’re let loose to chew-up the grass throughout a lot. Many associations’ covenants contain restrictions on maintaining or raising cattle, livestock, and non-domesticated animals on lots, but those covenants may not explicitly prohibit those animals from coming on to a lot for short periods of time. Therefore, if an association encounters this situation, it may want to consider amending its covenants to prohibit non-domesticated animals from coming on to lots.

So if you serve on the board of an association and wake up tomorrow morning to the sight of a flock of goats roaming around a yard, it might be smart to try to have the association address the situation through the covenants rather than having neighbors become angry with each other and try to "chew each other out".