- Georgia Condominium Act /
Property Owners’ Association Act. These statutes establish the legal
authority for the existence of housing corporations, and define and
control their operation. These
default rules may in some instances be modified by any of the following
documents.
- Articles of Incorporation. This creates
the official entity of your Association and sets restrictions as to its
nature. Associations must abide by
the Nonprofit Code Statute – this is a good place to look for ideas of how
the Board is to conduct itself.
- Survey. This lays out
the exact boundaries of the development, and may have restrictions on
property usage listed. There are
usually so many restrictions that these have been relocated into another
document - the Declaration.
- Declaration. This is
considered the controlling document for defining details of the
Association, and laying out restrictions on usage and interaction. It is recorded at the Courthouse (just
like the two documents above). If
you are purchasing a home, the law assumes that you have gone down to the
courthouse and obtained a copy of the Declaration and made yourself aware
of its restrictions. Ignorance is
no excuse.
- By-Laws. This springs
from the Declaration, and details the method and actions of governance,
such as how votes are conducted and qualifications to be a Director.
- Rules & Regulations. These flow
from both the Declaration and By-Laws, and give very specific rules, such
as the type of pets you may have, or the hours in which you may use a
hammer to do work in your home.
Typically these are easily changed by the Board, without prior
approval from the Community, unlike the other items above, which require
formal votes of the Association in order to alter.
- Resolutions. These memorialize decisions on specific topics and may be changed as often as the Board desires. The four types are Policy (architectural control or enforcement), Administrative (collections, meeting times), Special (authorizing a lawsuit, addressing individual situation), and General (budget adoption or contract approval).
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXydZqVvsWW2Q6uMHulZpFntknT18YHK9nLqnJ16ti_GISpIgEDe1pVhgl_68VX46dcIh4mOvjUsARUw0EPjPt23R9B_9lbBIgLym6GGPtgoaiV5r14yzVaqenezeo-va29d_IeTQSnx0/s200/Legal.jpg)
Each court jurisdiction (magistrate,
state, superior, federal) may have some overlap on resolving disputes, and each
resolution is both costly and time-consuming:
It is always best if Associations can resolve differences without
resorting to the legal system.
While individual disputes may be addressed at
the trial level, what matters most are determinations made on appeal, since
these will be referred to when addressing similar disputes in the future. As in other areas of law, the State Supreme
Court trumps lower levels of appeals, and Federal appeals, if granted, are
above those of the state level. While
one state is not bound to the decisions in other states, judges do frequently
refer to out-of-state decisions to clarify a line of thinking. Federal appeals cover multiple states, and
one federal jurisdiction may look to others when reaching a determination.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgbzztMSiIv14VqZ3cKSBg8E4MeubhSd6YZwN56D-TK3ntDYBOCz9Yy-EBfo9wY0SwWrLU_Ot5lv88eYoccAIFhjt2qK-Zez0yVG-dyeFBk1dS6sJPS2ZqWm74VceXdMu39SwqEAwNQ1mU/s200/Neighborhood2.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment