This Week's Q & A

Q: I live in a three-family home in the suburbs. The owner is planning to sell and I have been talking to the tenants in the other two units about purchasing the property and converting it to a condominium. Can you discuss briefly the pluses and minuses of that plan? We’re especially interested in suggestions that would minimize the involvement and expense of attorneys. We are all responsible and get along fine, so that is not an issue.

A: Perhaps I’m getting old. Actually, that is not in dispute, as my teenaged daughter reminds me at every opportunity. But whether it’s age or experience or a combination of both, I could not read your letter without hearing strains of the music that plays in a horror movie when one of the secondary characters (who, you know, is not going to survive), heads down the stairs into a darkened basement and you want to scream, “Don’t do it!” That, I suspect, is the advice you would get from most attorneys if you asked about the advisability of establishing a three-unit condominium.

Condominiums are self-governing communities; the community association makes decisions for the common good. Agreement is often nonexistent and never automatic. In the annals of condominium history, I don’t think you would find many, if any, unanimous votes. The smaller and less significant the issue, the more intense the debate and the lower the odds of agreement. That is difficult enough in a 100-unit association, where a professional management company often acts as a buffer between the trustees and the owners.

In the three-unit condominium you are contemplating, you are going to be facing at least some 2-1 votes. What happens to the communal spirit if the same owner is outvoted consistently? What if you think the building needs maintenance or major repairs that the other two owners won’t approve, because they don’t think the work is essential, of because they can’t afford to pay their share of the cost? And what will you do when one of the owners fails to pay the monthly common area fee? You can go to court and possibly file a lien against the owner’s unit. But the prospect of initiating legal action against a downstairs neighbor and fellow-trustee can’t be particularly appealing, and it certainly won’t do much to encourage the spirit of cooperation that is essential to make a small condominium function smoothly.

I know you said you are all responsible and get along fine. That was when I started hearing that ominous horror film music. A condominium association will fundamentally change your relationship. You will feel differently about a unit you own rather than rent, and odds are, you may feel differently about your neighbors, and fellow unit-owners, as well.

All of these discouraging words aside, there are many small condominiums in existence, some of which, no doubt, work just fine. And there are steps you can take to structure your association so that it has a reasonable chance of success. Buying a larger building with more units probably is the best idea, but well-drafted condominium documents, intelligent rules, and an effective dispute resolution system all will help. However, minimizing the involvement of attorneys is probably the last thing you should do. It will cost you a lot less to anticipate legal problems at the outset (and possibly avoid them) than to try and unravel them after the fact.