Condo Media - December 2017 - 42

LEGISLATIVE UPDATE
The condominium community came
close to winning approval of legislation
that would have made it easier for associations to amend their declarations.
The legislature actually approved the
measure earlier this year, but Gov. Paul
LePage vetoed it and the House fell
short of the two-thirds vote required for
an override. The LAC will revisit the issue at some point, McLaughlin said, but
it won't come up in the session beginning in January. Because it's the second
half of the two-year legislative cycle, he
explained, lawmakers will consider
only emergency measures.

MASSACHUSETTS
Two of the bills about which the LAC
has been most concerned-one modifying the time line for filing construction
defect suits and the other barring
"poison pill" provisions that prohibit
associations from suing their developers, still haven't moved. A measure
that would allow municipalities to tax
future development rights also remains
stalled and under a LAC watch. But another-the oft-filed "Clothesline Bill"-
has inched forward, Mass-LAC Chair
Matthew Gaines, a partner in Marcus,
Errico, Emmer & Brooks, reports. That

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42

CONDOMEDIA

bill, allowing condo owners to install
clotheslines, has been referred to the
Senate Rules Committee, the next
procedural stop before it goes to the
Senate floor for a vote. "Most bills don't
make it out of committee," Gaines
notes, "so this one has gotten further
than most." The LAC still wants to add
language clarifying that associations
retain the authority to bar installations
in communities where they aren't feasible, "and we're prepared to propose
amendments when the bill gets to the
Senate floor," Gaines said. "But just
because it's gone to the Rules Committee doesn't mean it will move any
further," he noted. "Sometimes bills
just sit there."
Lawmakers are addressing another
hot topic, dealing with the short-term
rental of residential property. The
Joint Revenue Committee has reported favorably a measure "updating
and modernizing the room occupancy
tax." The bill, combining several different proposals, would tax "transient accommodations" (a catch-all targeting
homeowners who rent their properties,
directly or through platforms like
airbnb) at the same 5 percent rate that
applies to hotels and bed and breakfasts. The measure would also allow
municipalities to impose an additional
6 percent tax on those transient accommodations, as they can do now on
other vacation rentals.
The LAC would be concerned about
the measure only if it restricted the
authority of condominium associations
to regulate short-term rentals in their
community or imposed any additional
obligations on boards, "and it doesn't
appear to do that," Gaines said. "The
issue for condominium associations
hasn't changed-they can restrict
short-term rentals if they want to."
Condo Media - December 2017

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