Condo Media - October 2016 - 28

Legislative Update
TARGETING THE PROBLEMS
When it became obvious that the
legislation, which had never gotten
out of committee before, was going to
pass this year, Daddario says, the LAC
focused on its most onerous provisions,
securing changes in three key areas:
An affirmative vote. As originally proposed, the law required all New
Hampshire condominiums to act within
two years to amend their documents to
adopt all the statutory changes. The LAC
identified two major problems with that
requirement: The administrative burden
imposed by the amendment process and
the difficulty of securing the super-majority vote required to amend an association's governing documents. "What happens," LAC members asked legislators,
"if the board proposes the amendment
but the community doesn't approve it?"
Persuaded by that argument, legislators
eliminated this requirement, substituting
language indicating that if the statutory
requirements conflict with association
bylaws, the statute will prevail.
Approving the budget. Responding
to another LAC concern, legislators
amended a provision that required a vote
of unit owners to approve the annual budget. "That would have been disastrous,"
according to Daddario, who noted the difficulty of getting a majority of owners to
agree on what the association's priorities
should be. "Some owners will oppose almost anything," he points out, "and many
would never approve an increase in the
common area fee." The revised language
still requires owners to vote on the budget, but it now specifies that the budget
will stand as proposed by the board unless
two-thirds of the owners reject it.
Proxies. The bill initially set a 10
percent cap on the number of proxies that
could be cast in an association election.

Noting the problems this could create
in communities where large numbers of
owners vote via proxies, and especially
in small communities where, Daddario
points out, "the percentages add up quickly," the LAC proposed a compromise that
lawmakers accepted: The 10 percent limit
applies only to "undirected" proxies, which
allow proxy holders to vote however they
like; there is no cap on "directed" proxies,
specifying how they must be cast.
"This achieves the legislation's intent,
which is to prevent a small number of
owners from exerting undue control,"
Daddario says, "but it preserves the proxy
option for owners who want to use it."
CAI-NE sponsored a webinar on the
New Hampshire statute in September and
plans to offer other programs explaining it
on Oct. 22 and Nov. 3. "We'll do everything
we can," he says, "to help managers and
board members understand the law and do
what they have to do to comply with it."
MASSACHUSETTS
The Massachusetts LAC kept a close
eye on two bills this year, neither of
which passed. The so-called "Clothesline Bill," which has been filed repeatedly over the past several years, got further this year than ever, Matt Gaines, an
associate in Marcus, Errico, Emmer &
Brooks and chair of the Massachusetts
LAC, reports, winning Senate approval
before dying in the House.
Unlike earlier versions, which simply
specified that condominium owners had
the right to install clotheslines, this year's
measure specified that associations could
reasonably restrict their location. "That
was a definite improvement," Gaines says,
but it didn't address concerns about how
the law will apply in urban condominium
communities, where green space is limited.
The LAC suggested language specifying

that owners can place the clotheslines on
their own decks or balconies, but nowhere
else. While that language wasn't incorporated in the legislation this year, "I think
we'll definitely see this measure again,"
Gaines predicts, "and we'll propose that
compromise language again, too."
Another measure the LAC has seen
before, dealing with owners' access to association records, surfaced again this year,
meeting the same fate as in past sessions-
it won approval in the Senate but died in
the House. The legislation adds teeth to
existing records access requirements for
condominium owners, specifying that if
an association board refuses to provide
records an owner requests and the owner
sues successfully to obtain them, the
association must pay the owner's legal
costs. While the LAC doesn't object to
the purpose of the law, Gaines says, "we
don't much like the way it is drafted." The
primary concern is the bill's failure to address unreasonable requests-for example,
the owner who requests the same records
repeatedly, or who makes open-ended
requests "for all association records going
back 10 years-and demands that they be
delivered within 48 hours."
The LAC's proposed solution is to add
language authorizing associations to
charge for producing the records. "We've
suggested the model used for Freedom
of Information requests," he says, with
no charge for the first two hours of time
required to produce the records, but "a
reasonable fee" allowed for requests that
require more than two hours. Lawmakers didn't include that language this year,
but this is another measure that Gaines
expects to see again.
RHODE ISLAND
The legislature adopted one measure
this year about which the Rhode Island

"We'll do everything we can to help managers and board members
understand the law and do what they have to do to comply with it."
-Gary Daddario, Partner, Winer & Bennett, on the overhaul of New Hampshire's condominium statute

28

CONDOMEDIA



Condo Media - October 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Condo Media - October 2016

Table Of Contents
Condo Media - October 2016 - Intro
Condo Media - October 2016 - Cover1
Condo Media - October 2016 - Cover2
Condo Media - October 2016 - Table Of Contents
Condo Media - October 2016 - 2
Condo Media - October 2016 - 3
Condo Media - October 2016 - 4
Condo Media - October 2016 - 5
Condo Media - October 2016 - 6
Condo Media - October 2016 - 7
Condo Media - October 2016 - 8
Condo Media - October 2016 - 9
Condo Media - October 2016 - 10
Condo Media - October 2016 - 11
Condo Media - October 2016 - 12
Condo Media - October 2016 - 13
Condo Media - October 2016 - 14
Condo Media - October 2016 - 15
Condo Media - October 2016 - 16
Condo Media - October 2016 - 17
Condo Media - October 2016 - 18
Condo Media - October 2016 - 19
Condo Media - October 2016 - 20
Condo Media - October 2016 - 21
Condo Media - October 2016 - 22
Condo Media - October 2016 - 23
Condo Media - October 2016 - 24
Condo Media - October 2016 - 25
Condo Media - October 2016 - 26
Condo Media - October 2016 - 27
Condo Media - October 2016 - 28
Condo Media - October 2016 - 29
Condo Media - October 2016 - 30
Condo Media - October 2016 - 31
Condo Media - October 2016 - 32
Condo Media - October 2016 - 33
Condo Media - October 2016 - 34
Condo Media - October 2016 - 35
Condo Media - October 2016 - 36
Condo Media - October 2016 - BB1
Condo Media - October 2016 - BB2
Condo Media - October 2016 - 37
Condo Media - October 2016 - 38
Condo Media - October 2016 - 39
Condo Media - October 2016 - 40
Condo Media - October 2016 - 41
Condo Media - October 2016 - 42
Condo Media - October 2016 - 43
Condo Media - October 2016 - 44
Condo Media - October 2016 - 45
Condo Media - October 2016 - 46
Condo Media - October 2016 - 47
Condo Media - October 2016 - 48
Condo Media - October 2016 - 49
Condo Media - October 2016 - 50
Condo Media - October 2016 - 51
Condo Media - October 2016 - 52
Condo Media - October 2016 - 53
Condo Media - October 2016 - 54
Condo Media - October 2016 - 55
Condo Media - October 2016 - 56
Condo Media - October 2016 - 57
Condo Media - October 2016 - 58
Condo Media - October 2016 - 59
Condo Media - October 2016 - 60
Condo Media - October 2016 - 61
Condo Media - October 2016 - 62
Condo Media - October 2016 - 63
Condo Media - October 2016 - 64
Condo Media - October 2016 - Cover3
Condo Media - October 2016 - Cover4
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