{"id":83,"date":"2010-10-22T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T10:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/?p=83"},"modified":"2010-10-06T07:56:16","modified_gmt":"2010-10-06T11:56:16","slug":"misperception-7-%e2%80%9ci-can-do-anything-i-want-on-my-limited-common-elements%e2%80%9d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/?p=83","title":{"rendered":"Misperception #7 \u201cI can do Anything I want on My Limited Common Elements\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

This post is one of a series about 10 Most Common Misperceptions About Condominium Laws And Operations<\/strong>, which I <\/strong>presented at the Maine Condo Forum and Expo in Portland, Maine, on September 25, 2010.<\/em><\/p>\n

The Maine Condominium Act has \u201cstatutory\u201d limited common elements; those things that are limited common elements unless the documents otherwise provide:<\/p>\n

\u201cExcept as provided by the declaration: \u2026 (4) Any shutters, awnings, window boxes, doorsteps, stoops, porches, balconies, patios and all exterior doors and windows or other fixtures designed to serve a single unit, but located outside the unit’s boundaries, are limited common elements allocated exclusively to that unit.\u201d<\/em> <\/em><\/p>\n

Responsibility and control of decks and other limited common elements is commonly misunderstood by Boards.\u00a0\u00a0 Limited common elements are a subset of the common elements and are not a part of the condominium unit.\u00a0 They are subject to the same rules regarding maintenance, repair, replacement and appearance, as other common elements, unless the condominium act or your documents say otherwise.<\/p>\n

Unit owners, and the Board, frequently believe otherwise.\u00a0\u00a0 Since an owner has exclusive use of a deck she may mistakenly believe that she \u201cowns\u201d it and is free of the control that the Board otherwise exercises over common elements.\u00a0 The Board may feel the same way.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Conversely, the Board may wrongly believe that it is the unit owner, not the Board, which has legal responsibility for maintenance,\u00a0 repair and replacement.<\/p>\n

The Board usually has authority to regulate the appearance of limited common elements by virtue of a specific provision in the Maine Condominium Act.<\/p>\n

Windows present special problems.\u00a0 First, the Condominium Act does not define what it means by \u201cwindow\u201d.\u00a0 Is it only the window glass or does it include the window frame as well?\u00a0 If the \u201cwindow\u201d does not include the frame, then who determines whether the window needs to be replaced when the window and its frame are manufactured as a single unit and cannot be separated?\u00a0 the frame may be part of the unit, or part of the common elements, and therefore subject to different rules regarding maintenance, repair and replacement. \u00a0The area surrounding windows frequently leak, raising questions whether the unit owner or the association is responsible for any resulting damage.<\/p>\n

Recommendation:\u00a0 Carefully check what your documents say about maintenance, repair and replacement of decks, outside doors and windows, and other limited common elements, and make clarifying amendments to your documents if necessary. <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is one of a series about 10 Most Common Misperceptions About Condominium Laws And Operations, which I presented at the Maine Condo Forum and Expo in Portland, Maine, on September 25, 2010. The Maine Condominium Act has \u201cstatutory\u201d limited common elements; those things that are limited common elements unless the documents otherwise provide: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-10-most-common-misperceptions-about-condominium-law-and-operations"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=83"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85,"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83\/revisions\/85"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=83"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=83"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=83"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}