• Problem People.  Every community has at least one.  Greg has written on this topic, guided associations to successful resolutions with them, and can assist your association in implementing strategies to deal with the issues and problems these people raise.  Click here for Problem People Article.

  • Turnover from the Declarant.  This is the most critical moment for an association in the first 20 years of its existence.  When the declarant makes turnover, the statute of limitations for breach of the warranties on the common elements, usually suspended during the period of declarant control of the association, again begins to run. A final audit of the funds of the association is due as well as control of those funds. There are numerous other requirements that impact the long-term health of the association and this firm can assist you in understanding the legal issues, managing the process, and making critical decisions.

  • Meetings.  Noticing, preparing for and running unit owner meetings and in helping new and long-term boards and directors understand their legal responsibilities as boards and directors.
  • Financing.  Representing the association - on an hourly or fixed fee basis - in closing bank financing for special projects, capital improvements, repairs and other priorities.
  • Corporate Filings. Keeping your corporate filings current.
  • Operations.  Providing training and counsel in operating productive and orderly meetings, preparing proper corporate minutes, and transparency and handling the flow of information to unit owners.
  • Collections.  Common expense assessments are the lifeblood of an association. The sooner the association restores non-payers to paying status, or if necessary replaces them with paying owners, the sooner the association can get back on its proper course.  As soon as possible after unit owners assume control of the association, the board needs to establish a collections policy.  As with all policies, the collections policy should be transparent so that every unit owner knows what to expect when common expenses and assessments are not timely paid.
  • Enforcement.  The rules exist not for the sake of being punitive. Rather, they assure all unit owners of certain minimum expectations so that all may achieve a predictable level of enjoyment of community living. No one wants to live in a police state where every minor transgression is immediately recorded and punished.  Yet, when a board fails to enforce the rules in an even-handed manner, community spirit suffers.  Rules should be periodically reviewed and consensus achieved as to which rules should be retained and which should be abandoned.  Then the rules that represent the consensus should be enforced evenhandedly and fairly.  We can assist you with rule enforcement and will work with the board to seek enforcement methods which efficiently accomplish this task.
called “planned communities”.  But all communities have governance and hence conflict. In the common interest community, this conflict plays out in the corporate setting of community associations – community associations which exert far more comprehensive control over residents’ lives than does local government.  Handling the disputes which typically arise is neither for the faint of heart, nor those not represented by legal counsel. We bring to the table the knowledgeable outside perspective you need to see the dispute and the way forward to resolving it. More importantly, THE CAVA LAW FIRM LLC can assist the Association in proper governance procedures that when engaged, help to avoid disputes in the first place.

Corporate Representation and Meetings
In representing more than 100 condominium and community associations, our governing philosophy is that proper corporate representation of associations is the sine qua non of successful community governance.  Boards and the individual directors need to understand their role, legal responsibilities, and the benefits and requirements of proper governance and transparency. Even something as simple as how a meeting is run can contribute to successful outcomes and strengthening the bonds of community. The following are some of the areas in which THEN CAVA LAW FIRM LLC can provide assistance.

Condominium & Community Associations

Governance
From the early 20th Century, in an effort to control the cost of housing, apartment dwellers began acting collectively to purchase their apartment buildings and garden apartment complexes in order to create cooperative associations to own, maintain, and operate the buildings.  Apartment dwellers were given a long term lease of their apartment and the ability to sell the lease and the cooperative or “co-op” was born. By the 1960’s developers had begun to apply a similar concept of separate apartment or “unit” ownership first to city apartment buildings and later to entire complexes of various housing types and hence the condominium came to Connecticut.  By 1984, Connecticut became the first state to enact a single comprehensive statute, the Common Interest Ownership Act, to regulate the creation, sale, ownership, operation, and financing of all types of common ownership: cooperatives, condominiums, and a catch-all category called  

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Governing Documents
Most board questions involve the interpretation of the governing documents, e.g., the declaration and amendments to the declaration, the bylaws, the rules and regulations, and occasionally the articles of incorporation. These are not always easy questions because community documents vary somewhat with the age of the community. Even the question of which parts of three comprehensive bodies of law is applicable to interpret the documents depends on when the common interest community was created.  This is why it is important to have legal counsel familiar with and experienced in the laws and documents governing common interest communities.  Greg Cava has represented many associations and resolved numerous situations requiring the interpretation of governing documents and the applicable law. Greg is a member and contributor on the Manual Drafting Committee of the Real Property Section of the Connecticut Bar Association, the committee tasked with drafting the manual used by Connecticut attorneys in drafting condominium and community association governing documents. Greg is also an active member of the Common Interest Committee of the American College of Real Estate Lawyers and so has access to the latest, breaking developments in this area of the law.  THE CAVA LAW FIRM LLC can assist you with:

  • Interpreting your governing documents
  • Revising your governing documents.
  • Rewriting your governing documents.
  • Rule-making
  • Adopting the Connecticut Common Interest Ownership Act (CIOA) as the governing law of your project if it is not already under CIOA

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860.350.3650