Attn IL HOAs – new: Common Interest Community Association Act signed 7/29/2010

From: http://www.ksnlaw.com/?t=11&la=1776&format=xml&p=1672

“The Common Interest Community Association Act was signed into law on July 29, 2010. Illinois is now one of the few states that has a separate law governing homeowner and townhome associations. …….”

http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96/PDF/096-1400.pdf

from definitions:

"Common interest community" means real estate other than a condominium or cooperative with respect to which any person by virtue of his or her ownership of a partial interest or a unit
therein is obligated to pay for the maintenance, improvement, insurance premiums or real estate taxes of common areas described in a declaration which is administered by an SB3180 Enrolled LRB096 20251 AJO 35836 b Public Act 096-1400 association. "Common interest community" may include, but not be limited to, an attached or detached townhome, villa, or single-family home, or master association.”

My condo HOA is apparently not affected, but we are also in a Master HOA which evidently would be affected, as may be the 3rd HOA under the Master HOA which I think is a townhome association (IMO).

Bonnie

Marie,

The fact that your HOA is a nonprofit corp has no effect on the law. You still must abide by the State nonprofit corp laws plus this new law that is specific to HOAs. If there is a conflict between the two sets of laws I would think the HOA laws would take precedence.

Hi Marie,

I only just found this new law and have not yet read it completely. The information I am providing is IMHO (I'm not an attorney). If your HOA is a condomium, then it probably does not affect you. My HOA looks like 2-story townhomes with about 5 per building, but we are condominiums.

Here is some information I found. I would suggest first determining whether you are a condominium HOA or a community interest HOA. If yours is a condominium HOA (regardless of what it looks like), then the new law (IMHO) does not apply as the new law excludes condominium HOAs. This is in the definitions section, under “common interest community” of the new law.

I also found this KSN article (KSN is al IL law firm specializing in HOA law) which describes the types of homeowner associations:

http://www.ksnlaw.com/?t=11&la=1139&format=xml&p=1672&pub=pp

I have copied a portion here:

“In response I explained that the physical structure of the building does not define whether your Association is a condominium, townhouse or homeowners association. The way to tell is to review the Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions for your Association. In the first few pages of the documents there should be a section entitled "Recitals". If the Association is a condominium, the Recitals should state that the building and property are subject to the provisions of the Illinois Condominium Property Act ("Act"). If it does not, your Association is generally not a condominium association.

Further, under the Act, the name of the Association must contain the word "condominium". For instance, if your Association is called ABC Townhome Condominium Association, your Association is most likely a townhouse style association which is a condominium under Illinois law. However, I have reviewed several Declarations which are submitted to the Act which do not have the word "condominium" in the name of the association. In these situations, I believe the association is still a condominium and the name of the association should be amended to add in the word "condominium".”

Based on what the article states, you should be able to check your Declaration to determine which type of HOA you are.

Do you have a property manager? S/he may be able to help. Ultimately, if it is unclear which type of HOA you are, or if you believe you are a common interest HOA, you should probably ask your attorney as you might need to update your Declaration (IMHO, based on what KSN states about the new law).

I hope this helps.
Bonnie

PS – I also agree with what Mary said.

PPS – What types of difficulties do you have with your computer due to being visually impaired? I do not know if any of these would be of any help, but will share as FYI:

Windows has built-in tools to help with vision impaired;

the webanywhere site reads web pages aloud for free: http://webanywhere.cs.washington.edu/

and, the Foxfire web browser (free) delivers navigation for those who are vision or motor impaired
(I did a search on the KimKomando.com web site for this info – that is my “go to” site for information about computers)

Bonnie,
Thank you so much for all the information you provided. It is greatly appreciated.
Our association is a common interst community. It was formed in 1969 and our documents are very old. I am on the board,have only been on since January, but served at least 4 times in the past, but never with such unknowing members as there now are. We don't have an attorney and they are reluctent to spend the money to hire one. But perhaps with these new laws they will realize we need one now. We have a meeting tonight and I have advised them of the new laws and this should be our main topic of conversation.I will let you know how it turns out.
Thank you so much for all your info and help.
Marie

Hi Bonnie,

Had our board meeting last night and it went well.Thanks to you I was able to inform the board of the new laws and they responded well. we will finally be hiring an attorney to revise our 41 year old CC&R's. which have long been out of date I have been assigned the task of finding the attorney and will start working on this Monday.Thanks again for your valuable info.
Marie....

Hi, Bonnie. This new law quite interesting; thanks for sharing. No reference to Condominium is to be found in our Decs/ByLaws. Our Recitals only make reference to our association's name as "CSH Homes"; further down, only mentions Illinois Not For Profit Act. I sent an email to our CAM to see how much she knows of this. -Renee