Limited Liability companies

We don't have any restrictions in our documents regarding LLC's or corporations, and somehow a residence was sold to a LLC with four unrelated families. It was found out after the sale when one of the new buyers slipped and said "we four friends bought this together". Anyone else have this happen?

The LLC is considered the owner. This is meant to protect the four unrelated owners of the LLC from any lawsuits, fraud, etc.

You may also check with zoning ordinances if any apply. In my town the zoning for the area is single family occupancy only. So too say our Covenants.

This kind of precludes 4 unrelated persons living in one of our buildings. If such behavior (4 non-related persons living in the same house) was detected, and if the Board felt strongly enough about it (if perhaps they found a bag of round tuits) they would probably handle such behavior as a zoning matter and let the Town zoning official do his thing. Much easier to let government do its thing and leave the Board action for the important stuff like better cable TV services.

With the stipulation that if they were well behaved people and not the subject of complaints then they probably would never even be officially noticed in my HA much less be the subject of a compliant..

All due respect to Webster, but I believe my Town has a slightly different definition of same family in their ordinance. That is the parts you put in bold weren't there in the ordinance when last I looked. Just the blood and marriage parts. Likewise, does Black's contain the same definition? One must be careful when waving dictionaries about least the other person produce a contradictory dictionary. Neither of which is relevant if the ordinance contains a definition entirely different. The one in the ordinance is often the one the judge uses. Society changes. I can recall when both cohabitation and fornication were an actual crime in this state (not that long ago). Back then, I recall one HA forcing a landlord to evict an unmarried couple re; single family specified ties by blood or marriage only. Today VA has decriminalized both and I suspect that tenants evicted for that would fight all the way to the courthouse. A new ruling could result.

That being said, I don't think a thinking judge would want to chip away at zoning ordinances by ruling for an LLC being a family, if a zoning ordinance restricted the homes to being single family housing only.

Alternatively, maybe there is no applicable zoning ordinance in this instance...

Christine,

Do they plan on renting the unit out? It does not matter if 50 people own a unit as long as they follow the rules, and CC&R's. They get 1 vote and as long as they are deeded to the unit, why would anyone care. At least the space will be paying dues to the association rather than being in forclosure or leined against by the HOA.

Christine,

If the revolving door occupancy is your concern, then you need to adpot an amendment which requires a minimum number of days of continuous residency. One of my HOA's has a minimum of 4 months. It is a golf community and we rent it out to seasonals. The problem with that is (AND especially in Florida), the seasonal rentals are not there in June thru August. You should not have issue with LLC's. My Husband and I are a LLC company which legally seperates our personal property from business property.

Christine if it were me and the HOA tried to stop me. My family would be the occupants and the others would be my servants. I assume you don't have a cap on the number of servants allowed.