Condo Assn. wants to eliminate rental units!!

We are located in Illinois,our condo assn. wants to eliminate all rental units.We suggested to grandfather the current rentals and place a cap on all rentals, but that is not an option for them.What can we do?
Thanks

Roger is correct. This is not something the board can decide. It requires the approval of your owners by the required percent spelled out in your documents.
And he is right too - I have no intention NOW of ever renting my home, but who knows what will happen down the road? So I would never vote for rental restriction, and you can be sure the present owners who are renting their unit will not vote for it even if they are grandfathered. (Allowing existing rentals, but forbidding future rentals will turn off some voters too.)
Your documents should be able to control rentals thru the owners. Renters have to abide by all rules too, and if they don't your recourse is with the owner. Harold

The decision of restricting rentals lies mostly with mortgage/loan companies and NOT with an HOA/Condo board. As long as the homeowner has a mortgage/loan then the conditions of that mortgage/loan is abided by till it is paid off. Now if EVERYONE owned their Condo/Home with NO mortgages/loans then it may be possible for the Condo/HOA board to limit Rental.
Limiting rental property isn't the answer if you have residency issues. It's making sure the owner's feet are held to the fire if things are violated.

Could you further explain these 2 postings? Are you saying that the mortgage company is the owner when it comes to things like notification of/voting at annual meeting/election, or when major changes to governing docs are proposed to be made?

LanceT: The decision of restricting rentals lies mostly with mortgage/loan companies and NOT with a HOA/Condo board. As long as the homeowner has a mortgage/loan then the conditions of that mortgage/loan is abided by till it is paid off. Now if EVERYONE owned their Condo/Home with NO mortgages/loans then it may be possible for the Condo/HOA board to limit Rental.

RogerB: True, Lance, all owners, including mortgage companies, have the right to vote to amend the Declaration. Some association's documents provide for only an "eligible holder" to vote. It further defines that to be an eligible holder requires providing a mailing address for notices of meetings. So for a significant amendment, such as restricting rentals, the mortgage companies must be included. If an eligible holder is not defined the association must obtain their name and address and mail ballots to all mortgage companies.

Our Declaration defines Owner: A Record Owner, whether one or more Persons, of fee simple title to any Dwelling Unit, including contract sellers, but excluding those having such interest merely as security for the performance of an obligation.

I could not find any reference to an “eligible holder” in our Declaration.

Thanks, Roger. Actually, it was Rudy who posed the original question re limiting rentals. But, you could have read my mind because (also in IL) we (BOD) have discussed amending our governing docs to ban rentals. We haven’t pursued because of the required number of HOs needed to support it (would be very challenging).

What you state is very informative. We had not thought of the potential negative consequences should a rental ban amendment be passed. Should this topic come up in the future, I will share this information – plus will ask for a legal opinion as to whether our Declaration excludes the mortgage company as an owner. Thank you!

We have a couple units grandfathered to continue to allow them to rent. Once the unit is sold, it can no longer be rented. It was a majority vote by all the owners to get rid of rentals, I'm not sure how the ones were grandfathered in as I don't think it was fair to the rest of us. But the up side of the matter, we have been told by several mortgage companies that the actual property value is higher without rentals.