apartments

In past areas, extended families lived together for financial and social reasons. Grown children with children, grandparents and parents all lived together. Today, we are seeing a repeat of this because of economic reasons. Single family HOA's in R1 zoning are experiencing more and more apartments being built in single family homes. Some are rented to non-family members for extra income.

In a multiple family community an assessment is collected from each unit. In a single family community an assessment is collected from each property. How are the rights of homeowners balanced with the documents of the HOA? What are the thoughts of forum members for single family HOA's facing this issue?

Not to put words in Karen's mouth but to rephrase, I believe she is talking about what are commonly called in-law suites. An interesting subject.

HOA's aside, I had a family member recently go through this issue. The town said that if there was an entrance to such a "suite" via the main residence/house then it was not a separate residence (even if he "suite" had another entrance) and was not treated as such requiring a Certificate of Occupancy, etc. Thus according to the town, it was still a one family home and treated as such. I believe in an HOA situation, this ruling would say one assessment for the one family house.

Was there not recently a discussion on this chat concerning a condo having two entrance doors and/or one entrance door leading into an entry way then a door into each unit that had been carved from one unit? Meaning the one unit was divided into two individual units. It seems to me the answer was as long as the two units had an entry door/passage between the two of them, they were still one unit. Once this common entry/passage was gone, they were two units.

Hope this helps.

I think there are 2 questions to consider, both financial:

1. Does the addition of the apartment increase the market value of the house? If it does, then there is justification to reconsider whether the restriction should be removed or altered.

2. Does the addition of additional people unfairly shift the allocation of common area costs? If it does, then per person pricing may be more fair than per unit pricing. However, some HOAs would not be able to set up per person pricing because of restrictions in their CC&Rs.

An easy example of question 2 is the situation where water is provided by the HOA. Typically, the water cost is divided by the number of units. But in actuality, it makes more sense to determine water use on a per person basis. The people with the apartments get a free ride on the additional people if allocation remains on a per unit basis.

Another common cost that typically moves up with the addition of people is trash collection. The greater the tonnage, the higher the cost.

Also, more people = faster deterioration = higher reserve allocations. Again with per unit pricing, the people with apartments get a free ride.

All of your comments are interesting. We currently have no rental restrictions. However, as I stated homes are "single family" in our covenants and R1 in our zoning.

The issues as I see them are: when an apartment is added, the home is then a multiple family dwelling. That seems to be a "dwelling" violation of both. If a single family HOA has multiple units in buildings, might it change the status of the HOA from single family under the POA Act?

If the apt is used by family members that would seem ok, but what happens when the home is sold or the family member dies or moves out and it is rented by non-family?

Then there is the previous issue of assessments per unit that you have with multiple unit dwellings vs per lot with single family.

I don't know...could something like apartments even be monitored or enforced??????

Just picking your brains...

We have a gps chip installed under the forearm skin of every resident. That way we can track who is actually sleeping on premises. We are now in the process of collecting dna samples to see who is related. All others must demonstrate to the rent control board's satisfaction that no rental checks have been written. We haven't figured out yet how to deal with people who pay rent in cash, but that's the rent control board's job to figure out.