Building into Limited Common Area

We have one owner who lives in a stand-alone condo unit and wants to extend the walls of his unit to encompass 200 sq.ft of what is now Limited Common Area. As the Board, we wonder if others have faced this scenario and how they handled either permission to build or denial?

Rebecca

The questions are can the HOA sell common property and would they be willing to do so?

The owner cannot do it without HOA approval of the land sale.

JohnC & Fred sound correct to me. Your convents (aka, CC&Rs; declaration) should give you your answer re: who needs to authorize giving away or selling a portion of the common area.

Oh, but it's llmited common area, you wrote, Rebecca. So WHAT is its current use? Patio? Backyard? And it only can be used by this condo, right?

Our attached high rise condos all have balconies, which are limited common areas. As such, we have rules about what can be placed on them. To make any structural changes to them requires Architectural Comm. approval. Such approval would never be granted because it would destroy the continuity of design of our elevations (bldg. faces).

So perhaps this owner only needs ARC approval. I do think the answers still are in your own documents. Even if permitted, you want to make sure that they comply with all building codes and pay for the costs of any surveying

Welcome to the forum, Rebecca. I do wonder what a 'standalone" condo is??? what type(s) are the rest of the dwellings in your HOA? Are you on the board?

If their condo is going to larger because of using a common space, should their dues/assessments be higher? Just a question to consider.

These are the questions we are researching. The owner seems willing to pay any and all money needed to accomplish their goals of making this addition. The concern is whether or not the HOA as a whole wants them to do this and what kind of precedent we are setting by allowing this. I many ways it makes no difference to anyone as the space being considered is under the owner's unit and not connected to outdoor space.

You also want to check with your local government planning department to see if allowed. They are the entity who also must approve. If they would not allow such a change ... you are wasting your time.

Thanks for the update. I will tell you that a few of our homes had a "Garden area" inside their unit. I thought a pretty neat little feature. However, you can imagine over time it can cause issues and eats up useable home space. The space was size of a small dining room. It has sliding glass door and an open roof above. The space is internal to that home. Hence why they were referred to as "Garden homes".

We had a few owners who wanted to enclose that space to expand their dining/kitchen area. Even though it was internal and not common area, we still had to approve plans. Enclosing this space changed a bit of the definition of the home. It's no longer a "Garden home". It did not increase the floorplan but useable space.

So there are situations where this is possible. I would just make sure to have the architect plans. The one house we approved turned out pretty nice. They were able to make a dining room to the side of their kitchen with a window. It blended in pretty well.