Roof easement and permission to access.

Greetings,

I am part of a multifamily community in the western US. We are connected units with adjoining party walls. Our governing documents establish a “blanket easement” across all of our units’ roofs for maintenance. I understand that the easement gives the HOA the ability to access our roofs for maintenance, but what are the rules about how and when the HOA utilizes this easement to access my property (the roof). Since the easement exists does that give them or their workers the ability to go up on my roof any time, day or night, without giving me notice?

I would like to tell the HOA that they need to give me 48 hours notice by email before they utilize the easement to gain access to my property. Do I have the authority to make this demand?

The maintenance of the roof itself is my responsibility.

Thanks for any help and input,

Karl

The roofs are NOT common elements. They are doing things like: repairing conduit that feeds lighting for the common area, but the conduit runs across my roof.

Right now they are giving no notice and saying that because the easement exists they do not need to give notice or ask my permission to walk on my roof.

Thanks for your input.

Karl

Why do you want such notification?

John

I can tell you one reason owners would like to know people will be on the roof: two of our client associations have skylights which are mounted above hallways which connect bedrooms and bathrooms.

It could be somewhat startling to all concerned if someone is unclothed walking to the bedroom and the AC contractor crew is directly above.

If workers from the association are on my roof I am concerned that they may damage my roof. I would like notice so I can observe what they are doing up there to protect my property. For example, what if they need to secure a piece of conduit and screw it into my roof without waterproofing the attachment penetration properly. If they do this without my knowledge while I am out of town serious damage could occur to my property through water leaks, etc.

I can see your concerns, KarlP. I also agree with others that the HOA probably has no requirement to notify Owners when they're going to be on the roof. I assume it's not frequently.

Still I think it's worth a try to write a nice letter to your board via your property manager requesting they place on their open meeting agenda consideration of establishing a written policy to give residents 24 hours notice when workers will be on the roof, and that the hours for workers to be on the roof are weekdays except national holidays from 8:00am to 5:00pm except for emergencies.

If it goes on the agenda, my understanding is that in AZ, owners may comment on each and every agenda item during open meetings.

I'm in a condo building too, and the hours/day noted above are when we allow approved architectural work by owners and common area work to be done. The HOA must give us 24 hours notice if they must enter our separate interest condos and the hours are the same (except, of course, for emergencies.)

Btw, Karl, one way you can keep track of work on your roof is to read the monthly financials and look for invoices or disbursements re: work on conduits, etc. on the roofs.