When considering the maintenance obligations of community associations and condominium owners, the governing principal seems clear: Unit owners are responsible for maintaining and repairing anything within the boundaries of their units; the association is responsible for common areas and components outside of them. But few aspects of community association governance are perfectly clear, and maintenance obligations are not among them.

The association’s governing documents should precisely describe boundaries and clearly delineate who is responsible for what. While some documents accomplish those goals, many fall short, providing descriptions that lack clarity, logic, or both, leaving it to boards to interpret hazy language and to fight with owners who interpret it differently. Some areas can be particularly confusing, and I’m going to concentrate on those.

Some documents say owners are responsible for maintaining the doors and windows and associations are responsible for the frames. This follows the general rule about inside -and outside-the-unit maintenance obligations, but it stumbles against the reality that you don’t replace windows and doors in pieces; you replace the entire door or the entire window, including the frames and thresholds, which are common area components.

Rather than devising a Solomon-like “split the-baby’ solution, it makes sense to assign the maintenance obligation to one entity – either the association or the owner. Associations logically want to shift as much of the maintenance responsibility and cost to owners as possible, but window replacement has an obvious impact on the exterior siding around the windows. This creates a strong argument for making window replacement an association responsibility to ensure that the flashing and other exterior work is done properly, reducing the risk of leaks if it is not.

This approach works fine if all owners have the same number and type of windows; if not, owners with fewer windows may object to sharing the replacement costs equally with those who have more. To address this, the association might assume responsibility for replacing windows, but bill owners proportionately for the cost. The association will almost certainly negotiate a better price than owners could get individually, and most owners will probably appreciate having the association handle the project for them.

Like windows and doors, skylights fall into a hazy maintenance no-man’s land involving both the interior and exterior of units. Because the courts have differed on where the maintenance obligations lie, the best course is to amend the governing documents to eliminate the ambiguity. Our suggestion: Because skylights are connected to the roof, the association should handle maintenance. This allows the association to control who goes on the roof (a good idea, given the potential for damage there) and to ensure that the interface between skylights and roofing material is maintained and repaired properly.

Theoretically, owners should be responsible for maintaining components that uniquely serve their units. But unlike the components of doors and windows (which also serve the units to which they are attached), the interior and exterior components of doorbells can be easily separated. The doorbell button, located on the exterior of the door, can be treated as part of the common area while the chime, located inside the owner’s unit can be treated logically as the owner’s responsibility.

Both of these interior components both have safety implications potentially affecting other units and common areas, which could be damaged by fires if the components aren’t maintained properly. Safety concerns lead some associations to assume the maintenance responsibility, an understandable response, but not always the best one. There are two problems:

Associations are making what should be the obligation of an individual owner a common area expense.
Owners who don’t have fireplaces will question the fairness of sharing the expense of maintaining them.

Given those concerns, it would be better in most cases for the association to require owners who have fireplaces to maintain them (by having them cleaned and inspected annually) and to document that they have done so.

Dryer vents are a little different because all units are likely to have them. But associations could impose on them the same maintenance/documentation requirement they adopt for fireplaces. Alternatively, they could negotiate an attractive bulk rate for cleaning all the vents in the community. Owners who opt out of the group cleaning arrangement should be required to document that their vents have been cleaned in accordance with standards the board specifies. A similar group cleaning offer might also work for fireplaces in communities in which all units have them.

Owners often assume that because pests enter units from the outside, the associations must be responsible for eliminating them. That is not the case. Sometimes infestations occur because of conditions within the unit; sometimes they occur simply because clever pests find a way to get in. Owners have a general obligation, specified in the governing documents, to maintain their units, and keeping them free of pests is part of that obligation. Unless the association has been negligent in some way – failing to repair a breach in the siding of which the board was aware, for example - the owner is responsible for dealing with the infestation.

**Exclusive Use / Limited Common Areas**

Governing documents typically specify how the maintenance and repair of these areas will be handled. But the Massachusetts condominium statute gives associations two options: They can require owners of exclusive use areas to maintain and repair them; or they can handle maintenance and repair tasks of these areas but bill the owners using them for the cost. If the governing documents conflict with the statute, the statute controls. If the maintenance obligations rest with owners, it is important to specify what they entail. Are owners required only to sweep a deck periodically and remove accumulated snow or must they undertake structural repairs? Most documents don’t answer those questions very clearly. We advise boards to make owners responsible for housekeeping tasks but assume responsibility for maintenance and repair tasks that could affect the integrity of the building. When creating a new exclusive use area, associations should enter into an agreement with the owner detailing their maintenance obligations. The Massachusetts condominium law mandates this agreement, which must be filed in the Registry of Deeds to ensure that buyers purchasing the unit will be aware of their obligations.

There is no question that boards have the authority to impose maintenance obligations on owners. That authority stems from the common language in condominium documents requiring owners to properly maintain their units. But governing documents aren’t always clear or sufficiently detailed and owners don’t often review them, if they read them at all. For that reason, we recommend that boards also approve maintenance resolutions providing a detailed description of owners’ maintenance obligations, explaining clearly who is responsible for what. The resolution should also note that if a maintenance lapse threatens the health or safety of other residents or could damage other units or common areas, the board has the authority to cure the problem and bill owners for the cost.

When maintenance responsibilities become clouded, email Justin Magsarili for the clarity.

WHEN IT COMES TO CONDOMINIUM MAINTENANCE, THE ANSWER ISN’T ALWAYS CLEAR

CTA FILING PROCEDURE SUMMARY: USE OF FREE MEEB PORTAL FOR YOUR PROPERTY

RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANSWERING LENDER QUESTIONNAIRES