Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Massachusetts
My wife and I have owned a condo in our 200 unit building for 20 years. Half the units are rentals and half are owner occupied. There is no minimum lease term in our docs and we have been doing short term rentals for the past 20 years. For the last 8 years we have been doing 3-4 night rentals through VRBO and more recently with Airbnb. At the last monthly Board meeting our chairman voiced his opinion that Airbnb rentals are illegal and it was his intention to ban them. He said if he was unable to get the required percentage of owners to change the docs, he could change the rules for accessing common areas such as the lobby to preclude short term guests. My first question is does the board have to grandfather existing owners if rules are changed but condo docs are not? My second is if the condo owners vote to change the docs is there any requirement to grandfather existing owners?
1 Answer from Attorneys
First the grandfathering would only comply to existing agreements if the by-law was changed. So if the rule is changed and you have an existing lease for a period that starts after the new rule but was executed before it should be honored. But once that agreement is ended that is it.
Second,subject to reading the Association documents, the Chairman is not likely to be able to circumvent the lease rules by issuing access rules to common areas as much as he thinks he can. Unless the condo documents prohibit short term rentals, then there is nothing illegal about them.
However, a rule which limits the renting of condo's to a minimum period of 3-6 months (many have a rule it must be a year) is not unheard of or unreasonable.
One way to give the association an incentive not to change the rule would be to agree that for any rental of less than one month, the Owner will pay $10 to the association. So if there are 100 units and they each rent out 20 times a year for less than a month, the association would get $20,000 in revenue to help pay for any additional maintenance costs incurred by the association.
The Chairman may not like the place being a quasi hotel, but at least it might reduce the need for an increase in Condo fees for permanent residents.
Related Questions & Answers
Looking for something else?
10,200 active attorneys ready to answer your legal questions today.
Featured Attorneys
Earn additional revenue and grow your business.
