Menlo Park Real Estate Attorney Answers, “As a Condominium Owner, What Repairs are Your Responsibility and What Repairs Belong to the HOA?”

Clients regularly call our office with issues that arise between them and their home owner association.  It seems as though the HOA is constantly dictating what they can and cannot do to their individual units.  In addition, when things go wrong, there is usually a fight between the client and the HOA about who is responsible.

Usually the HOA is responsible for the common area repairs and maintenance.  But what exactly is “the common area”?  Usually one thinks of the common area as the part of the complex that is shared by everyone . . . the sidewalks, parking lots, roads. The “non-common” areas are usually the living spaces within the walls of the individual units.

But what happens then there is something that falls between those two?  In Dover Village Assn. v. Jennison, a sewage pipe ruptured and flooded a condominium unit with raw sewage.  The pipe ran from the main sewage line to the individual unit.  The location of the broken pipe was directly below the floor of the unit, encased in the concrete slab.  The condominium owner argued that the piping was the responsibility of the HOA since it connected to the sewage main that serviced many units.  The HOA argued that this particular pipe serviced the individual unit and so it was the responsibility of the unit owner.  In that case, the court ruled that the sewage system is a series of interconnected pipes and it would be unreasonable to hold the individual unit owners responsible for repairing parts of an overall system, therefore the HOA was responsible for the repairs.

If you are having issues with your HOA over repairs, improvements, or any other issue, call our experienced Menlo Park real estate attorneys at Brainin Law Office at 650-422-3313.