Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.
Trending News
condo rule jargon - what does special interests mean?
Members of an association owning 5% or more of the separate interests may call a special meeting of the members to reverse a rule change, other than an emergency rule change.
what does this mean? "separate interests"
I meant to say : What does this mean? "SPECIAL INTERESTS"
Hilery - your answer doesn't help me.
2 Answers
- deb sLv 69 years agoFavorite Answer
Each person who owns a condo there has a percentage interest in the assoc. that is equal to the percent of the total square feet they own. So.. for example..say there are 100 condos all the same exact size in the association..so each condo is worth approx 1% of separate interest....So, in this example; to get 5% at least 5 condos would have to agree to call a special meeting. (this could be one person who owns 5 condos..2 people who own 5 condos between them..whatever combination it takes to get to the 5%).
Just because a special meeting is called does not mean that the rule change could be reversed...the condo rules probably require a 50% (or more) vote to over turn a rule change...but..just to call the meeting that will decide it requires 5% (this is called a quorum).
The reason it is written as 'separate interests' is because in nearly every case a single condo does not represent a 1% interest. Condos are different sizes. a 3 bedroom condo is a larger percentage of the total square feet of the place than a 1 bedroom condo. So the percent of separate interest is larger for a larger place. This is not one owner, one vote. The vote depends on what percent of the total place the owner has. It is just too confusing to try to write all that into a simple sentence, so the rules simply call it 'separate interest'.
- 9 years ago
Each of you holds a certain number of shares in the association. This is your 'interest' in the entity (the condo). If you know the total shareholding you can easily calculate your percentage interest and if it is 5% or more, you are going to be able to overturn any rule changes.
As we do not know what percentage of owners will fit into this category it is impossible to know how important this rule is but essentially it gives different rights to those with a greater than 5% interest. So a decision to save money (for example) by cutting back on gardening costs because some owners are struggling to pay their fees could be overridden by the owners of the larger units.
