Need Advice (Cambridge: sale, condo, lawyer)

[Suffering Condo Owner]

I live in a 2 unit condo which is a house with exclusive use side yards and common area yard space in back. Other unit owner is new and is a my way or the highway type as far as I can tell. Hope this changes. Anyway, this person is claiming that in my "exclusive use" area I can't put in a garden bed unless she agrees to it.

My lawyer didn't have this view when we went over condo docs prior to my buying my unit. But the new owner claims her lawyer says any changes to yard have to have approval.

Advice is needed. I really can't afford to go to a lawyer every time we disagree on something. Any MA condo. law sites or book out there that might be of help.

[brightdoglover]

Wish I could help you. I have always wondered how common areas/expenses are governed in those condexes. Maybe you could just sit down and talk with the person? I mean, what can they have against a garden bed?
Maybe I'm a pie-eyed optimist.
I ended up buying a house, even though I'm a condo person at heart, because I just didn't want to cooperate with strangers (after a bad ownership experience in Cambridge) and I wanted financial control. Big nut to pay, but it's all mine. Good luck.

[CaseyB]

The answer is in your condo docs. I would call the attorney who represented you at the closing and tell him or her about the issue. Explain that it is the opposite of what you were told at the closing. It shouldn't cost you any more money to get an answer to your question. Good luck, let us know what happens.

[MichelleLane]

I agree. The answer is in the Rules and Regulations document for your condo. You should have gotten that as part of the sale process. Typically, a Condo Addendum is affixed to your offer and is a request that the condo documents be given to you for review before you sign the P&S. If you did not get those, you should request them from the lawyer, who should not charge you for that request since the documents should have been provided to you in the beginning of the sale process.

Unfortunately as brightdoglover indicates, when it is one of these 2-3 unit deals, often stuff has to be agreed on. But get the documents and find out for sure what is spelled out and what you have to come to agreement on.

It will be important for you to know all that for things like snow removal, maintenace of share resources, etc.

[Serenity141]

If all else fails, maybe you could grow veggies in containers. Last summer I bought a premium potting mix from a garden center and grew fabulous tomatoes, peppers, herbs, and flowers in containers on my back patio. They did have to be watered a lot, but no one could believe how many tomatoes I kept getting...I was still picking them at the beginning of October. I know it's not the same as a garden but at least your neighbors shouldn't be THAT picky that a few containers would bother them@!

[Xenos]

With a two unit condo, there is no legal remedy when the owners disagree over the common property. Maybe there is text in the agreement filed with the master deed that explains what rules are to be followed if there is an impasse. Otherwise, the only thing I can think of would be to file a nuisance complaint if the other owner was leaving garbage out, and so on.

If you truly have an exclusive use, that implies the right to exclude the other owner. If he has a right-of-way over "your" area, then you can't put something like a flower bed that would block his passing through. If you are upstairs and he is downstairs, there might, at a practical level, be some implicit right to access his unit through the windows, or not to have his view out his window obstructed by vegetation. If he is upstairs and you are downstairs, you would have a stronger argument, as why should he care what is happening to your area when it does not touch upon his area?

Either way, have a condo meeting (with all the proper formalities, like adequate notice time), bring the master deed and any other recorded documents, and sit down with him and see if you can agree what the text says. And see what he wants, tell him what you want, and take it from there. If you really have exclusive use, put the flowers in and if he molests them serve him a trespass notice or get a restraining order. If he violates these, he is committing a (minor) crime, and you can get him in front of a district court judge to explain his actions.

Of course, take lots of time-stamped photos throughout the process, and document everything thoroughly.