Dogs and Condos?

[hotzcatz]

There is a huge difference between renting a place and then getting a cute little puppy who happens to be a pit bull and starting small and letting them grow and someone renting a place with a full grown large dog, especially when the renter and the dog are both unknown to the landlord - at least from the landlord's viewpoint. I'd suspect many of the pit bulls are living on family owned property. All the big dogs I know of are on property owned by their people.

Most of the anti-dog laws are specific to particular buildings or housing areas although wasn't there something about a state or county wide ban awhile back? There is now a "hoarding" law where you can't have an excess of animals unless they are properly taken care of.

There are several breeds and species of animals which can't be brought into the state at all. The usual banned animal list you'd expect such as most lizards, all snakes, most rodents, etc., however the bengal breed of cat and all ducks are on the banned list.

[KonaKat]

I never realized that about ducks! I know a few very nice ducks here in Hawaii pet ducks, you know. (not at my house. just chickens here)

[newUHprof]

Originally Posted by hotzcatz

There is a huge difference between renting a place and then getting a cute little puppy who happens to be a pit bull and starting small and letting them grow and someone renting a place with a full grown large dog, especially when the renter and the dog are both unknown to the landlord -

Yeah, but Winter Hater seemed to be asking about buying a condo, not renting. In that case, all you have to worry about is condo association rules. The problem is, you often can't see the whole condo doc until you're already in escrow. So you ask the agent, and they'll say "Oh, it's very pet friendly." and they'll make up some language that they *think* reflects what's in the condo docs. Then you get it, and it's "two pet max" or "20 lb max" or "none of the following breeds allowed" followed by a long list. This happened to us... we were already in escrow on a place, but the pet policy was too restrictive.

It's a big hassle. After the first time getting burned, our agent insisted on photocopies of the pet policy before we'd proceed with an offer. Strongly suggested... saved us lots of trouble.

[SkyBob]

Originally Posted by newUHprof

The problem is, you often can't see the whole condo doc until you're already in escrow.

You better be able to see the restrictions on the property you're buying before you buy it. If they are not willing to hand them over you should wonder what they're hiding.

Bob

[newUHprof]

Originally Posted by SkyBob

You better be able to see the restrictions on the property you're buying before you buy it. If they are not willing to hand them over you should wonder what they're hiding.

The seller has to pay to pull together all of the necessary condo documents for a potential buyer. They're not willing to do so for random people who come look at the place during an open house, but they are for a serious potential buyer.

When you're in escrow, you haven't bought the place. It's the start of the negotiation, but you put money down (into an escrow account, not directly to the seller) as part of a "good faith" move. The idea is you want them to take it off the market and negotiate with you, rather than hope a better offer comes along.

There are lots of steps after going into escrow where the buyer can back out, including review of the condo documents. But, this is a huge hassle. We backed out of two home purchases last year. Both times, it took over a month to get our deposit back from escrow. So, there's a large chunk of your savings tied up for a long-ish time. It's not available for you to, for example, make an offer on another place. It's a big headache and a lot of paperwork. And of course there's always the possibility that the sellers will claim you've done something wrong and try to claim part of the money as a settlement. (This didn't happen to me, but to a friend.)

So, it's reasonable that they don't want to go to the effort & expense of pulling everything together unless they have an actual potential buyer on their hands. (This is not the same as doing it after you bought the place!) But it's problematic not to see particularly relevant pieces of information (like specific pet policies rather than vague verbal assurances from the people trying to sell the place) before getting too deep in the process.

[SkyBob]

Thanks for explaining that, newUHprof. I hope my comment did not come off as rude and abrupt because that was not what I intended.

It just seems odd to me that documents describing property restrictions can't be printed up down at the local Kinko's. Paper is cheap.

Bob

[newUHprof]

Originally Posted by SkyBob

It just seems odd to me that documents describing property restrictions can't be printed up down at the local Kinko's. Paper is cheap.

You're talking about hundreds of pages, and usually the sellers don't have the documents just lying around. They need to gather them from the condo association, make sure everything is there, etc. etc.

But no worries... just wanted to clear up what I meant!

[melaniej65]

I am a little surprised- we have just purchased in 2007 and every single place we looked at offered to let us read their HOA rules/regs when we inquired (We had specific needs due to disability issues)- the pet rules were always plainly stated.

Then again, the places we looked at were fairly new, so perhaps that is the reason they were so readily available!

People who are new to Hawaii should please be certain to learn the difference between Fee Simple (FS) & Leasehold (LH) since this is not a common concept on the Mainland.

[KonaKat]

When I get a question from a looker about a specific rule in the association docs, I just call the assoc. management and ask them. They usually can look it up and get right back to me. These have been about pets quite often. Never would I just say "oh very pet friendly"! Give them the answer right from the docs via assoc. management.