Can Associations Apply Special Assessments to Only a Few Co-owners?
I had an interesting conversation with a board member the other day. His association is considering assessing an additional assessment on certain co-owners who have moved into the association within the last three years. My first question to him was “Why?” It appears that the association wanted to build up their reserve account and thought that this was one way of doing it.
My reply is simply this: unless there is a specific reason as to why certain co-owners should be specially assessed over others, (such as improvements specifically benefiting their units only and not the other units within the community) I do not see how an association can arbitrarily assess co-owners because they were late comers in order to build up reserve accounts. The real issue here is why the association has not been building reserves over the years and waiting until now to make up for lost time, but we will save that argument for another day. The bottom line is that associations are best advised to consult with a community association lawyer and obtain a written opinion before making any such move which is at best questionable.