Q: Our Board is seeking to amend the condominium documents to make the owners responsible to repair and replace the windows. I was told this requires 100% approval. The Board claims it only requires a majority of the owners. Who is right?
P.K., Naples
A: There are a few nuances to this question, but the general answer is that an amendment to the Declaration of Condominium can shift the responsibility for repair and maintenance for certain components from the Association to the individual homeowners. Florida law does impose strict limitations on the ability to adopt amendments that “change the configuration or size of any unit in any material fashion, materially alter or modify the appurtenances to the unit, or change the proportion or percentage by which the unit owner shares the common expenses of the condominium and owns the common surplus of the condominium.”
Here, the Association is not, however, changing the responsibility of each owner for the common expenses, but rather it attempting to change what goes into the common expenses. This shifts the responsibility to the unit owners, but it does not change your pro-rata responsibility for the common expenses.
Concerning the approval threshold, that will depend on the specific language of your particular condominium documents, and almost certainly less than 100%.