Thursday, October 02, 2008

Condo Boards "Right of First Refusal"

Saw this little nugget from Oak Park's Village Board encouraging condo boards of managers to amend their declarations to no long allow for a right of first refusal. Here's the piece.

The Oak Park Village Board this week passed a resolution intended to promote easier financing for condominium purchases by doing away with the authority known as "the right of first refusal."

The resolution, proposed by real estate brokers, urges condo boards and associations to relinquish their authority to prevent the sale of a condo unit to a buyer who's not to their liking...

He said the Federal Housing Authority will not guarantee a loan for the sale of a unit in a building in which the board holds the right of first refusal, Mancuso said.

Consequently, condo units in such buildings are effectively outside the reach of prospective buyers who need the special rates and low down payment possible with an FHA loan, he said.

Does anyone know the history of this right? As a condo assn. attorney and working with residential buyers/sellers for several years, I have never seen this right exercised and now its stifling sales.


2 Comments:

At 10:12 PM, Blogger Moshe said...

"Tammie Grossman, the village's manager of housing programs, told the board that the FHA dislikes the right of first refusal because it could enable a condo board to block sales on illegal grounds such as race."

This is a bizzare. Getting the waiver of this right is a ministerial act and discriminating on the basis of race would be illegal in any event.

 
At 5:57 PM, Blogger Peter said...

Sure. This is just a pure statutory anomaly. FHA loans don't allow for the Right to exist on properties they're funding.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home

Google