Some reading this are probably thinking “That’s crazy, it’ll never work!” and others are likely thinking “Wow, that sounds pretty good to me; let’s look into nixing our homeowners association and use restrictions so we too can live free from oppression!”


The truth lies somewhere in between. Let’s begin our search for it by asking this fundamental question: “Is anything here co-owned?” If nothing is co-owned, the needs that accompany co-ownership don’t exist, and so neither does the need to create a homeowners association.


Co-ownership is hard. To keep things looking good and working right, you must allocate the work and raise the money to pay for the work. Then you need some way to hold people accountable to do the work and to pay the money they are obligated to do and pay. And since co-owners will often not agree on what needs doing when, you need a way to reach a decision that all must obey, if not necessarily like.


That’s why homeowners associations were invented. An association creates a framework by which co-owners can be held accountable to fulfill their obligations to do certain work and to pay assessments to fund other work. An association also provides for an allocation of decision making authority to an elected board, so a deadlock among co-owners about how best to proceed on some contentious matter can be efficiently overcome.


So, is anything in a Microtopia co-owned? Yes. Party walls are co-owned by owners on either side. Use rights in access and parking easements are co-owned by all. That means the co-owners need an association, right?


A Microtopian Existence Terry Leahy, CCAL


In a perfect world, there would be no homeowners associations, no use restrictions, no reserve study, and no assessments. You would just hand new owners the keys to their utopian home, give them a brief tip sheet, and trust that they’ll sort out the rest from there.


Just such microscopic utopias—Microtopias—are sprouting like daffodils in Ballard and Capital Hill and are migrating outwards from there. These are micro-plats that shoehorn five to eight “unit lots” into two buildings squeezed into space that was once occupied by a single aging home. So tightly are these wedged into that space that there is no room left for restrictive covenants, let alone a homeowners association. Instead, a Microtopia has a “tip sheet” in the form of a list of five statements on the face of the plat map that cover what it takes a condominium declaration 55 pages to cover.


The five statements make it all really simple. The list creates five maintenance allocation levels and three cost allocation rules.


Beyond that, it is a libertarian’s nirvana. You are free to engage in any use or activity not prohibited by local, state, or federal law.


18 Community Associations Journal | June 2016


Not so fast. A homeowners association is not the only way to create accountability, and to provide for decision making, among and between co-owners. Take a shared roadway, for example. Many rural homes are built on large acreage. A half- mile of forest might stand between one home and the next. And yet this collection of well-spaced homes shares a common access roadway. That roadway is critically important to each home it serves. If the road becomes too difficult to drive on, you can’t get to work and the ambulance can’t get to you.


Owners using that road typically co-own use rights in the road. And a road maintenance agreement is often used to provide a way to hold each user accountable to the other users and to provide a way to reach a legally binding decision when users can’t all agree on what course of action to follow.


The five statement “tip sheet” often associated with the current version of a Microtopia lacks those two key features that most road maintenance agreements have: (1) Accountability; and (2) Decision Making.


What can Microtopian co-owners do to fill these two gaps? Some may choose to do nothing and simply stay the course set by the five statement “tip sheet.” Others might lean towards creating an after-the-fact homeowners association. And the rest might gravitate, instead, towards going the “maintenance agreement” route.


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