Help with renting condo please.

[Ceichanski]

This is going to seem scattered and didn't know where to start, plus have a paper due first thing in the morning. Just wanted to get this rolling.

Mother owns a condo and she is no longer able to stay or care for the unit.

Local economy has crashed since oil has fallen over the last couple years and unable to sell unit.

Association fee is rather high ($500) because Alaska, location (bluff on water), and unit is twice the size of the next largest.

She offered me and my wife / kids to stay in the condo for association fee cost. Currently we're college students and wife is recovering from automotive accident, and our current location is $250 more a month, plus a 15 mile commute each way and would would be saving close to $700 a month due to reduced fuel consumption on two vehicles and having a larger kitchen allowing us to cook real healthy meals.

I have the deceleration in PDF and would like someone who has experience to review please. My mother wants us to move in and feels we're not 'renting' her unit being family, but instead caring for the unit till local economy turns around. However in the deceleration there is a small section about unit leasing and not sure we would actually fall under this.

Would someone be willing to review this and offer some opinions.

Edit: Wrong one was posted. Working on finding the right section again. (Fixed) Also have two other sections if needed for review.

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[MilwaukeeStubble]

First off IANAL or a Realtor.

Will she be living there with you or will it just be your family?
How much do you know about the building/board. Are the units mostly rented? Is the board mostly reasonable?

It depends heavily on the board but I don't see a major concern. I'm on the board at my building and we mostly use the lease to get a count of rentals vs owner occ. and to known how ton contact people. If your mom will be staying there i don't think a lease is necessary. If she's moving out I would probably have one.

The concerns that I would have are
1. Occupancy limits. It not uncommon to say "no more than 2 people per bedroom" or no kids or something like that (I think no kids is hard to enforce but again, IANAL).
2. The bullding is close or over 50% rentals. That's about where mortgage programs start to get concerned. This is explicitly listed as a reason they can deny a lease.
3. The board is a bunch of unreasonable pricks who will look for any possible reason to deny a lesse. Good luck with that.

Assuming non of those apply I don't see a reason not to have a lease. Find a standard one online strike out anything you don't like and set the rent at $500/mo. The board shouldn't care what the rent is. Having a lease will probably also help protect you if your mom should pass unexpectedly and leave debts behind. If the debt holders get the condo you'll still have some claim to living there for a little while.

Bottom line is that it probably isn't necessary but the board has a lot of power so if theyre going to say yes anyway you might as well go by the book and not piss them off.

[Ceichanski]

The board consists of the two guys who live below my mother unit. Which we're worried they may say no since they are the 2/3 majority. The other is a lady who hate everyone and not real fun to even make eye contact. This also worries me, but since it states "lease" and we're not actually leasing it, unsure how this would work out over all.

Some of the unit have been rented out before, and currently has no units being rented as of last year.

If my mother passes it goes to me and my sister. She paid cash for the unit 4 years ago, and she has no debt. She lives off her investments, etc.

[sokoloff]

That section on leasing is fairly innocuous. "must not be unreasonably withheld" is lawyer speak for "will generally be approved".

IMO, the financial arrangements of the lease are none of the association's business, so I'd try to keep those arrangements out of the lease that is submitted to the association. Otherwise, I'd expect a lease of greater than 60 days duration to a family member to be readily approved.

[NoNonsenseLandlord]

You can lease it.  Pre-approve the lease before you get a tenant to save time.  Talk to the board first, they will give you major headaches if you make them feel ignored.

And get high-quality tenants.