Whether you choose to live in a co-op, condo, or single-family home may impact your lifestyle even more than the style of the kitchen inside your place, or even how many bedrooms it contains. That’s because the type of home can signify the number of rules and rights that will dominate your life—even inside your own home.

Those who live inside a single-family home can do pretty much whatever they want in their own residence, as long as it’s not illegal and doesn’t put other people or private properties at risk.

But in co-ops—and increasingly in condo buildings—however, building boards and management often attempt to regulate the behavior of residents, from mandating what percentage of their floors must be carpeted to reducing noise to trying to prevent them from smoking in their own homes.

Far-reaching rules and regulations have had varying levels of success over the years, with unit owners generally winning out over overzealous boards when rules result in controversy.

Shareholders and unit owners do have some rights, though, and it pays to be informed and know what boards can do and what owners should know.

Minding Your Own...

When Hoboken Attorney Frank Marciano’s clients were facing legal trouble for using their condo for private business, they needed to know their rights as soon as possible.

“I had a client, two men, who used their condo for erotic photo shoots that they then used in an adult online web/telephone call business,” Marciano says. The condo board didn’t like that the residents were using their condo for that purpose however, and commenced legal action. According to Marciano, the condo's rules should have spelled out whether his clients could have an in-home business.

“If a rule—such as something regarding noise levels, for example—is in the bylaws and in the master deed, then they have to follow what’s outlined there,” says Tracey Goldstein, an attorney with the law firm of Feinstein, Raiss, Kelin & Booker LLC in Livingston. “It’s how behavior is controlled.”

That’s why it’s important to figure out how much your privacy and autonomy means to you before deciding if you want to live in a house, a co-op or a condo. If keeping quiet and following (usually) minor rules doesn’t matter, it shouldn’t be a big deal.

“One of the realities of living in a co-op or a condo is that there are limits to what a resident can do in the common areas or in their apartment,” says Newark Attorney Gemma Giantomasi, author of A Balancing Act: The Foreclosure Powers of Homeowners’ Associations, and an associate with the law firm of Genova Burns Giantomasi Webster LLC.

That’s because when you buy a co-op, you are actually purchasing shares of a stock in a private cooperative corporation, which allows you to occupy a specific apartment within the cooperative pursuant to a long-term proprietary lease, says Giantomasi. Each shareholder also acquires an undivided percentage interest in the common areas (like the entrance lobby, the hallways, the stairways, the elevators and the basement, for example).

“While the co-op’s proprietary lease, house rules and/ or the bylaws typically focus on what can and can’t be done in the property’s common areas," Giantomasi continues, "they may also cover what goes on in an apartment to impose limitations relating to noise, odors, pets, signage and renovations,” Giantomasi says. “It is important to note that co-op documents will also typically require that the co-op board approve the sale of a shareholder’s interest in the cooperative project and/ or a shareholder’s sublease of the apartment.”

Condo boards and co-ops have differing authority as it relates to resident rights.

Limitations on what a unit owner can do in a condominium’s common areas or in their residence are found in the condo’s master deed, bylaws and in their rules and regulations, Giantomasi says.

In New Jersey, the power of a condo board to adopt rules and regulations is required by law.

“In order to be valid and enforceable, rules and regulations must be adopted by a formal vote of the board and be distributed to all unit owners,” Giantomasi says. “Such rules and regulations most often govern the use and operation of the condominium and the condominium property and the use of the common areas, but may also govern what goes on in a residential unit.”

It makes sense for these limitations to be created as a reaction to issues that would have an impact on the quality of life of other unit owners. Traditionally, these have been things like noise, odors, pets, signage and renovations.

Laying Down the Law

The board should be very specific when it comes down to describing each of these so that no legal matters do occur. If they want to limit noise, they should say the specific quiet hours that residents should follow on weekdays, weekends and on holidays, in addition to laying out which holidays are included. Details of the permissible noise levels (Is piano playing allowed? Construction?) would also help eliminate further disagreements. If pets are allowed in the building, then the board needs to decide what type of pets, the size of the pets (dogs over a certain weight are usually not allowed, and certain breeds may not be allowed because they tend to bark more often) and the number of pets that are permissible.

“Restrictive covenants are used to try to prohibit residential units from any use that would intrude upon the occupants of adjourning units,” Marciano says. “So, smoking could be prohibited, in as much as it is detectable by another resident.”

New Jersey is one of many states that now allow condo boards to vote to decide whether their building may become a non-smoking building. This is an incredibly controversial residential right that may bring new residents who want to live in a smoke-free building, or may drive away residents who want the right to be able to smoke in their own homes.

These days, a co-op or condo board has the right to decide whether owners or renters have the right to smoke inside their own units—or whether they have to leave the entire building to have their cigarette, and they can decide this by taking a vote—and if the majority agrees, they can write it into the declaration. This move had been unheard of just a decade ago.

A Mendham Knolls‘ HOA board voted in 2004 to ban smoking in a 12-unit affordable housing complex in Mendham Township. The bylaws were amended after the board moved to go smoke-free and residents there have to accept the ban.

Dealing with Violators

In the event of any violations, the condo board can charge a unit owner and collect a fine for breaking specific rules or regulations. Title, however, rests with the individual unit owner so the board of a condo does not have purview over sublettors or rental tenants. They therefore cannot seek to evict a unit owner or their tenant for violation of rules and regulations or for non-payment of the fine, Giantomasi says.

While condos aren’t becoming more like co-ops in terms of the rules and regulations some developers have put more of an emphasis on rules and regulations to make residents feel more comfortable.

“I do see a trend whereby my developer clients are putting more limitations on the number, type and or weight of pets allowed in the condominium,” Giantomasi says. “The most significant difference remaining is that condo boards do not have approval rights over purchasers and or tenants of units.”

Multifamily communities are slightly different in that the buyer must understand that its ownership right or right to occupy a condo unit is subject to the community’s governing documents, including but not limited to house rules and regulations, Giantomasi says.

The one space that’s totally different—in what many would deem to be a good way—are single-family homes.

“As there is no commonality of ownership between single-family homeowners, other than complying with state, county or municipal laws or ordinances, single-family homeowners are not required to make any compromises with regard to what they do or how they act in their homes and on the land they own surrounding their homes,” Giantomasi says.

This means that federal, state and city laws don’t tell people what they can and can’t do in their own homes as long as they don’t touch other people’s homes—and as long as they are not doing anything illegal.

“A person could be as bad as they want to be in their own space,” Marciano says. “I don’t know what kind of activity an association could ban that would be enforceable if the use is limited to the interior of the residence, does not produce excess traffic or noise or odor and is in all respects undetectable.”

Still, even in private homes, there are still neighbors . . . off in the distance. And these neighbors can form unfriendly relations that will make living in somewhat close proximity uncomfortable if all rules, no matter how loose they are, went out the window.

Giantomasi recommends that all homeowners opt to “limit or change certain behaviors as is necessary in order to co-exist and to maintain a sense of congeniality and community between neighbors.”    

Danielle Braff is a freelance writer and a frequent contributor to The New Jersey Cooperator.