Homeowner Associations

Homeowner Associations

Hellmuth & Johnson provides legal services to a significant number of homeowner association clients. Representing homeowners associations has been a cornerstone practice area of the firm since its inception more than 25 years ago. We are one of only a handful of law firms in Minnesota with a substantial number of experienced attorneys focused on serving the legal needs of homeowner associations. Our homeowner association team currently consists of nine attorneys, four of whom have been certified as real property law specialists by the Minnesota State Bar Association, a designation that is reserved for only about 1% of all attorneys in the State of Minnesota.

Our Services Include:

• Drafting governing documents and amendments
• Reviewing and revising rules & regulations
• Assisting with FHA project certification
• Providing legal opinions on various matters
• Collecting delinquent assessments
• Reviewing and negotiating vendor contracts
• Handling disputes with homeowners, contractors and/or neighboring associations
• Providing advice and representation on fair housing issues
• Resolving easement issues
• Preparing maintenance responsibility charts
• Litigating construction defect claims
• Enforcing governing documents, including preparation of notices of violation and facilitating hearings before the board of directors regarding proposed fines
• Pursuing harassment restraining orders
• Separating one association into two separate communities
• Converting apartments and cooperatives to condominiums
• Representing associations in bankruptcy court, insurance claim issues, etc.
• Providing training for boards of directors

H&J leads Minnesota homeowner association legal representation in a number of ways:

Experience

Simply stated, we know cooperative, homeowner association and non-profit corporation law and choose to devote a substantial portion of our practice to the representation of homeowner associations. Our firm currently represents several cooperatives and several hundred homeowner associations on an ongoing basis and many more intermittently. Over the years, we have been active members of the Minnesota Chapter of the Community Association Institute (“CAI”) and the Minnesota Multi Housing Association (“MMHA”), including its CIC Midwest division. Several of our attorneys are current and/or past Board members of CAI-MN. We continue to be actively involved with both organizations, including serving on the Boards and/or chairing various committees, teaching seminars and authoring articles for industry publications; one of our attorneys is currently serving as president of CAI-MN.

Value

Because of our extensive experience, we are frequently able to resolve matters more quickly. In addition, where appropriate, our law firm strives to use experienced non-attorney personnel, standardized forms and established procedures to complete routine matters, thereby reducing the legal fee expenses to our homeowner association clients without sacrificing the quality of services provided.

Thought Leadership

We are frequent contributors to several local and national association-related publications, where we discuss various legal issues and alert readers to legislative and case law changes that affect the day-to-day operations of homeowner associations. Most of these articles are also available on our firm’s website, www.hjlawfirm.com. Our attorneys also conduct free seminars for association clients, as well as property managers and realtors. We currently host two large seminars annually (in the spring and fall) as well as periodic one- or two-topic seminars held in various communities and/or the offices of management companies and real estate agencies around the metro area. Our seminars are regularly approved for continuing education credits for real estate professionals.