PHOENIX — Arizona lawmakers are moving to ensure that if you like your condo, you can keep your condo.
Without debate Thursday, the Arizona House voted to repeal laws that allow any investor who acquires 80% of the units in any condominium to then force the owners of the other 20% to sell.
The 45-14 bipartisan tally now sends the measure to the Senate.
At issue are longstanding laws that deal with the formation of condos. These are real estate development where areas are designated for individual ownership, with the balance considered common ownership.
Those laws also set up procedures to dissolve condo agreements, including saying that can be done with the consent of at least 80% of the owners.
There are provisions for appraisals of the units of those who do not want to sell as well as relocation costs. But Rep. Jeff Weninger, R-Chandler, said that still isn’t fair.
What happens, he said, is developers come in, make offers that 80% of owners are willing to accept, and then find themselves in a position of being to force out everyone else.
“I just think it’s a practice that should be eliminated completely,” Weninger said. And he said that anyone who cares about the lack of affordable housing would want to repeal what is now on the books.
“This, right here, takes existing housing, where people are living in it for sometimes a modest amount of money, and in a market that is going straight up, allows a developer, not from this state, from Chicago, from other places, to come into this state, and force these people to sell them their condos,” Weninger said.
“And what do they do right away?” he continued. “They double the price.”
The measure drew support from Rep. Jennifer Longdon, D-Phoenix.
“When you buy a home, a condo, it’s yours,” she said.
“It should be yours for as long as you choose to live there,” Longdon said. “The idea that someone can see a bigger profit and come in and take it from you is ridiculous.”
She said there have been real victims.
“A woman with a significant disability bought her condo specifically because it was close to what was important to her,” Longdon said, things like shopping, transportation and her doctor.
What happened, she said, is the value of the condo rose and a developer got the owners of other units to sell.
“They tried to force her out,” Longdon said, offering her a lot less than she would have needed to take care of herself and her adult son.
The only thing that saved her, she said, was negative publicity that forced the developer to back off. But Longdon said that this woman’s victory in this one case isn’t a real solution to the problem.
“We shouldn’t be forcing people into poverty because a developer has found more profit in their unit than they do,” she said.
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