Condo Media - May 2014 - 57

Real People, Real Problems

It turned out the opportunity for
growth wasn't the only appeal. Brooks
discovered quickly that he enjoyed
condominium law and had an affinity
for it. "It's not esoteric," he explains.
"You're dealing with real problems
and real people all the time." The legal
issues involved are also intellectually
interesting and challenging, Brooks has
found. "There are always new twists on
everything."
What fascinated him initially was the
many different ways real estate interests
can be divided, the interplay between
joint and individual ownership in a
condominium, and the conflicts that can
arise when those interests collide.
He recalls one case, early in his career,
in which he represented an association in a battle with an owner who had
opened the ceiling in his unit to create
an attic. Although no one else was using
the space, the board forced the owner to
remove the attic, because it was common area that did not belong to him.
Brooks says he would handle the same
situation differently today.
"As I get older, I get more practical,"
he explains. He's more inclined to find
solutions to conflicts of this kind and
less inclined to litigate them. Instead of
forcing the owner to remove the attic,
Brooks says, "I'd suggest that the board
sell him the right to use the space."
The owner would get the outcome he
wanted, and "the board wouldn't feel
cheated."

Finding Practical Solutions

Although litigation is sometimes unavoidable, it is rarely his first choice, he
says. "I tell boards even if they win the
court battle, they're dealing with their
neighbors. They're still going to see
these people in the parking lot every
day." It is much better to find a "practical solution" both sides can accept. And
over the years, he says, "I've seen a lot
of different solutions that can work."
His volunteer work for CAI has often
involved finding legal and legislative
solutions for the condominium industry,
among them:

* He helped draft an amendment to
the state condominium law specifying
that association managers can charge
a fee for producing the 6-d certificates
required for condominium sales. (The
statute didn't prohibit the fee, but it
didn't authorize it either.)
* Brooks also won a Supreme Judicial
Court decision affirming that when a
town takes a condominium unit for
non-payment of taxes, it becomes
responsible for paying the common
fees until the unit is sold. "I felt really
good about that," Brooks says. "I
came up with a legal theory, we tested
it in the courts, and we won." It was
an important victory for community
associations, he notes, securing their
ability to collect fees that otherwise
would have gone unpaid.

The Trash Man

The issue for which Brooks is best
known, however, is trash - specifically, efforts to persuade municipal
governments to provide trash collection and recycling services for condominium communities.
As a condition of approving condominium developments, many communities required the developers to agree
that the communities would provide
those services for residents by contracting with private vendors.
Brooks volunteered to advise
condominium owners looking to
persuade government officials that
the municipality should assume that
responsibility.
Because it was clear the towns didn't
have a legal obligation to provide the
service, he advised owners to argue
not that the service was required, but
that failing to provide it was unfair.
Condominium owners were taxed like
other homeowners, but they did not
receive the municipal services other
homeowners received.
At first, he was working with community associations in only two or
three communities. However, when
owners won the trash service battle
in Marlborough, "word spread fast,"

Brooks says, and before long, he was
working with associations all over the
state, spending hundreds of pro-bono
hours on those campaigns.
"We won in at least 30 communities," he says, and the battle continues
in others. Although the intensity has
lessened over the years, Brooks says
he still gets calls occasionally from
communities seeking help with the
issue, and he rarely says no to those
requests.
That explains, at least in part, why
his office wall contains so many CAI
plaques, and why it is likely to get more
crowded. After 25 years, Brooks says
he enjoys his CAI-NE involvement as
much as ever and has no intention of
slowing down.
Recruitment and Condo Media have
been his volunteer priorities, but he
also enjoyed serving on the chapter's
board and would like to do that again.
"I liked helping to shape policies for
the institute," he says. One goal he
supported for a long time was realized recently when New Hampshire's
standalone chapter became part of
CAI-NE.

Cultivating New Leaders

One of the association's major and
ongoing challenges, Brooks believes, is
attracting and cultivating the committed members who will become the organization's future leaders. "I know it
doesn't sound as if I want to do that,"
he agrees, given his plan to remain
actively involved, but the organization
needs new people with new ideas and
the energy to pursue them.
"You get a little jaded" over time,
Brooks acknowledges, because "you
begin to think you've seen and tried
just about everything." There is no
question that past experience is valuable, he agrees; the trick is using it to
guide younger leaders without discouraging them.
And sometimes, he admits, when he
hears an idea he has heard and tried
before, "I have to bite my tongue and
tell myself, 'It just might work this
time.'" CM
Condo Media * May 2014

Condo Media - May 2014

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