Living well in an association

• Read the rules once, properly. It takes half an hour and it is the half hour that prevents almost every avoidable dispute.
• Register for the portal so you can find documents without asking.
• Set up your assessment payment, and set it to pay automatically. Most delinquencies begin as an oversight.
• Tell the association who you are and how to reach you in an emergency. Buy an HO-6 before you close.
• Book the lift or the loading area if your building requires it, and check the moving hours.

Noise and flooring

The single most common complaint in a stacked building, and the most preventable. If you are laying hard flooring, get the underlayment specification from the rules before you buy anything.

Parking

Assigned stalls are usually limited common elements. Guest parking is usually rationed. Both are enforced more than owners expect, because the alternative is unusable.

Pets

Size, number and breed restrictions are common. Assistance animals are treated differently under fair-housing law, and the process for requesting an accommodation is a separate one.

Balconies and patios

Frequently regulated for appearance, and always for anything that could fall or catch fire. Storage and grills are the usual issues.

Short-term letting

See the guide on renting out your unit. Often prohibited, often assumed to be allowed.

• Talk to them first if you safely can. A great many complaints are about something the neighbour did not know they were doing.
• If that does not work, put it in writing to the board or the managing agent, with dates and times. A log is worth more than an adjective.
• Understand what the association can actually do: enforce the rules against an owner. It is not a police force, it does not mediate personal disputes, and it cannot act on something the documents do not cover.
• Emergencies and criminal conduct go to the police, not to the association.

Enforcement generally follows a sequence: a notice describing the alleged violation, an opportunity to respond or to be heard, and only then a fine or other action. The documents and the statute set the process, and a board that skips a step usually cannot enforce the result.

• Respond in writing, in time. Most matters end here.
• Ask for the specific provision you are said to have breached. "The rules" is not a citation.
• Ask for the hearing if you want one. It is generally in executive session, and it is your opportunity to be heard.
• If the fine stands and you think it is wrong, ask what the appeal route is. Many associations have one written into the policy.

Boards are volunteers. Managing agents administer several communities. Neither is ignoring you on purpose, and almost everything moves faster in writing, addressed to the right place, with the specific ask in the first sentence.

And turn up to the annual meeting. It is one evening a year, it is where quorum comes from, and it is the only occasion on which the ownership as a whole decides anything.