Ohio Code 5311.23 – Failure to comply with lawful provision of condominium instruments
(A) A declarant, developer, agent, or unit owner or any person entitled to occupy a unit is liable in damages in a civil action for harm caused to any person or to the unit owners association by that individual’s failure to comply with any lawful provision of the condominium instruments.
Terms Used In Ohio Code 5311.23
- Agent: means any person who represents a developer or who acts for or on behalf of a developer in selling or offering to sell any ownership interest in a condominium development. See Ohio Code 5311.01
- Condominium: means a form of real property ownership in which a declaration has been filed submitting the property to the condominium form of ownership pursuant to this chapter and under which each owner has an individual ownership interest in a unit with the right to exclusive possession of that unit and an undivided ownership interest with the other unit owners in the common elements of the condominium property. See Ohio Code 5311.01
- Condominium instruments: means the declaration and accompanying drawings and plans, the bylaws of the unit owners association, the condominium development disclosure statement described in section 5311. See Ohio Code 5311.01
- Condominium property: means all real and personal property submitted to the provisions of this chapter, including land, the buildings, improvements, and structures on that land, the land under a water slip, the buildings, improvements, and structures that form or that are utilized in connection with that water slip, and all easements, rights, and appurtenances belonging to the land or to the land under a water slip. See Ohio Code 5311.01
- Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
- Developer: includes the declarant of a condominium development and any successor to that declarant who stands in the same relation to the condominium development as the declarant. See Ohio Code 5311.01
- Injunction: An order of the court prohibiting (or compelling) the performance of a specific act to prevent irreparable damage or injury.
- Person: includes an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, and association. See Ohio Code 1.59
- Property: means real and personal property. See Ohio Code 1.59
- Unit: means the part of the condominium property that is designated as a unit in the declaration, is delineated as a unit on the drawings prepared pursuant to section 5311. See Ohio Code 5311.01
- Unit owner: means a person who owns a condominium ownership interest in a unit. See Ohio Code 5311.01
- Unit owners association: means the organization that administers the condominium property and that consists of all the owners of units in a condominium property. See Ohio Code 5311.01
(B) Any interested person, including a unit owners association, may commence an action for a declaratory judgment to determine that person’s legal relations under the condominium instruments or to obtain an injunction against a declarant, developer, agent, unit owner, or person entitled to occupy a unit who refuses to comply, or threatens to refuse to comply, with a provision of the condominium instruments.
(C) In connection with either type of action described in this section, one or more unit owners may bring a class action on behalf of all unit owners. The lawful provisions of the condominium instruments, if necessary to carry out their purposes, may be enforced in either type of action against the condominium property or any person who owns or previously has owned any estate or interest in the condominium property.
(D) An action by the unit owners association under this section may be commenced by the association in its own name, in the name of the board of directors, or in the name of the association’s managing agent.