By Caroline Record, Esq., CCAL

Effective January 1, 2019, the New Jersey Uniform Fire Code, State Fire Prevention Code, was amended to require that all multiple dwellings have an approved 10-year sealed battery single station alarm installed. The proposed reason for this change is that a battery cannot then be used for another purpose, or not changed for an extended period of time, thereby reducing the number of non-working smoke alarms in a building. Thus, any existing smoke alarms that may use a 9-volt battery must be replaced with a 10-year sealed lithium battery type alarm. If the smoke detector is hard-wired, it will not have to be replaced. Likewise, any carbon monoxide detector does not need to be replaced unless it is combined with a non-hard-wired smoke detector.

After January 1, 2019, the Department of Community Affairs (DCA) will be citing those units which do not have the new, required alarms, during its 5-year inspections. Therefore, all unit owners must be advised that their smoke alarms must be replaced. In addition, upon the resale or rental of a unit/home after January 1 date, the new smoke alarms will be required.

For more information, please click here to read the DCA press release.

For more information on this or any other issue concerning your community association, please contact one of our Community Associations attorneys. For breaking news or updates on new blog posts, follow us on Twitter at: @njcondolaw, on Facebook at: njcondolaw, and on LinkedIn at: Hill Wallack Community Association Attorneys.

In order to help community associations understand and plan for implementation of the recent amendments to the New Jersey Public Recreational Bathing Code, Hill Wallack LLP hosted an informational webinar on this topic with representatives from American Pool on February 20, 2018.

To view the webinar, please click here.

As discussed during the webinar, you can review the updated New Jersey State Sanitary Code – Public Recreational Bathing, N.J.A.C. 8:26, by clicking here.

Thanks to our friends at American Pool for participating in this webinar. You can reach American Pool at www.americanpool.com.

If you have any questions regarding these new rules and regulations updating the New Jersey Public Recreational Bathing Code, please contact one of our Community Association Attorneys. For breaking news or updates on new blog posts, follow us on Twitter at: @njcondolaw.

In August 2017, Hill Wallack‘s Ronald L. Perl, Esq., Caroline Record, Esq. and Jonathan H. Katz, Esq., in conjunction with Wilkin & Guttenplan, P.C., presented a webinar dealing with what you and your community association should know about the new Radburn Bill.

In case you missed this webinar, you can view it by clicking here.

By Caroline Record, Esq.

In September 2016, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”) released final regulations relating to housing discrimination, which now require community associations to investigate claims of harassment by one resident of another resident who is a member of a  “protected class.” Under the Fair Housing Act, a protected class includes race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status and disability/handicap. In the past, if an association resident harassed another association resident, the association’s board or community manager may have viewed this as a personal issue, which would not be within the association’s scope of responsibility to investigate/address. This position was based on the belief that the association neither encouraged nor participated in the alleged harassing conduct and, therefore, could not be responsible for the conduct of its residents.

By Jonathan H. Katz, Esq.

On July 13, 2017, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed into law P.L. 2017, Ch. 106 (S-2492/A-4091). The new law makes significant changes to the Planned Real Estate Development Full Disclosure Act (“PREDFDA”), N.J.S.A. 45:22A-43 et seq., with respect to procedures for board elections and voting participation rights. Although the legislation comes in direct response to complaints over a specific association – the Radburn Association in Fair Lawn – it will affect most, if not all, of the estimated 7,000 community associations located in New Jersey.

As outlined in a January 2017 article, the historic Radburn was established in 1929 as a “Town for the Motor Age.” The Radburn boasts 18 acres of internal parks, a shopping plaza, an elementary school, and “other remnants of the founders’ ambitious attempt to create a self-sufficient community.” However, for the past decade, pressure has been increasing from residents seeking to change what they considered to be an outdated and secretive process that the Raburn utilizes to elect its Board of Trustees. Specifically, not every owner in the Radburn was granted the right to either run for or vote for its Board. These issues led to litigation and caused so much uproar that State Senator Robert Gordon (D-Fair Lawn) introduced this legislation to make the election/voting process more inclusive and transparent.

Now that this legislation has been signed into law, it will change not only the Radburn’s elections, but will also have implications for most of New Jersey’s condominiums and homeowners associations. In fact, most of these newly enacted provisions will trump every association’s current by-laws. The most relevant provisions of the new legislation are as follows: