As a former high school social studies teacher, still the best and toughest job I’ve ever had, and after so many columns (thank you Seacoastonline), I thought it long overdue to actually explain the history regarding where condominiums originated.
Let’s start with the word itself. As with so many other words in the English language, “condominium” is derived from Latin. “Con” means “together with,” and “dominium” means “right of ownership.” Together you can likely see how a condominium means a person’s right of ownership in property together with others.
Although the idea of having individual ownership of a space in a building first appeared in America in, of course, New York City in the late 1800s in the related from of co-ops, the idea of owning an individual unit dwelling in a multi-unit housing structure dates back to the Romans, but is more accurately and generally accepted as becoming legalized in Europe during the Middle Ages.
Germany, for instance, widely used condominiums, noting they were the use of the horizontal division of buildings into separate legal interests, with community ownership of the underlying and surrounding land. (The Germans apparently had not yet thought of or invented non-horizontal, or vertical, division of buildings, today commonly seen in condominium associations as attached townhouses.)
However, there was no general, customary, unwritten law (called “common law” then and now) that controlled such ownership interests, so it was not until much later, that it was codified in statutes, like New Hampshire’s Condominium Act.
The first North American place to create such a codified series of laws that allowed for the creation and regulation of condominiums was … Puerto Rico, in 1958. Hawaii was the first state to do so, as near as I can tell, also in 1958, followed in 1960 by Utah, and now each state has such a law. (Unfortunately, New Hampshire still relies a bit on the common law for homeowners associations as only nineteen states have HOA Acts, and we are not one of them.)
As a side note, the country from which we primarily rebelled, England, has never adopted a condominium statute, although Scotland did, the second best thing going for Scotland, scotch being the first and everything else a distant second.
A cousin of the condo is the co-op. What’s the difference? Well, a condo is a private residence in a multi-unit structure that includes ownership of commonly used property. A co-op is also a multi-unit building, but that’s where the similarities end. In a co-op, short for “cooperative,” instead of owning your unit individually, you are also part of a corporation, the co-op, and you own shares in it.
Rather, co-ops are collectively owned and managed by their residents, who own shares in a nonprofit corporation. The corporation holds the title to the property and grants leases to residents. The lease grants permanent rights to residents to live in their units and to use the common elements of the co-operative according to the co-op’s bylaws and regulations.
Many thanks to Bucknall, Leasehold Condominiums. The Further Right of the Fee, 14 Osgood Hall LU. 29 (1976).
So, while a condo owner owns a unit, a co-op owner does not own the unit. So it can be difficult to get into and out of a co-op, as the corporation, usually through the co-op board of directors, decides who gets to sell shares and who gets to purchase them and the companion right to live in the co-op.
As noted above, the first co-op in the United States was much earlier than condos. Records show there was an eight-unit co-op in New York City at 152 W. 57th Street back in 1881. (The building has long since been demolished.) They grew out of hotels, where many a famous person stayed. Junnius Henri Brown a journalist, bought a unit in the first apartment in a co-op. (They are not called condos in co-ops; rather, they are apartments.) He noted co-ops were better than staying in a hotel as a hotel was a terrible place to live because your wife wouldn’t do any housework because the hotel staff would do the work while the wife would be in the lobby chatting and gossiping. Ouch.
Anyway, after their creation, condos quickly captured a share of the housing market, a share which continues to grow. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, in 2005 there were 131.7 million housing units in America. Commentators suggest 25 to 27% of the population lives in a condo unit, with one projection being that by 2040, fully half of the population will live in a condo.
There will be a quiz next week. Just kidding. Now back to my scotch … I mean my study of Scotland.
Attorney Robert E. Ducharme is a former teacher whose civil practice is limited to condominium law, primarily in Rockingham and Strafford counties. He can be reached at red@newhampshirecondolaw.com and Ducharme Law, P.L.L.C., found at www.newhampshirecondolaw.com. His column appears bi-weekly.
