(1) A unit is created by the recording of the declaration and a condominium plat that describes the unit.
(2) An association of unit owners shall, according to each unit owner's respective percentage or fractional undivided interests in the common areas and facilities:
(a) distribute the property's common profits among the unit owners;
(b) except as otherwise provided in the declaration for unconstructed units, assess the unit owners the property's common expenses;fn1 and
(c) make voting rights available to the unit owners.
(3)(a) After the recording of a condominium project's declaration, an unconstructed unit is a unit for the purposes of the declaration and this chapter, including:
(i) allocation of undivided interests in the common areas and facilities in accordance with Subsection 57-8-7(2); and
(ii) voting rights in accordance with Section 57-8-24.
(b) Subsection (3)(a) applies to a condominium project regardless of when the condominium project's initial declaration was recorded.
Enacted 1963, ch. 111. Amended: 1975, c. 173, § 15; 2016, ch. 210, eff. March 23, 2016.
FN 1. The Utah Supreme Court has held that because the assessment a unit owner is required to pay is directly proportional to the ownership interest in common areas and facilities assigned to that unit in the declaration, if one owner's assessment is altered, then every other owner's ownership interest is also altered. Thus, any change in the monthly assessment as to less than all owners results in an alteration of every unit owner's ownership interest in the common areas and facilities. See Johannessen v. Canyon Rd. Towers Owners Ass'n, 2002 UT App 332, 57 P.3d 1119 at ¶ 16 (holding an agreement between owner and association to lower assessment contradicted the Condo Act and the declaration).
- This section was amended in 2016 to clarify that a unit is created and exists from the date the declaration and the plat describing the unit are recorded, and as such, from the date of recording, each unit must be assessed and must pay the common expenses according to each unit owner's respective undivided interest in the common areas, unless the declaration says otherwise for "unconstructed units." Note that even if the declaration exempts an "unconstructed unit" from the obligation to pay assessments in the declaration, the unconstructed unit still has voting rights.
- This section as amended in 2016 makes the analysis and holdings regarding the creation and definition of a unit in the cases Country Oaks Condominium Management Committee v. Jones (851 P.2d 640 (1993)) and B. Investment LC v. Anderson (2012 UT app 24) outdated and irrelevant.