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Is your Cooperative in compliance with changes in the application process mandated by Cook County? If your current application process considers criminal convictions along with income, prior occupancy, and other qualification matters, then that process violates Cook County law according to the Just Housing Amendment to the Human Rights Ordinance

It has been years since HUD announced rules defining assistance animals and imposing upon housing providers the duty to accommodate members who request assistance animals in order to overcome their disability. The typical approach is that either the Board or a special committee chosen by the Board reviews and evaluates a member’s request for an assistance animal, sometimes identified as an emotional support animal. They review the application along with an accompanying note from the member’s physician stating that an assistance animal is required and requesting the cooperative to accommodate that request. Most often this means that a cooperative with a “no pets” policy must make exceptions.

Discussions about civil rights laws are almost commonplace now, and anti-discrimination concepts are familiar even to those who don’t completely understand how the laws work. For example, due to an increase in education and the prevalence of media coverage of high-profile lawsuits, most people realize that it is illegal to discriminate against someone in the workplace because of:

Dear Co-op Counselor: Our annual meeting is fast approaching and with all this information going around about the coronavirus we are not certain we should be holding this meeting. We want to do our part to flatten the curve but our Bylaws require us to hold our annual meeting on a certain time and we can’t adjourn it without a vote of the membership. There just isn’t time. What do we do?

All housing cooperatives either have a requirement that all members of the Board are to also be members of the corporation, or, that at least a majority of the Board must be members of the corporation. Not all housing cooperatives, however, have any requirement when it comes to how the members themselves are qualified to be on the Board of Directors.

For many years, Randall Pentiuk and his team, April Gallup and Creighton Gallup, have presented various classes to Board members and Management alike, on the legal issues facing cooperatives.

One of the most important tenets of any corporation is its public image and its members’ perception of how the individual responsible for managing a corporation acts outside of the board room.

Make sure virtual meetings are legally permissible in your State. Sometimes it may require a Bylaw amendment, and/or written policy to maintain the integrity of the meeting and voting process. According to Robert’s Rules of Order Newly Revised, 11th edition, virtual meetings must be authorized in your bylaws. For local governments, if you State has laws permitting you to meet remotely or if your Governor has issued an Executive Order permitting remote meetings, that will supercede Robert’s Rules.

Members elected to serve on the Board of Directors hold special and unique positions as fiduciaries to the housing cooperative corporation. A Director holds a position of trust, fiduciary and good faith to the housing cooperative to which he or she serves. While members elected or appointed to serve as a Director may not always be the savvy corporate type, it is important for Cooperative’s to establish certain policies, sometimes best contained in an Agreement, for each Director that will spell out that Director’s responsibilities and duties pertaining to ethical corporate conduct and the handling of sensitive, confidential information.