Metroliner telephone article 4076

Geoffrey F. Green

Having dealt with that a few years ago, may I elaborate:

Condos and homeowners buttociations DO have a right to regulate. When one purchases such a unit, one agrees to the covenants in the deed. Such convenants are not new, almost all real estate deeds have a few (a common one for homes is that you can't have a pig farm). Many people don't check out the property they're buying and get stuck with something they don't like. (Moral: CAREFULLY check out a property you're about to buy, understand what restrictions come along with it. If you're an independent sort, don't buy in a homeowners' buttociation development).

Now the Feds issued an order allowing satellite dishes on outside walls (see the FAA site for particular details). However, the homeowner must fully own that wall or roof. In many developments, especially apt-style condos, the roof and exterior walls are common, not individual. If they are common element, they are not your property and not yours to mount things on (anymore than you could mount an antenna on a tree in a public park).

My condo does not allow dishes--it's right in the convenant charter--so anyone who puts one up gets a surprise order to remove it.