Condo Association Management Blog

That should be defined in your bylaws. I live in a 32-unit association. The square footage in the condos varies from 980 square feet to 1020. However, we are all equally assessed for 1/32 no matter when we bought. Property taxes vary though according to size.

I live in a private home/beach cottage, we have HOA, the assessment to all 200 home was done by the Berekeley township, nj & they raised our taxes between 55 to 110% is the legal. 
 

Raising your taxes is a township issue. You can call the tax collector in your town and ask him to reassess your property.

The governing documents of your Association will outline the procedure for calculating and assessing members. Governing documents include; Articles of Incorporation, By-laws, Declaration, other covenants that an Association may have, and any applicable State Statutes. It is common in a Condominium Association for the assessment to be calculated based on the percentage of ownership for each unit. The percentage is often based on each individual units' square footage. The schedule of percentages of allocation are normally an exhibit attached to the Declaration. Other types of homeowner associations such as single family homes and townhomes will often simply divide the determined total annual assessment by the number of units in the Association to arrive at the total annual assessment per unit. Many Associations allow members to pay the annual assessment in monthly installments.

monthly fees and special assessments are almost always proportionate to your unit's percent-share of the property, which is designated in your project's Declaration (in a table of concordance or some-such). 
 
If your monthly fees are higher than someone with a larger unit, then most likely your management company has at some point screwed up the calculation of your fees, or input the wrong percentage into their management software, or some other human error.  
 
I have witnessed these types of errors dozens of times. 
 
Consult with your management company and make sure you are paying the correct fees. If you have been overcharged, your corporation is obliged to credit your account in the amount of the overpayment, retroactively. 
 
Good luck 
 

I also live in a building where some larger units pay lower condo fees than smaller units, or even same-size, same floor units differ by as much as $100/month. We looked up the laws in Massachusetts and it turns out the percentage interests in the building are supposed to based on assessed value at the time the Master Deed is written; however, in our case that did not happen, and we are pursuing legal action to correct this. I recently lost a sale of my unit because the buyer realized that an identical unit was on the market with a condo fee that is $130/month LOWER than mine. It is illegal and you should pursue this. You don't live in Lowell, MA by any chance, do you??

We have the same situation here in Roslindale, MA. Our townhouse block pays $407.00 a month, whereas the other couple of blocks pay $100 to $150 less for the same exact types of units. Our block was built in third phase and the bylaws states that the condo fee rate can be adjusted only when 100% of the residents support the amendment. Understandably, those residents with a lower fee reject any change. So, we are basically subsidizing them and I would like to know if there is any legal avenue to correct this disparity.