New Jersey court upholds one-space-per-unit parking and clarifies mandatory ADR
New Jersey court upholds one-space-per-unit parking and clarifies mandatory ADR
2026-09-15 · New Jersey · Courts
A New Jersey unit owner who sued his condominium association over a parking space, records access and the denial of alternative dispute resolution lost on all three, and left with a judgment against him.
George Dands v. Madrid Condominium Association, Inc., Docket A-3872-23, was submitted January 28, 2026 and decided April 6, 2026. Unpublished, and not precedential under R. 1:36-3.1
The parking claim
The owner demanded a second parking space, beyond the one designated per unit in the master deed. Summary judgment for the association was affirmed.
That is the least surprising part of the decision and the most frequently disputed in practice. Where a master deed allocates parking one space to a unit, the allocation is a property interest fixed by the recorded instrument, not a service the board distributes by discretion.
The records claim
Also affirmed, on the ground that it had already been remedied by court order. The records-access question never reached a substantive holding, which is itself worth knowing: an association that produces records in response to an order removes the claim rather than defending it.
The ADR claim, and why it failed
The owner argued the association had denied him the alternative dispute resolution that N.J.S.A. 46:8B-14 requires. The record showed the opposite: he had refused ADR, and later asked the court to bar it.
What the statute requires, and what it does not
N.J.S.A. 46:8B-14 obliges an association to provide "a fair and efficient procedure for the resolution of housing-related disputes… readily available as an alternative to litigation."
The panel restated the limit on that duty, drawing on Fiderne Height Condominium Association v. Rabinowitz, 390 N.J. Super. 154 (App. Div. 2007): a unit owner with a legitimate basis to sue may do so "without first resorting to [ADR]."
So New Jersey's mandatory-ADR provision is a duty on the association to offer a procedure. It is not a jurisdictional bar that strips a court of authority to hear a dispute, and — this is the clarification the decision adds — it is not a claim a party can build after bypassing the procedure themselves.
The counterclaim: $16,180.23 plus fees
The association counterclaimed for unpaid assessments and took a default judgment of $16,180.23, including attorney's fees assessed under the Rendine factors. That was affirmed too.
The sequence matters more than the number. An owner in a dispute with a board who stops paying assessments converts a governance argument into a collection action, in which his governance arguments are not a defence. New Jersey law is explicit that an owner is conclusively presumed on taking title to have agreed to pay a proportionate share of common expenses.
What this means for a board — at the category level
First, on parking: a master-deed allocation is enforceable as written, and boards do not need to justify it by reference to fairness, household size or vehicle count. Where owners want a different allocation, the route is an amendment to the master deed, not a request to the board.
Second, on ADR: offer it, document the offer, and document the response. The association here prevailed on the ADR claim because the record showed what had actually happened. An association that offers ADR informally, by phone, and keeps no record, would be defending the same claim without the evidence that defeated it.
Third, on records: producing them ends the claim. Litigating whether they had to be produced does not.
One thing this decision is not
It is not authority that an association may decline ADR. The statutory duty is unaffected, and PREDFDA's parallel requirements for planned real estate developments are unaffected. The holding is about a plaintiff who cannot manufacture a denial-of-ADR claim out of his own refusal — a narrower proposition, and one that cuts in the association's favour only on that fact pattern.
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