Q Our board is planning to sell a basement apartment that had been a rental apartment. On the recommendation of the management company, the board authorized the demolition of the internal and perimeter walls, ceiling and wood floors. At present the space is defined by open floor joists at the ceiling level. Brick and stone foundations wall around the perimeter and uneven concrete floor slabs at the floor level. The unit was gutted so that it could be built out as new by the purchaser. Our documents define unit boundaries according to..."floors, ceilings and perimeter walls not located within the unit boundaries as depicted on the Plat...". This requires that floors, ceilings and perimeter walls exist so they can be used to establish the boundaries. When we hire a surveyor to prepare the survey of the unit as a condominium unit, what do we tell the surveyor about the boundaries if there are no walls, ceilings or floor? Can the surveyor estimate a thickness for the walls, floors and ceilings?

—Unauthorized Use

A “The space in the basement, if owned by the association, is part of the common elements of the association,” says attorney James Erwin of Erwin & Associates LLC in Chicago. “In order for the association to convert and sell this apartment as a unit in the property, the board must properly propose and pass, by unanimous unit owner approval, an amendment to the declaration reflecting this change. Your question references board authorization of the conversion and sale of this space but makes no reference to unit owner approval. If the board did not obtain 100% approval of the ownership, then the board does not have the authority to move forward with this project.

“As for the survey that would be recorded with the amended declaration if the conversion is properly approved, it is up to the surveyor to determine how to note the measurements of the unit. However, it is my experience that a surveyor will typically not prepare a survey until either the unit is finished or the exact specifications of the finishes are known, signed off on and calculable. This would require that the association incur the costs to finish off the unit as intended before ordering its survey. If the association has not properly authorized the conversion as noted above, those costs could potentially be charged to the board members.”