Governing Documents: Our DECLARATION

Of our governing documents, our Declaration is the most powerful—meaning that, in case of conflict, the Declaration takes precedence over—trumps—Bylaws and Rules and Regulations.

The exact title of our Declaration is “Declaration of Market Street at Town Center Condominium.” When our Declaration was recorded October 19, 2004, it created our Condominium as a legal entity, and provided legal descriptions of the components of the Condominium, including our units and the common elements.  You can view our Market Street at Town Center Condominium Declaration (without Exhibit B) beginning at page 36 of this link:  http://www.marketstreetattowncenter.com/docs/CMC.pdf

Included in the Declaration are tables of the par values for the different unit types. (See article VI and Exhibit B.) These par values are important (a) because they determine how much our condominium fees are as compared to units with different par values, and (b) because our unit’s par value also determines how much our vote counts in Association elections for members of the Board of Directors, approval of a rental bylaw amendment, etc.

To amend the Declaration (or the Bylaws) requires “agreement of unit owners of units to which two-thirds of the votes in the unit owners' association appertain….” (See paragraph B of http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+55-79.71


At settlement, I received a copy of the Declaration that was recorded in the Fairfax County Land Records beginning in Deed Book 16608 at Page 1990, but there have been amendments to Exhibit B since then, especially as additional phases were added to our Condominium, and I obtained those amendments from the Fairfax County courthouse some years later.