§5223. Merger or consolidation of planned community.

(a) General rule.--Any two or more planned communities by agreement of the unit owners as provided in subsection (b) may be merged or consolidated into a single planned community. In the event of a merger or consolidation, unless the agreement otherwise provides, the resultant planned community is, for all purposes, the legal successor of all of the preexisting planned communities, and the operations and activities of all associations of the preexisting planned communities shall be merged or consolidated into a single association which shall hold all powers, rights, obligations, assets and liabilities of all preexisting associations. The resultant planned community shall, in addition, be subject in all respects to the provisions and requirements of this subpart regardless of whether or not any of the preexisting planned communities have been established under this subpart.

(b) Requirements of agreement.--The merger or consolidation of two or more planned communities under subsection (a) must be evidenced by a recorded agreement duly executed by the president of the association of each of the preexisting planned communities following approval by owners of units to which are allocated the percentage of votes in each planned community required to terminate such planned community. Any such agreement must be recorded in every county in which a portion of the planned community is located and is not effective until so recorded.

(c) Reallocations.--

(1) Every merger or consolidation agreement must provide for the reallocation of the common expense liability, including both general and limited common expenses, and portion of the votes in the resulting association among the units of the resulting planned community in one of the following manners:

(i) by stating the reallocations or the formulas upon which they are based; or

(ii) by stating the common expense liability, including both general and limited common expenses, and portion of the votes in the resulting association which are allocated to all of the units comprising each of the preexisting planned communities, and providing that the common expense liability, including both general and limited common expenses, and portion of the votes in the association for the resulting planned community shall be the same as was allocated to each unit formerly comprising a part of the preexisting planned community by the declaration of the preexisting planned community.

(d) Action by declarant.--Notwithstanding the provisions of subsections (a) and (b), if a declarant shall have expressly retained the special declarant right to merge or consolidate a planned community under section 5205(14) (relating to contents of declaration; all planned communities) and if the declarant shall have exercised such right within the time period allowed for such exercise by giving written notice to that effect to all unit owners accompanied by a copy of the agreement evidencing such merger or consolidation, then such agreement may be executed by the declarant rather than by the president of the association of that planned community and without the necessity for approval or consent by unit owners or their mortgagees, provided that the agreement is recorded within the time period allowed for the exercise of this special declarant right.

Notation

Cross References.  Section 5223 is referred to in sections 5102, 5103, 5205 of this title.