Condominium boards' legal remedies for enforcement of rules against recalcitrant unit owners are severely limited. This is because, unlike coop boards, condo boards are not in a landlord-tenant relationship with their unit owners and therefore lack power to evict for infraction of the rules.

There are really only two realistic remedies available to condo boards for unit owners' infractions of the building's rules: (1) seeking injunctive relief and (2) imposing fines, for which authority is typically found in most condominiums' by-laws.1

Injunctive relief is far from a perfect remedy because it is labor intensive and costly. Although an injunction is, by definition, a court order, as a practical matter many courts are reluctant to punish unit owners who flout injunctions with monetary penalties or contempt citations. As such, injunctive relief is frequently a toothless remedy.