Buying property with friends or family can be exciting because you are building something meaningful together. But it also changes the relationship.
You are no longer just friends, siblings, partners, or relatives. You are making financial commitments together, sharing responsibilities, making decisions about a valuable asset, and relying on one another to follow through.
That can create tension, even between people who have known and trusted each other for years.
Joynt cannot guarantee that your group will never disagree. What it can do is help remove many of the situations that make disagreements personal in the first place.
The Joynt Operating Agreement creates agreed-upon rules for money, property use, decisions, repairs, responsibilities, ownership changes, and disputes, so your group has something to follow when everyone does not immediately agree.
You don't have to make every decision from scratch.
One of the easiest ways for shared ownership to strain a relationship is for every issue to become a negotiation.
Who decides whether to replace the couch? Can someone bring a pet? What happens if the roof needs an emergency repair? Can the property be rented? What if one person wants to sell?
The Operating Agreement establishes different rules for different types of decisions rather than leaving your group to determine the process each time.
As a general rule, decisions require Majority Approval, unless the Operating Agreement specifically requires Supermajority Approval or Unanimous Approval.
Certain significant decisions require everyone who casts a valid vote to agree, including whether to make the property available for rental use, changing how expenses, income, or proceeds are allocated, and generally selling the entire property during the first five years of ownership.
Other decisions, such as making significant alterations to the property, require Supermajority Approval.
From the Joynt Operating Agreement
“Except as specifically provided elsewhere in this Agreement, approval of proposed actions and decisions of the Company shall require Majority Approval.”
In the Operating Agreement, “Company” means the LLC your group uses to own the property.
Owner decisions are generally made using Joynt's voting system, giving your group a defined place and process for making decisions.
Instead of arguing about how a decision should be made while also arguing about what the decision should be, your group already has a process.
Money has rules too.
Money can become personal very quickly, especially when friends or family are involved.
The Operating Agreement is designed to make financial responsibilities less dependent on informal conversations between owners.
It defines required property expenses, including things like mortgage payments on a loan secured by the property, taxes, insurance, necessary repairs, HOA assessments, management costs, and utilities. It also establishes a budgeting process for determining each owner's financial responsibilities.
Depending on the circumstances, the agreement provides for:
- Regular Monthly Assessments, which are recurring payments used to fund shared property expenses;
- Minimum Balance Assessments, which replenish an ownership interest's required minimum balance in the LLC's operating account;
- Special Assessments, which can cover extraordinary, unexpected, or otherwise underfunded expenses; and
- Reimbursement Assessments, which charge a particular owner when that owner is responsible for a specific cost.
For example, if damage occurs because of an owner or their permitted guest, the agreement provides that the responsible owner must repay the LLC that owns the property for the full cost of repair or replacement.
From the Joynt Operating Agreement
“When damage or loss to the Property or to Company Personal Property occurs because of an act or omission by a Member’s Permitted User, such Member shall be deemed the Responsible Member and…shall repay the Company for the full cost of repair or replacement.”
“Company” here means the LLC that owns the property.
That means your group doesn't have to invent a rule about financial responsibility after something has already gone wrong.
There is already an agreed-upon answer.
Your group can establish house rules before little things become big things.
Not every disagreement is about thousands of dollars.
Sometimes it's pets. Guests. Smoking. Storage. Furniture. Cleaning. Who gets to use the property and when.
Those smaller frustrations can be just as damaging to a relationship when expectations are unclear.
The Operating Agreement establishes baseline rules for using the property and allows the owners to establish, modify, or eliminate additional use rules with Majority Approval, including rules related to smoking, pets, maximum numbers of guests, and minimum ages of users. Those rules are then posted through Joynt.
The agreement also establishes a Usage Allocation System for allocating, reserving, and assigning time at the property. Owners can exchange their usage with another owner, and the agreement establishes rules around guests and rentals.
The idea is simple: fewer assumptions means fewer opportunities for resentment.
Repairs don't have to become a group standoff.
A broken water heater or leaking roof shouldn't require everyone to agree before something can be fixed.
The Operating Agreement distinguishes between Necessary Repairs and discretionary repairs or improvements.
Necessary Repairs include work required to maintain the property, address conditions that immediately endanger the property or people's safety or health, or respond to certain governmental or HOA enforcement actions. They must be completed as soon as reasonably possible and no later than 60 calendar days after the problem is discovered.
The Management Coordinator, the person your group designates to handle certain administrative responsibilities for the property, is responsible for facilitating Necessary Repairs. That includes hiring a properly licensed and qualified person, inspecting the work after completion, and arranging payment from the LLC's shared property funds.
Your group also establishes a cost threshold above which the Management Coordinator must obtain at least two bids before contracting for the work. Even when multiple bids are required, the Management Coordinator can select among them without another owner vote.
Discretionary repairs and improvements, on the other hand, require owner approval.
So when something happens, your group has a framework for answering an important question:
Is this something that needs to be done, or something we need to decide together?
If you disagree, there is a path forward.
A disagreement doesn't automatically mean someone has done something wrong.
The Operating Agreement anticipates situations where owners simply cannot agree.
If a decision requiring Majority Approval ends with equal voting power for and against it, the owners first look to whether the Operating Agreement requires a particular outcome.
If it doesn't, the agreement provides a formal path for resolving the deadlock through court or, if your group chose to make the Operating Agreement's arbitration provision apply, through arbitration.
The agreement even gives the court or arbitrator guidance about how to resolve the issue.
From the Joynt Operating Agreement
“Absent law or a provision of this Agreement requiring a particular decision, the court or arbitrator shall make their decision based on what they believe is the course of action most likely to preserve and enhance the value of the Property without placing an unnecessary financial hardship on any Member.”
So a deadlock doesn't have to become an endless personal argument.
There is a defined way to get to an answer.
Mediation is encouraged before a disagreement gets bigger.
Not every conflict needs a winner and a loser.
The Operating Agreement specifically encourages owners to consider mediation for disputes involving the property or the agreement.
From the Joynt Operating Agreement
“Mediation can be highly effective in co-ownership disputes and is significantly faster and less expensive than arbitration.”
Mediation is voluntary. A neutral person helps the owners try to reach their own resolution but does not have the authority to impose a decision.
The agreement does not require anyone to mediate before pursuing another remedy available under the agreement.
That distinction matters for relationships.
The first formal dispute-resolution option the agreement encourages is one designed to help people find a solution together.
Your group decides upfront how serious disputes will be handled.
When the owners first agree to the Joynt Service Agreement, they determine whether the Operating Agreement's arbitration provision will apply.
Once that decision has been made, it can only be changed with Unanimous Approval.
If your group chooses arbitration, disputes arising in connection with the Operating Agreement, including disputes between owners, are generally submitted to binding arbitration, subject to the other requirements and exceptions in the agreement.
The arbitration is conducted through JAMS, a third-party arbitration and mediation provider. A neutral arbitrator has the authority to resolve the dispute, and the arbitrator's ruling is final and binding.
If your group does not choose to make the arbitration provision applicable, the Operating Agreement generally provides for disputes to be handled through the appropriate state or federal courts in the state where the property is located.
So even the process for handling a serious disagreement is something your group addresses before the disagreement happens.
If someone actually breaks the agreement, there is a process for that too.
A relationship can become particularly strained when one owner believes another isn't doing what they agreed to do.
The Operating Agreement does not jump immediately from an accusation to the most serious consequences.
It establishes a formal enforcement process.
The Management Coordinator or any owner may start that process by submitting a Notice of Possible Enforcement Action that includes:
- a description of the alleged violation;
- an itemized list of the actions required to correct the alleged violation; and
- a description of the proposed enforcement actions.
Joynt then posts that notice through its online portal.
The accused owner has 14 calendar days after the notice is posted to provide the required response and verifiable proof that they have either completed the specified actions or, when applicable, paid the disputed amount and initiated the appropriate dispute-resolution process.
For disputed monetary obligations, the agreement generally follows a pay first, dispute second structure.
An owner cannot withhold money the LLC needs for the property while the dispute is being resolved. The owner must first pay the full disputed amount under protest and can then seek reimbursement through court or, if the group's arbitration provision applies, through arbitration.
If the owner does not follow the required process on time, they may be deemed in Default beginning on the 15th calendar day after the notice is posted.
Default can have significant consequences, including loss of property usage rights. The agreement also provides additional remedies and, under specified circumstances, a process through which the defaulting owner's ownership interest can ultimately be purchased.
Those are serious protections. But importantly, the agreement creates a process before those consequences occur.
And if owning together simply stops working, no one has to be trapped forever.
Sometimes the healthiest outcome for the relationship may be for someone to stop owning the property with the group.
The Operating Agreement anticipates that too.
An owner can sell their ownership interest, subject to the agreement's transfer procedures.
If an owner wants to accept an offer to purchase their ownership interest while it is being advertised for sale, or within six months after it was advertised, the other owners generally get the opportunity to purchase it at the price in that offer.
Once the offer and required Sale Notice are posted through Joynt, the other owners have 30 calendar days to indicate that they want to purchase the interest.
The agreement also includes protections around who can join the ownership group.
For applicable transfers to someone outside certain family relationships, the other owners receive financial information about the prospective new owner. The transfer can be rejected when the Operating Agreement's requirements are met, including when valid rejection notices come from the required number and percentage of owners.
There are also defined circumstances and voting thresholds under which the entire property can eventually be sold. Those thresholds change over time and, in certain circumstances, an individual owner can trigger the sale process.
An exit may still be emotional.
But it doesn't have to be improvised.
Good friendships still require good communication.
An Operating Agreement cannot make people communicate well, be considerate, compromise, or agree with each other.
And Joynt cannot promise that owning property together will never affect a relationship.
What Joynt can do is help your group avoid relying entirely on the relationship to manage the property.
Instead of:
“I thought you were going to pay that.”
There is a defined financial process.
Instead of:
“Why do you get to decide?”
There are voting rules.
Instead of:
“I thought I could use the house that weekend.”
There is a usage allocation system.
Instead of:
“You broke it. What happens now?”
There are rules for responsibility and reimbursement.
Instead of:
“We can't agree. Now what?”
There is a dispute-resolution process.
And instead of:
“I don't want to do this anymore.”
There is a defined process for selling an ownership interest and, under specified circumstances, selling the entire property.
The best protection for your friendship isn't assuming you'll never disagree.
It's knowing what happens when you do.
That's one of the most important ideas behind Joynt's structure.
You can still talk things through. You can compromise. You can change rules when the Operating Agreement allows it. You can use mediation when a neutral person might help.
But when an issue becomes difficult, expensive, or emotional, your friendship doesn't have to carry the entire weight of figuring out what happens next.
You already have a plan you agreed to together.
