Real Estate & Property Law

RULE SETTING - WHAT RULES ARE RIGHT and REASONABLE?

Board members and owners in homeowner associations (HOA)s commonly have questions and concerns about setting rules to live by. Parking is one area of considerable consternation. People, pets, and pools are just a few others. In this blog, I will use parking as the example for rule setting considerations.

Where does a board start?

Surveying owners is a very good place to start: Pull all of the vehicle related sections from the HOA regulating documents, propose some hypotheticals or suggested rules, and ask for membership feedback. Be sure to identify any problems or concerns that the board sees ? the members are sitting on the other side of the table ? remember that their view is usually much more different ? tunnel vision you might say.

Keep These Perspectives in Mind: Board Members commonly want to know what they can do. Owners commonly want to know what Boards cannot do. You can turn discussions around to the positive by including language in rules like: ?This is the problem or concern [articulate it] ? and this is the solution we propose: [state rule.]?

Do Not Be Afraid to Explain Current Rules That Are Based on Prospective Concerns: HOA Boards that have to deal with a lack of adequate and convenient parking (which seems to be an epidemic in urban HOAs) have to do something to control parking, or it can easily get out of hand. A resident sees another break the rules, and he does the same, and so on and so on, until the rules become blurred beyond recognition. Of course there are boards and board members that abuse power. However, most boards just want to be able to enforce a few rules of common courtesy, not turn into the ?parking police?.

This Is An All-Too-Common Scenario: If residents begin to park in guest-designated parking areas or are allowed to fill up their garages or carports with ?stuff?, others will use their neighbors as their excuse to do the same. People will push the envelope. If the original plan was that each unit would have 2 parking spaces, there will be people that want 3, and if the Board allows that, some people will want 4. If the Board does not remain diligent in enforcement, pretty soon enforcement of the standards or rules becomes much more ?challenging?. If you have ever raised children ? perhaps you can recall that during the teenage years, fraught with hormones and power struggles, boundary setting was a matter of ?survival?. Left to determine their own standards, people commonly forget about the good of the community. It?s a particularly serious problem in HOAs: ?If my neighbor can do it, than I don?t see why I can?t.?

The Earlier the Better Is A Good Mantra: If HOAs do not implement reasonable guidelines and boundaries early in the game, residents? expectations and sense of ?entitlement? can quickly blossom out of control, issues become more thorny, and the Board may find itself in a real briar patch. This is true in other areas as well, such as deck and carport storage, installation of hard surface flooring on upper story condos, looking the other way when pets are off leash or someone is out walking without the obligatory doggy doodoo bag, allowing skateboarding, bike riding and sports activities in the parking lots, ignoring rowdiness and drinking at the pool, etc., etc. etc.

Full post as published by California Condo & HOA Law on August 09, 2008 (boomark / email).