Residents/Renters rights

Need to find out what you HOA does about Residents/Renters. Do you allow them to come the the HOA meetings? Do they communicate with the property management company? Do they communicate directly with the board on their issues? Let me know how your HOA handles this.

Hi Tim
Thanks for your reply. We do have an issue. But let me give you some background. Our CC&Rs say it is up to the board whether they will allow the renters/residents to attend or speak at the meetings. So far we haven't done that. We have had issues with renters calling the property management company to have repairs done or other problems they have which are supposed to be addressed by the owner or the management company the owner has designated. They even got annoyed once because our management company would not come out and light their furnace immediately! So on to the problem. I sent an email to a management company of one of the rentals in our complex asking if someone lived in a condo he manages. He said he didn't know and would check. I said thanks and asked if he would please let them know the person who cleans our grounds had found two bags of trash behind the dumpster by their bldg and it had pieces of mail on top with the person whose name I gave him. The management company passed on my home email address, my work email address and now this woman is sending me two or three emails a day saying I had intercepted her mail and she had contacted the postmaster about it and I was going to be prosecuted and she is also going to bring a discrimination suit against us because we discriminate against renters. I emailed the management company and told them not to give out my work email and said I didn't want to recieve any more of their tenants email. The one this morning said that she had the right to email me and wanted me to prove the piece of mail we have came from a garbage bag not her mail box. So far I haven't responded to her emails, only the management companies. I don't feel it was very professional of them to pass on my email address. At this point I am ready to send a letter to the owner and tell him he needs to use a management company that deals with his tenants and doesn't pass them on to us to handle.
Maybe we have the worst renters in the world but to date since I have lived here(7 1/2 yrs) we have had 3 police raids on condos that were rented(one looking for a Utah's most wanted, one for a guy who ran over a policeman and then took off, when they blocked the exits I had a police car on the lawn in front of my bldg and another for a person who failed to report to federal prison). I have been told I should watch my back(this was for sending warnings about rule infractions) and they have ridden horses through here and there was a large pile of horse waste in the parking lot. They have also had business's they run out of their condos which is against our CC&Rs and the list goes on.
So, I and the other board members feel that we do treat everyone equally and fairly. The difference seems to be that when their is a warning we have to send the owners say sorry it won't happen again and the renters are very beligerant to say the least. I felt like asking the property management company to ask them please to put their garbage in the dumpster was nice.
Give me some ideas on how to handle this please and thanks for your help and comments.

I could be wrong here because of some state statutes but it seems to be a pretty strong consensus that Helen is pretty much on the money, with maybe a tweak or two built into individsual documents.
Primarily, it is the Boards mandate to protect the association. Their mandate is not to manage rental property on private property, their responsibility is to the association. If rental property is allowed that responsibility falls entirely on the homeowner. The renter usually has no vested right in the association. It is a far leap to be civil to someone and assume that means they have a vote in running the association. If a mutual benefit is derived from the renter participating in some activities of the association, all well and good but no where are you going to find that anyone outside an owner (member) of the association has a vested interest, unless it is addressed specifically in your documents. Renters rights should be specified by the lease agreements and approved by the association if they impinge on any common property owner by the association. The Board must settle all renters problems through the homeowner. If any owner, visitors, renter, treaspasser, guest, whoever violates a restriction while on property under control of the associations the association must enforce the rules, laws, whatever equally.

The above will, in part, usually fit, it won't always. The members of the association that are paying the frieght (dues) carry the power as the association, not a bunch of individuals serving personal agendas. A good Management company would know this and serve to buffer any problems and serve as a spokeman for the Board and in turn the association documents. It would not act as a rental agency and would direct these issues to the Homeowner. I would take this M/C to task for not easing the disagreements. If your board wants to allow renters at Board meetings, I would have it in the documents and restrictions would be included. Our Board meeting are open and I suspect guests would be welcome and maybe given the same courtesy to speak as owners have. The Board is under no demand to respond and probably wouldn't other than to be civil.
Civil disturbances and criminal or suspected criminal attacks on Board Members should be dealt with promptly by the President of the Board with Board approval. Do not allow this harassing conduct by this renter to continue, the board should immediately inform the owner of the property that his renter is violating the safety of a member of the board and it is the Board intention to hire legal council and this owner will be billed for the services.

SheliaH,
Let's take a little different look. You are obviously talking a condo.
Normally your fees to the owners are pro rata. Some will pay more, some will pay less. These figures were established at birth of the association and reflect any number of criteria what is weighed and a pro rata share is established. The reason for this is because units are valued differently to reflex what percentage of the total each unit would represent. Aside from the space of the units the rest is common property and each unit shares in the maintenance of this property at the pro rata share. When property is rented and the demands on the common property and common assets exceed the pro rata share of each unit because of other than this pro rata share, adjustments should be made. This is seldom done and the whole ends up paying not just the apportioned share. The manager should account for his time spent servicing rental issues, if any renter causes any damage or trouble in the association the owner of that unit is responsible for any outlaw of time or money that this problem inflicts. I don't rent, I live there, if I have a quest I am totally responsible for their conduct and actions and any damages or charges they may perpetrate, no questions asked, it is clearly stated in our documents. This provision makes no special consideration for rental property, even though we have a rental policy, the core is still there..............owners responsibility.

Aside from that and after twenty years I am still searching for some explanation of why rentals are permitted when our documents clearly state private businesses are not allowed anywhere on the complex. Why isn't renting property a business, you offer a product, you collect money for that service and you should report it as a business expense.

But, to be clear, I am not against renters and renting. I believe it adds to the neighborhood and has value to the association. I just don't believe it should be uncontrolled and upset the apportionment and also place a stigma on the association because too many rental properties restricts the free market value of the units by diminishing the pool of mortgage lenders, such as FHA, fannie mae, and probably others.

Whew...INHO

Thanks for your comments, Robert. Actually, we're a townhouse community, so everyone pays the same rate - once upon a time there were different rates for people with one car garages vs. those without vs. thse who lived in one story units, but that changed long before I moved in). I like your idea on having our property manager keep track of the time spent in dealing with rental units and charging people accordingly - maybe the prospect of having to pay more might discourage investor-owners from buying up a bunch of units and renting them out.

As you can imagine, we've had trouble getting our CCRs revised because we have a lot of offsite owners who apparently want to make as much money as possible while paying a pittance in costs. It's one reason I'm almost inclined to say 'cry me a river' when they yap about fees being too high - almost because owner-occupants like me have to pay them too! We've also run up on the mortgage pool reduction you mentioned (delinquencies were our downfall and I'm concerned that even if we can get a handle on delinquencies, the rental ratio will still be around to hurt us)

I'm not against renters either, but our problem has been homeowners who seem to rent to anyone who can fog a mirror and then leave it to those of us who live here to deal with the mess. To me, one should be able to go down the street and not be able to tell who lives where because everyone's obeying the rules. I expect some drama from the owner-occupants anyway, but it seems for the offsite folks, it's out of sight, out of mind.