HOA not enforcing covenants

Our HOA Board is not enforcing covenants. What action can the neighborhood take ? There are HOA Board Members who breaking some covenants.

HOA Board also has been spending HOA money on parties/outings for neighborhood. HOA Board spent $1,700.00 for Halloween Party at a close by Business

that specializes in Hay rack Rides, catered food, grow pumpkins and spook house etc. The residents who attended did not have to pay a dime for this. It

was all paid for by the HOA from the yearly dues assesment.

The HOA Board has been working on rewording or changing the by-laws - without the approval of at least 75 % of memebership.

Any comments on the above items would be appreciated - our neighborhood needs help. We want to take back our neighbor from these irresponsiable HOA Board

Members that have only their personal interests and gains not the neighborhood.

GlenL - Let's not put the cart before the horse here - let's make sure there is justification for the actions you suggest.

Glen -

You've said the current Board are not enforcing the existing covenants, but you haven't provided an example per se. The examples you did provide are in the "also" category, which unless prohibited by your governing documents, would not necessarily be violations.

Do your covenants prohibit HOA funds being spent on social events for the entire community? Or are you just personally opposed to it? Have you looked at the annual budget? Is there a category for "Social Events"?

Regarding changing the by-laws, what you've said so far sounds like the necessary preliminary work on draft edits. Do your governing documents require membership approval of changes in the by-laws (as opposed to CCRs)? Not all do. Even if they do, unless the Board is actually trying to MAKE the change as opposed to just drafting the wording for proposed changes, they don't appear to be doing anything wrong.

I think we need more info here in order to provide you with suggestions and ratonal courses of action.

Gary -

You really haven't provided us with much information, but I still think it's a little premature on your part to assume that your HOA doesn't have any "enforceable covenants".

If you haven't done so already, I would urge to you carefully and completely read your entire set of governing documents. Usually this is comprised of a Declaration of Protective Covenants (e.g. CCRs) that are tied to the deeds of the property owners, and the By-laws that may or may not be cross-referenced in the Declaration.

In particular, you should look for (a) "severability" clauses in either or both documents, (b) "variance" clauses, and (c) the specific wording of the "enforcement" provision(s).

Typically these clauses will:

1). provide that if any section of the document is invalid, it does not affect the validity and/or enforcement of the rest of the document,
2). allow the HOA to provide individual variances without creating any form of enforceable "precedent" should similar situations occur later,
3). the wording of the enforcement section might specifically provide that the HOA's failure to enforce any section of the document does not affect it's ability to enforce the same section in the future.