HOA Non Enforcement of CC&Rs

I live in California and am a member of a non-condo HOA. Our community consists of 225 homes / row homes. The row homes out number the detached homes by 5 to 1. Four out of the Five Board members reside in the detached homes.

My issue is that the Board is choosing to ignore any enforcement of certain rules within our CC&Rs. Any CC&R that becomes a hot topic, they postpone enforcement until a non-defined future date. Some of these postponed enforcements are on rules that the some of the Board members break themselves. Any enforcement of rules that solely effect the row homes are done so with vigor.

I have brought up the topic of overall fair enforcement of what is written in black and white during open forum at the HOA meetings. Some of the Board members stated that the rules that I used as an example are stupid rules. My response to the Board was requesting them to put in the effort and have the rules changed, then the rule is no longer stupid, but until then they need to be enforced.

Some HOA meetings I receive acknowledgment and am assured that they will start enforcing all CC&Rs fair and equally. I then wait patiently but no results. When I ask the MC, I am ignored on this topic.

They once used an excuse of "No way to enforce". I responded by quoting our CC&Rs on how it tells the Board on how to enforce our own CC&Rs.

We are in a new community, but I feel I am getting no where over this 2 year battle. I do know that most of the other homeowners that I have talked to and who post on our forum agree that we all signed up to the same rules and that those rules need to be enforced.

What can I do to force / encourage the Board to comply with enforcement?

Jon,
Good for you for caring ...you are absolutley on the right track.
Your CC&R's are legal documents that, if not followed, can put your HOA in a very serious situation.

The board does not get to pick and choose which rules they want to follow. If a rule is no longer valid or "stupid" then it needs to be changed or enforced.
I would suggest calling a special meeting of the association to review all the rules and decide which ones the association as a whole wants to keep and which a majority think are no longer useful and vote on any suggested changes. Your CC&R's should spell out what you need to do to call a special meeting.

Keep in mind the number of owners who need to vote may vary depending on where the bylaw is listed.Our declaration of Ownership requires 90%, our bylaws 75% and general rules which are probably the ones you are refering to require 51%. This should be spelled out in your CC&R's.

Have you and some other owners thought of getting on the board yourself ?

Thank you for the idea of calling a special meeting. This can be done with a signed request of 5% of the board. That seems really easy feat to accomplish.

The issue is, in my opinion, getting a quorum to change the CC&Rs. This requires us to have 67% of all voting powers of each class. One of the class's is held by the builder. The builder never votes. The builder only has 7 lots left. They are wrapping up the last phase in a month or so.

With that said, actually modifying any of our CC&Rs without them voting will just be a costly experience. Also, a majority of the Homeowners do not participate at all, nor does it seem that they read their mail.

Legal route seems the only way, but it seems too costly. I do not have my wife's permission to blow our life savings to go after the Board.

As for running myself, this has crossed my mind but with the amount of time I travel on business, I feel that I could not give my full. Instead, I created a community HOA website with a forum to bring everyone on the same page.

This has worked in getting more of our members to attend the meetings, but not enough have joined the forums. I have personally canvased the community with fliers for notification and our monthly statements use to have information on he website. As of late the Board has started to dislike the power that the site has started to yield and is now calling it rouge. They also have stopped supporting it by feeding me information to post online.

I have formally requested all of our meetings minutes to put online in a searchable format as I did for our CC&Rs / Bi-Laws, but the management company has failed to produce. This in itself has been a year long battle. Our rules clearly state that all meeting minutes are available by request within 30 days of last meeting or at the bigining of the next meeting if held before 30 days.

Long post, but frustration is thru and thru.

I guess the next question. How do you have a lawsuit on the cheap to push the Board in complience?

Also, does the Board have the power to give out variances over CC&R defined rules?

Our Hoa is only enforcing part of the covenants. The governing documents allow for self enforcement.

The board, HOa subcontracted attorney,and Management company refuse to discuss intentional and egregious violations by neighbor. Our property value is declining due to maintenance not being done and other landscaping issues which the homeowner is aware but refuses to address.

The statue of limitations is 2 years in Georgia.

Is self enforcing the best option since no one will discuss any issues with us.

We have always been current and have not violations or fines.

We asked for documentation and the HOA is refusing to give them to us. As a homeowner in good standing , do we not have rights to meeting minutes, emails between the board and attorney etc?

You have the rights to the meeting minutes but IMO not to emails between the Board and the Association's attorney.