Fine Results

Our compliance procedure starts with our newsletter, using informational articles to "sow the seed" of compliance. When that doesn't work, a phone call or email is the next step (if possible) along with a letter to follow it up, or a friendly letter if we don't have contact info. If compliance is not forthcoming, a more stern letter is sent with the "due process" for fining included, that serves as legal notice. If they still don't comply, we will go into fines.

This process is a bit long but we emphasize "customer service" and try to gain compliance rather than assess fines. You can view our newsletter on our website, www.fhhoa.com. We try to be both informative as well as having some fun while writing articles, when possible. Also available is Policy Resolution #3 which details our official enforcement procedures. Ultimately, think of fines in terms of what a judge will find reasonable. Some of our local HOA management firms advise $15 per day as reasonable; our fines vary according to the violation; we are an upscale community with housing ranging from $350k condos and Townhomes to $1.5M single-family homes, so our fines are fairly reasonable considering the economic strata.

J. Patrick Moore, CMCA
Compliance Coordinator
Forest Heights Homeowners Association
Portland, Oregon

Chuck -

I would suggest that you stay away from the generic checkbox type of letter. Our last MC used that style, and it was not very well received by the homeowners. Even though it was supposed to be a "Friendly Reminder", it was seen as overbearing, demanding, and impersonal. It would be much better to have individual form letters that address the specific problem (in a friendly way). That way it looks like you are specifically talking to that individual instead of just cruising the neighborhood with a stack of check-off forms that you drop on someones doorstep.

while it is technically illegal to use a US post office box for anything other than US post office business, the postmaster general rarely prosecutes anyone for putting keys, recipes, or such things on or in them. However, if you get used to putting notices of violation in bags on the box, it won't take long for the presence of such a bag to become a scarlet letter in your HOA.

If your by-laws say a certified letter must be sent, then you have two choices: send it by certified (and recover the cost of the letter in the fine), or send a normal letter as a warning, outline the cost of the next infraction (ie, it will be a fine, there will be a certified letter charge, etc.). Your first letter isn't the official one, so your by-laws don't require it to be certified. Only if they do it after that do you become "official", and then you have a better case anyway.

Good point. We have been considering doing just that (using pushpins to hang a notice from the wooden mailbox post (which should be perfectly legal). Perhaps we should reconsider.

On the other hand, That pile of trash or garbage cans out on the wrong day is pretty noticable also. ;)

Our ad states our track record "DARCO has a record of 100% success on collections and Covenant compliance and we have never been to litigation."
I have previously posted several times the examples of Rules and Regulations on Covenant and Rules Enforcement and on Delinquent Assessments and the approach we use.

WilliamT,

You are 100% correct. It definitely could happen. My intention is too notify the homeowner that their property was found in violation of the CC&Rs. The by-laws states that the board must provide 15 days for the homeowner to be found in compliance or be subjected to a fine. I’m trying to “warn” them of the violation to avoid a fine.

Thanks
Chuck W.

CharlesW1,

I submitted a question to the USPS last year about using the mailboxes for flyers from the HOA and their response referred me to the info below:

Can a a flyer/envelope be put it in someone else's mailbox without being mailed? What if a stamp was placed on it?

Postage must go through the Postal Service™ and be delivered for it to be valid postage and therefore acceptable in the mail receptacle. A flyer cannot be placed in a mailbox after putting a stamp on it unless the item was actually mailed.

"No part of a mail receptacle may be used to deliver any matter not bearing postage, including items or matter placed upon, supported by, attached to, hung from, or inserted into a mail receptacle. Any mailable matter not bearing postage and found as described above is subject to the same postage as would be paid if it were carried by mail."

The key to this statement is in the term "postage" which is defined as: payment for a delivery service that is affixed or imprinted to a mailpiece, usually in the form of a postage stamp, permit imprint, or meter impression.

Notes:

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If you have a curbside mailbox, or a mailbox on the outside of your house, USPS regulations govern what can and can't be placed in them. Generally speaking, only mail that has been sent through the USPS may be placed in these types of receptacles. Conversely, USPS regulations do not govern what can be placed in a mail slot on your door. This means that if a local business wants to put a flyer in the mail slot, they can do so.
*
For further questions (or to report occurrences) regarding flyers being placed into your mailbox without first going through the postal system, please refer to the local Post Office™.

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Can I affix a flyer or poster to a USPS® Collection Box®?

USPS® Collection boxes are the property of the United States Postal Service®. You are not allowed to affix anything to them, including flyers, signs about missing items or animals, and advertisements.

Note: For further information please refer to the DMM section D041.1.3 or contact your Post Office™.

BenJ

My suggestion is to have a Fine Policy that is a part of the Rules and Regulations. Then send out the newly updated Rules to the community. Include a cover letter stating that it is necessary for the Association to enforce compliance with the CC&R's in order to benefit the community.

We have updated our policy and letters to this:

Letter 1 Friendly notice of violation. It states in the letter architectural violations must be corrected within 14 days, and all other violations corrected promptly. (That allows us to get the second notice out quicker.)

Letter 2 is a 14 day notice to fine. In this letter we list the amount of fines and state how they can appeal.

Letter 3 is the $25.00 fine if the same or similar violation continues. Again we state that the violation must be corrected immediately. We can go back one week later and issue the second fine.

Letter 4 issues a $25 fine

Letter 5 is a $100 fine

Letter 6 is notice that a $25 fine per day is assessed until the violation is corrected.

Our fine policy also states that we can take legal action to collect the fines and to force the owner to comply.

We started this recently and it is only for Parking (no street parking is allowed) and for posting of signs other than a standard home for sale on the property.

We had about 30% of the community violating the parking rules. (They had never been enforced.)

On the first letter about 20% complied.

(Letter 1 was for her own car and she had complied immediately with that.

When letter 2 was sent out with a 14 day notce to fine, about half of the remaining 10 percent complied. Some wrote nasty letters, to which I replied with a very friendly but matter of fact reply to the questions.

Now we're coming up to letter 3 for the initial 10% that hasn't complied. Three of those owners plan to come to the board meeting and they were demanding that we schedule a meeting just for them. Then they demanded that we schedule plenty of time at the meeting for them to discuss this situation. This one house has a 2 car garage with no cars in it. And they have 6 cars. There is a parking island 6 houses away from them with space for 8 cars which always has plenty of space. They refuse to park there.

I responded that we welcome them to the meeting and informed them that our board meeting lasts a maximum of 90 minutes, and that upon arrival they may have a copy of our agenda with a timeline, which we adhere to. I told them that we schedule 20 minutes of the meeting for a homeowner forum where they can discuss whatever community issue they need to discuss. Further I told them that if we have 10 people who wish to speak that we divide the 20 minutes equally, which in this case will give each person 2 minutes, so we recommend that they prepare their speech ahead of time so they can get their point across in the alloted time.

So the letters have worked well for us for the following reasons:

We communicated with 2 pages in our newsletter as to why and when we were beginning to enforce the parking covenant.

We updated our Rules and Letters to conform with AZ law.

Then we started inspecting every day at various times to make sure we got all the cars within a two week period. We wanted to nip this in the bud and get the unpleasant task over with and under control as quickly as possible. As soon as we get the hold outs under control the we can go to weekly inspections.

We are consistant with the letters and random inspections. You must be consistant and be willing to follow through with the fines and legal action if it comes to that.

We respond to their response (complaints) promptly with a very friendly but matter of fact explanation and answer to their questions.

At the board meeting we will maintain absolute control in a very friendly but firm business like manner. Although they now have a legal right to speak immediately prior to the board voting on a community issue, and in a portion of the meeting that is set aside for them to be able to speak, it is our board meeting and we intend to control it. We determine the amount of time to allot to the homeowner portion and feel tht 20 minutes out of 90 (22% of the time)is sufficient.

We have no intention of letting a couple of homeowners take over our meeting and make a farce out of it.

Prior to the homeowner forum we will speak as to why the previous boards did not enforce the CC&R's and why this board believes it is our fiduciary duty to enforce them. Our speech will be designed to difuse the sitation and answer a couple of their questions. It will also let them know that they will be allowed to speak uninterrupted during their time limit, and that each person will be recognized in turn to be able to speak.

We believe that by being prepared, and letting the people know that we respect and solicit their input, and that we are doing the job that we were elected to do for our community, that we will keep things under control.

We do plan to inform then that we are legally bound to enforce the CC&R's and if they wish to park on the steet then there is an option available for them. That is to amend that particular covenant. We'll tell them that we are there to serve the community and if the community wants on street parking then they can have it by rewriting the covenant.

We'll tell them that they need to first draft a document that shows the current covenant, then show the proposed new language. They must also include a detailed explanation of why and how the new language will benefit the community. They must submit that to us so we can submit it to our attorney to see if everything is done legally. Then they must obtain signatures of 75% of the homeowners and return it to us. We would take that to the attorney and have him verify the signatures. If everything is ok, then he woule file the amendment.

We know this will never happen, for two reasons. One is that around 2/3 of the owners do not park on the street and probably do not want to see on street parking. Two is that this is a very large project. We have a tough time getting volunteers to do anything, so none of these die hard complainers are going to get off their butts and do this amount of work.

But if they do, and if they succed, we will respect it.

If, at the meeting some ask for a variance, or delay for some reason, then we will go into executive session after the meeting and make a decision and send it in writing.

All of the information posted in response to my question was interesting, helpful and gives me some food for thought. However, as of this post only Roger Borcderding and WilliamT spoke to my original question. Apparently they have had some successes in getting infractions corrected through fining. Everyone else spoke to getting letters and notices out to offenders, but you did not speak to the results of all those letters and notices which was my question.

CharlesW - We have been sending letters resulting in progress towards correction of infractions. Most of our infractions deal with lawn maintenance. We have reached the point with a few cases where we are considering the fining route. Our aim is to get the infraction corrected, not raising funds. Fining is allowed by our CC&R. I was just trying to gain some insights into whether or not fining gets results or is it an exercise of futility.

Again I thank everyone for their info.

We have a similar section in our CC&Rs, and while it gives us the right, the problem has been in finding a contractor willing to do it. None of them want to enter private property without the owner's permission in spite of that clause for fear of liability suits. Luckily the only place so far where we have had to start looking at that option complied on their own, but there are a couple of others where we may have a problem this year.

As I have stated before, we would not go on an owners property to correct a violation without first either getting the owners permission or else going to court and getting a court order. Then when the contractor goes onto the property they would be accompanied by the managing Agent and the police.