Enforcement Review Board voting (unanimous or majority)

Our current HOA is looking to possibly modify the Enforcement Review Board voting (ERB).

Currently the ERB is designed with 3 members.
Any one member of the ERB can write a homeowner up for any violation.
The 3 ERB members will review and concur or not with the violation.

The current issue is that two ERB members are having a field day writing homeowners up for violations.
The 3rd ERB member feels the majority of the write-ups are not actual violations.
There are times when violations are obvious and all three ERB members agree.

Since majority rules, a large number of violations have to now be contested by the Homeowners.
The next step is that the Homeowner contest the violation in front of the board.
Eventually most of the violations are written off as non-violations.

Although the homeowner avoids the violations there are a number of homeowners frustrated with
having to endure this process.

What are some of the pros/cons for switching to a "unanimous" decision from a "majority rules" for the ERB approval of violations?

The fact that the board can overturn all the decisions of the ERB is a consideration. The final say does come down to the HOA board unless the ERB documents state otherwise. Until then the ERB is just doing the dirty work of the board and having their hands washed off...

What is the normal process?
Is the ERB only supposed to evaluate the violations and not write any?
Are the general homeowners supposed to police each other or is there supposed to be a committee that goes around writing violations?

Just looking for clarifications as it appears there are a few processes not being implemented properly.

Pro - unanimous decisions present a solid front.
Con - one individual can block issues for their friends and neighbors.

Personally, if I was on the board and we kept getting non-violations heard before the Board, I'd make a motion to replace the ERB members (as it's typical for the Board to appoint the members).

What is normal throughout American government is that the person(s) who decides the validity of a complaint is not the person who brings the complaint.

It's up to the HOA in question as to what they want the board to do. I am unaware of any law on this subject so the board can probably continue with this foolishness if they wish.

Personally, I do not support the idea of a bunch of brownshirts skulking around with clipboards looking for violations. It should be up to the owners to complain about violations. But that's just my personal opinion.

Sorry hit send too soon. You will note that the statute specifies majority vote, not unanimous vote. You could add two members to the committee, which would make the majority vote three, not two.

We don't allow anonymous reports of possible violations.

The Board (or Architectural Committee in our case) will check into the issue. If the complaint is valid, the Committee will become one of the entities bringing action against it (with the complainer being the other entity).

All of the complaints must be in writing (actually that is per VA 18 VAC 48-70-50. VA law also requires that the final determination of the complaint (valid, invalid, upheld, ignored, etc.) be sent to the complainer.

American law in general does not support anonymous complaints in either civil or criminal matters as one has the right to confront his accuser.

There is an exception of sorts to this rule when a person makes a complaint to an investigative body, such as zoning or even to the police. If an investigator is able to see a violation the investigator may then become the complainant (the accuser). The catch is that the violation has to be something that can be seen from a public place.

Two examples:

1) Your HOA has a rule against plastic pink flamingos in the front yard. You install a whole flock of them in your front yard and your neighbor makes an anonymous complaint. The association sends someone out and finds your flaming flamingos flocking openly in the front yard and writes up a formal complaint. The association representative is now the complainant even though he showed up in response to an anonymous complaint.

2) Your HOA forbids the plastic pink flamingos anywhere on your property, including indoors. You have a bedroom crammed with plastic pink flamingos and your nosy neighbor sees them when she visits. The neighbor makes an anonymous complaint to the association. Since the plastic pink flamingos are not visible except from inside your home, the association representative cannot see them without getting your permission to come inside and you have refused him such permission. Since the association representative has not personally witnessed the violation he cannot be the complainant. If the nosy neighbor is not willing to be identified her complaint would normally be dismissed.

Paul

The size of you place (area and homes) would make for a very large task. I think the far majority of folks posting here live in developments that are much smaller. so they often pass by the entire place.

In my last HOA the ARC do not go looking for violations. Granted some jumped up and bit us as we could readily see them. In that case one asked an ARC member to take a look at it.

If anonymous complaint, one of the ARC members would take a look. If it exists then the ARC became the complainer and no one knew who anonymously reported it.

The ARC writes up the complaint and sends a letter (Letter 1) to the violator specifying the violation and asks that the situation be rectified within a given period of time. If not rectified, Letter 2 goes out informing them fines (and the amount) will commence within 15 days if not corrected. Letter 3 goes out commencing the fines.

Candidly we never made it public one had the right to appeal to the BOD but we never hid the fact either. We decided if we readily notified them, say in Letter 3, then they would automatically appeal to try and delay things. When asked, we always informed them they could appeal.

Few appealed (not saying all paid the fines but another issue) to the BOD and the BOD never reversed an ARC Ruling.

Hope this helps.

John,

Your description is pretty close to what we do also. The right of appeal is included in all of our correspondence. Some time back my mother lived in a 50 to 60 unit HOA. As she progressed My wife and I gradually took over her responsibilities, including working with the HOA. There were a lot of similarities in her HOA and our present one. Although they had property management they were, in my opinion, pretty loose in documentation, resulting in some messy lawsuits. In our present HOA, as we lost the ability to lien for unpaid fines, we have lots of them.

Paul T