Mandatory membership to country club

Started by FrankK1 • 5 replies • 2101 views

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FrankK1 (Florida)
Posts: 1

Posted:

Our country club is totally seperate from the HOA. The country club is asking the HOA to change their CCR's to include mandatory membership to the club for all new homeowners. Has anyone had this happen in their association?.

JoeW1 (New York)
Posts: 728

Posted:

FrankK1 - IMO, don't pursue it. It could be the country club needs funds for maintenance, replacement etc. Membership is voluntary in the country club, let it remain that way. Advise the country club that their request would require a material amendment to your by-laws and a 2/3rd or more vote of the membership, a pursuit that can not be spearheaded by the Board or something to that effect.

JM2 (Oregon)
Posts: 439

Posted:

Hi Frank:

This has happened in some associations (mostly master-planned communities or communities that were built around the golf course).

One thing you may want to investigate is the option of having the HOA take over the course. It's an alternative to the either/or of making membership mandatory or not...

Since the golf course is likely to be a selling point for homes in your community anyway, making membership mandatory might not be the worst thing. In a sense, it would be a way of assessing all owners in the community for a benefit they get by having the course nearby/convenient.

An alternative (which may already be in place) would be to set up a difference in green fees for members of the course & club, and members of the community who aren't golf club members. Make it large enough to help them decide to join, but not so large that it chases the non-club HOA members away to other courses.

One thing to consider: what happens to the course if there aren't enough memberships and green fees to support it - and it starts losing money? If it's a separate entity, could it be sold to a developer who would plow it under and build homes where the course is? Just something to consider.

It would be worthwhile to look at all the possible issues & angles in the situation before jumping to a conclusion that it's a totally good (or bad) idea. For instance, if people who are not HOA members can be club members, then give the HOA members a price break over the non-HOA members in both membership and green fee prices...

This may take some "thinking outside the box" and some negotiation on the part of the HOA.

J. Patrick Moore, CMCA

GlenL (Ohio)
Posts: 5,491

Posted:

For the problems encountered by a POA attempting to buy a golf course you might check out:
http://www.hoatalk.com/Forum/tabid/55/forumid/1/postid/14199/view/topic/Default.aspx

Studies show that 5 out of 4 people have problems with fractions

RonaldW (South Carolina)
Posts: 901

Posted:

Posted By JM2 on 02/27/2007 5:19 PM

...............
Since the golf course is likely to be a selling point for homes in your community anyway, ..........

Not for everyone, not everyone plays golf and what about those who play golf now but may not be able to in the future?

For me, having to pay dues to a golf club to own a home would kill the sale (I don't play golf).

Ron
SC

LynnG1 (Arizona)
Posts: 4

Posted:

Mandatory membership to a private amenity (golf course or whatever) is a bad idea unless those members have adequate say in the operation and finances of the amenity. My community is in an uproar because the owner of our mandatory membership athletic club is raising dues and nobody has any recourse.

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