Grandfathering in renter pets

Most of you know me, we have taken temporary control of a 16 single level condo unit HOA in CA because of mismanagement. You have helped so much in the past I hope you can help now.

We are on the central coast and everyone loves to leave all the windows open all the time. We have 1 renter that has at least 3 dogs and numerous other pets, including parrots, ducks and rabbits, tonight we have had several complaints about the dogs barking, it is now 2 AM and they are still barking. I informed the owner that I had just been researching this as I was trying to update the HOA rules.

The rules state, Civ. Code §4715]

(a) No governing documents shall prohibit the owner of a separate interest within a common interest development from keeping at least one pet within the common interest development, subject to reasonable rules and regulations of the association. This section may not be construed to affect any other rights provided by law to an owner of a separate interest to keep a pet within the development.

Notice the word owner. The Owner wants to grandfather in the renter's pets and is willing to go to court.

The owner states she is willing to go to court for her renter to have the pets grandfathered in.

I disagree,I do not see why we should grandfather anything for a renter. besides the fact they knew they were violating the rules when they acquired the pets,(at the time the rule was no pets) and were not held accountable because of a worthless MC. There is no documentation from the MC Just because the worthless MC didn't enforce the rules should not mean we have to continue on the same line.

Has anyone had this issue?

So one of your property's tenants is forming their own zoo complete with 3 barking dogs and for some reason the Board doesn't know how to handle this.

Who cares what the unit owner is willing to do? Who cares they have made threats about going to court? What about the residents who live within hearing distance of these animals?

And YES here noise is an HOA issue. That would become a violation on this property.

Sounds to me like the BOARD (the MC did what they were instructed or allowed to do by the Board)failed to enforce any restrictions in the past and now once allowed tough to backtrack this sort of behavior. Does it matter prior Boards failed to enforce rules? In many cases no. They have the ability to now enforce them.

Issues like this should have been addressed long ago but better now than allowing the owner to bully their way out of the Board and have the other residents subjected to this problem.

The CC&Rs state no pets and have never been up dated. I found a record from several years ago where the MC allowed an owner (her boyfriend at the time) to keep a dog if he fenced the back yard, because he claimed he didn't know there was a no pet rule. Nothing else.

The old MC managed this unit until recently, which is why on enforcement. The owner doesn't want to spend any money cleaning up the unit to rent to anyone else. It is section 8 housing, so she gets good money from the state.

The owner of the unit across from the “ZOO” lost revenue as the unit had been booked for the entire week and they left after the first night which the owner comped. Luckily 5 of the units directly around her were empty or out of town.

This is what happens when you mix section 8 with vacation rentals.

Thanks, you guys always give good advice.

Do you have a board in place now? Have you hired your new prop. mgr. yet?

I think your Board must comply with CA Civ. Code and permit one pet. Beyond that one pet, give the owner xx days written notice to get rid of the other dogs. If the owner doesn't comply by convincing his tenant to get rid of the extra dogs, call the owner to a hearing and fine him/her and keeping fining the owner till you have compliance.

Disregard that owner's threat to take your HOA to court--it would go no where.

Now, about the other critters, our CC&Rs say no barnyard animals or some such. Do yours?

Our CC&Rs also say no noise after 10PM. Do yours?

Our CC&Rs also have a general nuisance clause. Give the owner written notice to cure any of these violations if they're in your documents.

It doesn't matter one bit what kind of tenant or how s/he pays rent. All that matters is that the owner get their tenant to comply so that residents may peacefully enjoy their homes.

Meantime, per others' advice, instruct the neighbors who're disturbed call the police. Or maybe someone could just ask the pet owner to quiet the pets at night. I've done that in a non-HOA and it worked just fine.

What size are your lots anyway?? You also might check to see if your municipal zoning codes permit ducks and rabbits (though rabbits are at least quiet).

Let me get this straight. You have a renter, not a member, who has three dogs, etc.

There is no allowance in your CC&R for pets at all.

What I see are several issues.

1. Although many cities/counties have limits on the number of dogs and cats one can have, a landlord can rent a house and not allow any animals at all. This is a matter of a rental agreement.
2. The civil code only allows for one pet. There may be a problem with how long this has been an issue.
3. The city usually has limits on cats and dogs. You should find out what it is.
4. Further, the city many times has limits on animals like chickens or ducks.
5. You have a problem with noise. You don't know how to take records about nuisance barking. Nuisance barking is best tackled by keeping records. For this you'll need to answer the questions: How often do the dogs bark? Do the dogs bark regularly at a certain time? How long do they bark? Is this 2 a.m. a one-time event? We used to have neighbors who had a dog that regularly barked between 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. By that I mean 5 out of seven days.
6. You need to update your rules to address pets. The CC&R for our former HOA listed the types of pets allowed which were cats, dogs, fish and birds in a cage. For no reason would more than two be allowed.
7. You have someone who might be a collector with an ever expanding number of pets and you have a member-landlord who doesn't recognize this. This is sticky. By addressing the noise and the city codes for kinds of animals and their limits, you'll have a better understanding of how you should proceed.

You already have someone who lost revenue due to this person and I'm guessing that no one has inspected the interior of the unit for a while. Another issue that you might pursue is that you are in California. You need regular inspections for termites. The termite inspector should have access to all units and in many cases would need such access to look at common areas (exclusive use common areas) that the HOA is responsible for. A best case scenario is that the HOA would give the members the opportunity to pay extra in order to have their unit inspected as the pest control is inspecting the exclusive use common area. This might give the landlord a chance to inspect the property.

One of the reasons rabbits are not allowed would be because they are destructive to wood. We lived next to someone who, despite up-to-date CC&R regarding pets, had six rabbits and two cats. They volunteered for various rescue organizations. The rabbits were gnawing on the walls we shared with them. However, no city laws were being broken. If we had lived in a different city, they would have been breaking city civil codes with the number of rabbits they had. Since they were not breaking city civil codes, only the HOA could enforce, but the board was controlled by the couple who had the animals.

I give this example to show that sometimes the HOA is fully responsible and sometimes--no matter what the state civil code says, you need to look at city and county codes.

Your real problem is with the owner/member not the renter. If you have a fine schedule, you should have a hearing and fining should accrue daily until the problem was corrected.

You might want to view the rental agreement. The date might also be important.

I am not a lawyer or paralegal, but I did volunteer with animal control. Animal-related noise nuisance is usually not referred to the police, but to animal control. But we were instructed on how to determine if the noise is really what would be considered a nuisance.

Your HOA, if they are willing to work together, should show whatever history they can and you should collect complaints that are made to animal control, etc. to show that this person and the person's pets are a nuisance.

If you keep good records you can successfully take the owner/member to court after a hearing regarding the pets. Most likely, this will end up in small claims court and the judge will rule that the owner/member needs to pay, especially if you can show that the renter is in violation of city/county codes. I don't believe that a small claims court judge can rule to grandfather the pets in because it would be out of their jurisdiction. You can let the owner/member hire an attorney and take that issue to court and likely that will be a higher court than small claims.

I might be moved to grandfather in one additional pet, but not as many as this person has.

I forgot to include this link on Animal Hoarding.

Hope this helps.