easy to become overbearing board

I read on here an other sites about Boards becoming overbearing. I can understand how this can happen. Right now I am just venting. We make resolutions, place them in the minutes and have copies of the resolutions in the library.
Still people don't obey the rules. It just irritates me to no end when some owners think they are above the rules because they want to do what they want to do.

We are working on a fine schedule and I am glad we have not completed it yet because an owner is allowing a dog to "visit" overnight and possibly for days at a time and our rules prohibit overnight visit of pets. The way the proposed fine schedule is written, it allows an owner a month to get a pet off the premises but our rules say no overnight pet visits. We will definitely have to refine this fine schedule before we start to enforce it.

Also an owner told me that we changed the langauge of our documents three times when we took the vote to amend our documents to allow pets (which failed). I empasized that we did not change the languate of our documents. What we did change was our procedure to confirm with our documents.

Thanks for letting me vent. It is so tempting to go to the owner who is not obeying the rules and get nasty.

Bonnie

One thing a fine schedule should include is that a repeated violation counts as a violation. Say first notice is a letter informing them of the violation. The second notice is a warning letter that fines will start. The third notice is a letter with a fine.

There could be days, weeks between the violations like an illegally parked car but each violation time counts.

Am I clear?

Bonnie

Don't you know that rules were just made for those who want to follow them? The rest do what they want to do and the board be damned!

I'm venting also!!

Our set up is similar to John46's. We send one "courtesy" letter and if they repeat the violation we call the unit owner to a hearing and (potentially) fine them. After all, they have been warned!

So, no, I'd still call them to a hearing if they violate twice and probably fine them unless at the hearing they give the board a strong reason for the violation, beg for forgiveness, etc. In those cases, we "suspend the fine pending no further violation of that rule within the next 6 months."

Bonnie, some violations, like loud party noise, can easily be corrected tomorrow, but what about next weekend?? There's no way to know if the violations will be repeated. If they violate twice, fine 'em! Or, as in John46's HOA, if they violate 3X, fine 'em! Don't permit them to continue with any violations.

But you need to comply with state laws concerning written due process, etc., or whatever you laws are in NE. You probably also need a sceule of fines as some violations might warrant higher fines than others.

I don't understand how you don't a allow overnight pets, but give residents a month to get rid of one??

I also don't grasp your subject line. Do you mean "overbearing residents"? Or, "overworked board"?

The subjest line refers to A Board that is out of control and suffocating the owners by bullying etc.

You are absolutely correct about not understanding how we don't allow overnight pets, but allow residents a month to get rid of them. Since our fine schedule is a work in progress, I am glad this issue came up because we do need to discuss how we will handle the violation of an overnight pet.

I am glad our fine schedule is a work in progress or we would be up a creed without a paddle.

If years ago the Board at that time would have stood their ground and not allowed any pets any time we wouldn't be having this problem now. But the Board felt sorry for an owner who had a cat and allowed pets to visit without any limit on the visit of pets. The Board I am on made a resolution that pets are not allowed to visit overnight and each visit must be separated by at least a week. Since an owner is violating this rule, I am seeing how hard this is going to be to enforce.

Then when the owner who is currently giving us the problem moved in, her dog was staying with her daughter (maybe son) until the daughter or son moved. The owner with the dog talked the President at that time to have a vote at the annual meeting to allow pets. The vote appeared to have passed, but since the vote was not taken properly (no outside owners were informed and you can not amend the documents that way, the vote was declared void. (a owner who was a lawyer was on the Board at that time)

A few weeks later the owners petitioned us to have another vote to amend our documents to allow pets. This time the vote failed.