Pool Passes--Resident Verification

Started by KellyS2 • 6 replies • 1600 views

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KellyS2 (Virginia)
Posts: 3

Posted:

In past years, many residents of our community have gotten annual pool passes for friends and relatives who live nearby, but not actually in our community. By claiming that as many as 14 people live in their house, they have been issued pool passes. How does your HOA verify residents in a house? A driver's license can be used for most adults, but what about children?

Should we issue a set number (6) per household and charge for extra passes?

JM2 (Oregon)
Posts: 439

Posted:

Hi Kelly:

I would recommend that the Board check out whatever policy has been officially in place - whether by a resolution, motion in a board meeting, or however. If it's a reasonable policy, use it; if not, write a new policy and rescind the old one, preferably by resolution of the Board. Be sure to include any reasonable limitation on the number of guests allowed at one time. You may want to consider the possiblity of a usage charge for parties, celebrations, etc. but run that by your lawyer first, to see if there would be any problems/liability exposure/etc. to be aware of.

A reasonable number of pool passes would depend on the type of community you have, and the typical number in a household. If it's required that adults be present when children from the household are in the pool, then it would make sense to issue pool passes only for the adults in the household. If you don't have a lifeguard on duty, that would be a desireable rule for the Board to pass. Check with your state (probably the health division, or whomever deals with pools) to see if there are any state regulations to follow with regard to swimming w/o a lifeguard, if that's the situation you have.

The board could take some heat on any changes to policy. The important things to remember:
1) The pool is an amenity of the association, not the larger community.
2) Any state laws must be followed to help avoid liability problems.
3) The people most likely to make a big fuss are the ones who abused the pool in the past for relatives and friends. A good policy will protect the rest of the community from their misuse/abuse of the amenity.

J. Patrick Moore, CMCA

RickR3 (California)
Posts: 42

Posted:

Our association instituted an electronic card key system about two years ago. At that time we issued on Card Key per home and changed the rules to read only 4 guests per home at any one time.
It does take some time, notifications etc. to change the rules but yours sound out of hand.

PaulM (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 1,347

Posted:

Kelly-
Obviously, 14 people don't live in one house, but the pool passes are being assigned to one resident with many,many guests. IMO, your community is not obliged to offer annual passes to non-community residents (unless your covenant states such). This previous 'perk' has brought with it concerns/problems you don't really need.

As an alternative, it may be appropriate to issue a set number per household
at a specific cost. Then, you might offer the community residents the option to 'purchase guest passes' (hold to max number) for visitors. The resident holds the guest pass and then can control who/when they and the guest/s will use the pool.

Based on your covenant docs, you may have to schedule a special meeting for discussion of options and take a vote on changing what has previously been done.

BradP (Kansas)
Posts: 2,640

Posted:

Kelly:

Here is an off the wall idea, don't even know if it is legal. Why not issue them passes for the amount of dependents on their tax return? Ask for a copy of it, they can blank out SSN's, but that will show how many dependants live in that house. Your association can adopt a policy to say they get pool passes for the amount of dependents in a home plus one or two guest passes? I don't know, but to me that is the easiest way to verify how many people live in a home or supposedly live there.

DavidH4 (South Carolina)
Posts: 35

Posted:

If they hav 14 people living in one house, they may be in violation of City, County or State laws. Check with your code enforcement office to see how many people per square feet can live there.
It is going to be hard to take away passes if they already have them.
Change the rule to limit the number in a household that can use the facility at one time. Do you have a guard at the pool? Who checks the passes?

GloriaM (North Carolina)
Posts: 829

Posted:

Kelly:

Yes a pool policy needs to be implemented. The general rule (I managed in NJ and now NC) has always been that one household would receive up to 4 passes. Then they would receive guest passes, either daily ones or when they are expecting guests from out of town. Because the pool company would need to staff the pool with an extra guard if you were bring 14 guests with you (potential over load per guard) it would be important to know in advance the swimmer load on any given day.

If you are an HOA with 265 homes the pool company could potentially have 265 Owner swim in one day (a rare case indeed)but if you brought 14 guests and another Owner had 10 guests and so on the pool company would have to have the pool properly staffed.

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