Rentals of 30 days or less not allowed in our HOA

Welcome to the forum, Dorey.

Do you mean the owners have 10 or more different parties a month rent the house?

If you can prove that more than one party rents the house in a month, I'd say start fining the owners for the excess rental groups during that month.

We have the same policy as yours. Early this year, a short term renter for a long weekend showed onsite management a letter from the rental agent to tell anyone at our HOA who inquired that they were "relatives" of the Owner. The letter also instructed them to never go to the management office or ask questions of our security officers. These renters did not like the sleaziness involved.

Well, this letter formed the grounds on which we fined the owner for violating the 30-day rule. No short terms problems with that owner for several months now.

"If you can prove that more than one party rents the house in a month, I'd say start fining the owners for the excess rental groups during that month."

Is there a provision in the governing documents disallowing more than one person or parties from renting simultaneously? Is it 30 days in a calendar month? If not, then the owner can pretty much manipulate the calendar as he/she sees fit.

Sounds like they have found a clever/sneaky way around your rule. Are these owners who are observing more than one rental person/group per month observing any other issues?

The board has sent them a letter, but no response as I understand. The board is on top of this case at this time, but since it is early yet, so we have to wait and see what happens next.

Dorey, if it were me, I would find out who regulates hotels/motels in your city, county and state and sic them on the owner. I would imagine at the very least he is guilty of not paying "room use tax" which is a much bigger problem than an HOA fine. Oh and don't forget your local Fire Marshal, I would be willing to bet there are special codes that are applicable to short term rentals. Let the government do your dirty work for you. Almost forgot since he is doing short term rentals, he probably needs a business license and I doubt he is paying any local taxes either.

Thanks all for your input. I see we have our work cut out for us to prove. If we can get proof that is the quest..........The state and town agencies is a great place to begin!

Dorey,

There are many other steps your association can take to curtail this nonsense.

You could adopt a rule that the association must approve all leases. You could then treat any non-approved renters as trespassers and fine the unit owner for non-compliance.

You could adopt a move-in/move-out fee. The normal rationale for this fee is to pay for damage to the property during moving but it can also be used to discourage short-term rentals. If the fee has not been paid, the tenant is a trespasser and the unit owner is subject to a fine.

You could also adopt a parking sticker system. No sticker and the car gets towed. Every owner gets a sticker when he shows up in-person.

A part of me thinks it is a bad idea to inflict a hardship on the innocent renter, but then I have to ask if they are really all that innocent. They know they are renting in a condo complex and not a hotel. The restrictions are recorded so they have no reason to claim ignorance of the prohibition against short-term rentals. Besides that, they must be aware that they have signed a 30-day lease without paying for 30 days and without an intent to remain for 30 days. They are willing accomplices and not innocent victims.

Assuming that the unit has standard door knobs, there is a device that I think is called a "Key Blok." It fits over the door knob and locks in place, preventing the door from being unlocked or even opened.

You can put one of these on the knob and when a renter tries to enter you say that you believe someone other than the owner has been living here. Since no one has provided us with a lease for approval or paid the move-in fees we have no reason to believe that you are here lawfully. Leave now or get arrested for trespassing.

What can the unit owner do? Go to court and tell the judge that the association has prevented him from breaching the terms of the covenants and interfered with his scheme to evade occupancy taxes? He has a fat chance of winning that one.

You are probably right but what will the owner do? Take you to court to preserve his "right" to continue to use his property in violation of the covenants and various ordinances? His remedy is to comply with the covenants.

BTW, the rationale behind the lockout is not suspicion of a covenant violation but suspicion of occupancy by squatters. The persons seeking to enter are not the owners and no rental agreement has been presented to the association, so they must be squatters. The owner should be grateful that he has such vigilant neighbors.

Also, it's usually not trespassing unless a sign has been posted or the owner has verbally told one to leave. Since most CC&R's prohibit signs, that leaves only the owner to make a verbal demand. And since he is not present, there is no trespass.

I'm with Kevin & Peter. Too draconian and risky for the HOA . As a director, I need to protect its assets and see lawsuit written all over this advice.

In addition, in our high rise case and probably in the cases of detached homes too, there's no way of telling who "those people with the luggage" are. Could be the absentee owners themselves, their invited friends/family.

I would call codes and tell them that you believe someone is operating an illegal boarding house. The rules for short-term vs. long-term rentals are different. No one wants a flop house in their neighborhood, especially if a dwelling is not zoned for it. I'd bet that your city has zoning ordinances on how many non-related people can occupy a single-family home at a time.

Agree with Laura- there is more than one way. Your city or county ordinances may be specific about short-term rentals.

You could contact the NH Dept of Revenue, I'm sure they would love to hear about it.

Or.... a little more evil.....

You could fill out a rooms and meals tax form "for him" based on the rates from the web site. Fill his name, in all the income lines, for each month for 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and mail it in without a check. Let him fight it out with them. 9% tax!

PS. If you do this...... tell no one. Take it to your grave.

Hey look, Mr Smith's illegal rental has a lien from the state of NH dept of revenue for $24,000. Very odd. ;-)