Defending the HOA

Welcome to the world of HOA governance, Susan.

Your governing documents (if you're incorporated), probably your bylaws, will say how many directors your HOA must have and what officers you must have.

You are obliged to comply with your governing documents. So the answer is pretty clear--you're complying with your HOA's docs, which, in turn, may very well rest upon your state's corporations laws.

Why don't these folks want a board? Are you a really small HOA? Out of curiosity: How many residences? How many directors? Do you have a property mgr.?

Hi Susan, welcome to the forum'

New president? Congratulations. I'm a new president too, but this is not my first time serving on my board. I've actually been involved with my community since 2007. After "retiring" from my board several years ago, I was asked by several homeowners to seek re-election.

Why do you need a board? To begin with, most likely it's because your governing documents say you do. When your homeowners bought their homes, they agreed to abide by those governing documents (whether they realized it or not at the time) so that's the end of the argument. If they don't want a board, they need to agree to change those documents according to the conditions set forth in those documents.

Without a board, how do they propose to administer the affairs of the association? By a "town meeting " approach? Aside from the fact that your governing documents don't allow for that form of "government", it's not a practical way to accomplish what needs to be done for the community as a whole.

I would start by reading your governing documents (Declaration, CC&Rs, Bylaws, etc.). The answers to your questions are in there.

Larry,
What are you saying? "you may not need an HOA." This is what I have been trying to say for months. This is part of what Geo/Out is saying. No common areas to maintain, the services are provided by the city, or county, or whoever. You simply don't need one.

I interpreted the question to mean, "Why cannot we dissolve the HOA?"

Dissolving the board without dissolving the HOA would lead to nothing but problems in the future. If the current owners do not wish to have an association then let them end it for once and for all. Leaving a dormant association in place will be an invitation for some control freak to come in at a later time and start trouble all over again.

A person should be able to complete the following sentence in 25 words or less: "The purpose of my association is to . . ."

If the association has no specific mission, such as maintaining the roads, clubhouse, and/or pool then it is not needed. When a person on the board has trouble justifying the existence of the board it may very well be time to shut the association down.

Good point, Larry. We pay a couple of small bills, have the front common grounds maintained and the CAM fields all complaints. There's also a retention pond at the back of the community that the City requires us to maintain. That's pretty much it. My personal goal for keeping the HOA is to control the appearance of the community so house values don't go down. Maybe I need to move because if we dissolve the HOA they'll paint houses chartreuse, have campers in the front yard, and who knows what else. Do you think we should dissolve based on how little we actually do? Thanks.

You dont know how to answer that? Is that your question?

Our governing documents say we have to maintain the HOA. My understanding is that the homeowners can sue to have it dissolved once a consensus is achieved and they gather enough legal fees.

I'm trying to answer their question as to why we need an HOA. I'm afraid "because we have to" has not been good enough for them.

Thank you.

Thank you, Bruce. I was president a few years back and subsequent presidents have not enforced architectural guidelines, given assessment credits they had no business giving, worked without having an actual Board in place. I only ran again because I was asked to.

We have common grounds and a retention pond to maintain plus a few utilities to pay to the City.

I've read our documents and understand the community is incorporated, thus we have an HOA. The majority of our 100 homeowners have not lived in communities with an HOA before so they question its necessity. I try not to govern with a "that's the way it is" approach so I'm look for gentler ways to explain it that will hopefully help them accept it. I don't want to tell them we have an HOA "because our documents say we have to."

Thank you.

I didn't mean to downplay your first question but answered as I did because I thought the question was about the need for a Board. I now understand the question better.

Your covenants, probably, state that part of your HOA's job is to maintain the common areas. Along with what you've mentioned, does your HOA also own grounds sprinklers? Street lamps? An entry "monument"? Etc.?

It's clear your more immediate goal is to have owners comply with the rules about individual property maintenance. And rules about that also are in your governing docs.

I'd say that your HOA (Board of Directors) is trying to maintain or improve property values that may have declined due to your HOA's "spotty" appearance. Would a line of reasoning like that work?

Susan

It is not so much defending the existence of an HOA as sometimes an HOA is simply a necessary evil. If the HOA has responsibilities like common areas, signage, retention ponds, etc. then it might well be a necessary evil.

Do not down play retention ponds. They can cost mucho bucks if something goes wrong and the HOA must be prepared to pay for such. There are many stories on the Internet of pond/lake dams, retention walls, etc. giving out that cost the associations mega bucks. One time assessments to correct the problems well beyond the ability for many to pay.

That said, I personally like the control an HOA has to prevent the neighborhood from becoming "blighted". Many moved into an HOA expecting/seeing a certain "standard" of upkeep/appearance and quite often the only way to keep such is the "control" an HOA offers.

How to respond:

"Yes Chief Complaining Officer, I know you would never allow your property to become "blighted" but I am not as comfortable with "others" doing as lovely a job maintaining their property as you do. Perhaps you might take a ride through "So and So" HOA and observe my concern. At one time "So and So" was lovely. On a par with our HOA. Go look at it now. Look at the prices their units are selling for versus our units.

Thanks, Carol.
We are trying to rebound from 4-5 years of very poor management by presidents. We had presidents operating alone with no other board members, giving assessment discounts to everyone because people complained, not enforcing compliance of any kind (including payment of assessments).

The majority of our homeowners have not lived in a HOA before and don't understand the value of it. They think because they own their homes that they can do whatever they want, claim they didn't know they were buying into a HOA and had to pay dues, and so on. If most of them had their way, they'd dissolve the HOA in a minute, hence my original question to this forum.

The builder sold many of these homes for $0 down so they could get rid of them. We have a turnover/foreclosure concern. We've got moldy houses, fire engine red doors/shutters, stockade/metal fences that are explicitly against CCR, cars/trucks parked on lawns, lawns with no grass, smokers/cookers in driveways, garbage roll carts in driveways, etc.

The present board (of which I am president) needs to focus on:
1. collecting assessments, which will include putting liens
2. trying to build a reserve
3. maintaining common grounds (landscaping, paying utilities) and retention pond
4. enforcing CCRs
5. getting CAM to have better follow-through

Your CAM is only as good as your board of directors/officers. You need to set clear goals and follow up with them. If you say you want a lien filed on lot 4 in the next 30 days and its not done in 30 days you want an explanation or you find another CAM.

How many properties? Do you need a CAM?