HOA President violating HOA Rules

I would like to tell my story here to hopefully get some insight from other folks that have a bit more experience dealing with these types of situations. I'll try to leave out any conjecture in hopes that I can clearly present the facts and get some workable solutions.

Here is what we know. I live in a ~125 home gated community. It's been in place for many years with the same acting president for the past 5-6 years. Our community looks great, everything seems to be in order with the funds and how they are being allocated, so that's a plus. Recently, one of my neighbors decided that he was going to move out of the community and rent his home. We have 6 homes on our block and 3-4 of them are rentals. We've not had any bad experiences with rentals, so when we heard this, it didn't bother us. After a few weeks, it seemed that there was a lot of traffic, both vehicular and foot traffic going to and from the house. The residents are all males, ranging from 18-40ish. Our mailman asked who lived in the home and the tenants got very defensive. He asked us if we knew anything about it and we were in the dark. Putting two and two together, we assumed that the homeowner was renting his house to a Sober Living facility. The kicker in all of this is that the homeowner that's renting the home is also the HOA President.

Once we had our suspicions in place, went went to the annual HOA meeting and sat through quietly. I didn't want to make a stink or false accusations, so after the meeting, I took the President aside and asked him if he was running a Sober House and he said "Oh, not that I am aware of." I then asked if he was renting his home to individuals or if he was renting it to a corporation. He made it clear that he was renting it out to individuals.

A few weeks passed and there was little that could or should have been done during that time period. I asked, he answered, end of story. Then, last weekend, my wife was out walking our infant son around the block and there was a woman sitting outside the rental house. She stopped and chatted up the woman who explained that she just dropped off her 18 year old son for checkin. She gave us the name of the facility that was operating the sober house. We were able to go to their website and find pictures of his house. So it's now confirmed.

This is where it gets tricky. My issue is not with a sober house being in the neighborhood. Granted, I'm not thrilled about it, but at the end of the day, those folks that are utilizing that space are addicts that are looking for help and trying to fix their lives. I don't fault them and I agree that they should have access to to housing and not be relegated to the slums like some municipalities have done or tried to do. That being said, I'm not exactly pleased knowing there is a house 3 doors down from me that houses people for 30-90 days and sends them on their way. Not exactly the picture of a perfect neighbor. My issue is that the President of the HOA is the one that brought this element into the community, which, while ethically gray, I don't believe that he's broken any laws....well, perhaps some zoning laws, but I don't know enough about the number of folks living there to know for sure.

While the HOA President may not have broken any laws, I believe he's in hot water for some HOA related issues. #1- In our covenant, it states that home are to be restricted to residential use only. I am not sure if renting to a corporation would be considered "non-residential use" as there are people living there, so it would be no different than hiring a management company to find you tenants. The tenants just happen to be drug and alcohol addicts. #2 - Running a business from his home may be a violation of his fiduciary responsibility to the HOA, as he is no longer devoted soley to the well being of the neighborhood, as his business depends on being able to enact policies that will solidify his renting situation.

How would you handle the situation? We've only be homeowners in the neighborhood for about 3 years, so I'm not looking to publicly shame the HOA President, but I just don't think it's right that he sits on the board while creating a situation within his own residence that directly negativly impacts the community...and he doesn't even live here anymore!

Thanks for the read.

TL;DR - HOA President rented his home to a company that finds temporary housing for recovering drug and alcohol addicts. What can/should we do?

First, I'd read the governing documents and see if any covenants, conditions or restrictions have been broken. I might even seek a legal opinion to be sure and see what my legal options were.

If a covenant is being broken, you can take the individual to court to enforce the covenants or try and have the Association enforce the covenants.

Regardless if a covenant is being broken, you can gather support and recall the individual from the Board and/or simply not reelect him at the next election. Perhaps, once similar minded individuals are serving on the Board, the Association can seek legal options about the issue.

You can contact the local zoning authority and ask that they check into the situation (x number of unrelated individuals living in the home).

I might also simply try to make friends with those who are running the facility and, perhaps as a group, bring your concerns to them so a compromise might be reached to address your concerns.

Oh, believe me, I've thought about it long and hard about if this is even something that's an issue and if I am just being a 'nosey neighbor'. I've considered that and at the end of the day, I live on a street with 3-4 rentals and if this becomes the norm, then what happens when ever homeowner that has a rental property realizes they can get double the income if they rent it to one of these corporations running the rehab facilities? One house is one thing, but multiples on the same street is just asking for trouble.

Also, it's not just a little foot traffic. There are at least 5 folks living in the home, probably more, and each gets picked up and dropped off, as many of them do not have cars. A few nights back, I was walking my son in his stroller around 9:00 in the evening and someone walked into the neighborhood, slipped through our gate and proceeded to follow me down the street. Freaked me out a bit to say the least, but he turned into the sober house and that was the end of it. Paranoia on my part, but should I have to feel like that walking on my own street due to the action of the HOA President? I don't know. Perhaps I should be more tolerant, but I'm not really interested in being tolerant. There's already been enough disturbance from their presence for my taste.

I believe this "business" could be a violation of the Covenants. I would pursue this more maybe with the associations attorney.

I would also pursue zoning rules.

In many locales such a place would need a license and surrounding neighbors would have to be notified of such intent.

This deal does not pass my "sniff" test.

Take a quick read here:

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=8&ved=0CJEBEBYwBw&url=http%3A%2F%2Felksprings.com%2Ffiles%2F2008%2F02%2Fspecial-meeting-minutes.pdf&ei=Sg0WU8fSMeur2AWrrYCoDA&usg=AFQjCNEdkpbsEU94ZLUHKlTxeeN0Cq3org&sig2=DwrJFFOY2I9znH8dCDHseg&bvm=bv.62286460,d.b2I

While it appears to be in Colorado there are some references to Florida and seems to offer some legal insight.

You may be lucky.

There are some protections in D-S with some conditions.

https://www.davis-stirling.com/MainIndex/Soberlivingfacilities/tabid/712/Default.aspx

Thanks PeterD3. That was really good and informative. I think in our situation, there are really two issues... the fact that there's a sober house in our neighborhood and that it was put there by the HOA President. For the sake of the community, it would probably be best to work with the organization running the house to get some outreach and education within the community. Folks within the community would probably be a bit more receptive to finding out about it if it was brought to their attention along with some education. From what I've read, if the homeowner doesn't feel like budging, there's not much legal recourse that can be done or it's at least a very risky proposition to go down the legal road.

As for the President of the HOA... that's still something to figure out. I doubt the community would be pleased to find out what he's been doing.

............and how would that eliminate a 'business' located in the OP's 'back yard'

which actually is the issue

why, the very sight of people in need of assistance....................

the horror, the HORROR

Add on:

Seems CA has covered the "problem", like it or not. I am not sure other states are as "generous" in their decisions/rulings. If not in CA, then keep looking/checking.

if, or when, one of YOUR family needs assistance:

? where can they go ?

I presume either:

YOUR home

or

someone ELSE's back yard

MAY THE CREATOR HELP US ALL

Michael,

Thanks for the update. As others have said, you should encourage your Board to remove the individual from the Office of President (simply because he is lying about the issue). The Board can't remove the individual from serving on the Board as a Director but they can remove them from being the face and voice of the Association by appointing someone else as President.