Booting vs Towing

Karl,

The "documents" you speak of are the governing documents.
The governing documents include the following:

PLAT (the document that shows the boundaries of your development, properties within your development and all easements)
Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs)
Articles of Incorporation (if your Association is Incorporated - most are)
Bylaws
Resolutions (formal policies adopted by the Board: example: rules/regs, guidelines, etc.)

Resolutions (your rules & regs) may not be in conflict with the CC&Rs, Bylaws or Articles of Incorporation or any applicable law. If they are in conflict, then the Association must comply with the the higher document in the order of prcedence.

The order of predence is:

Federal Law
Federal Regulations
State Law
State Regulations
County Codes/Regs
City Ordinances
the PLAT
Declaration of Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions
Articles of Incorporation
Bylaws
Resolutions

Additionally, Resolutions may not exceed any authority outlined in your CC&Rs, Bylaws or Articles of Incorporation. For example, if the CC&Rs specify that parking violations are enforced by towing only, the Board may not utilize fines or booting to enforce parking violations as this would be exceeding the authority authorized by the CC&Rs. Using the same example, if the Board wanted to utilize fines and/or booting, they would have to amend the CC&Rs to give them that authority. Once the authority is in the CC&Rs, the Board can adopt a resolution that specifies when vehicles would be fined, booted or towed for parking violations.


Each Document should specify how that document may be amended. If the document is silent, then applicable State law might specify how the document may be amended.

Even if your governing documents allow for towing and/or booting, the Association must also comply with any County regulations regarding towing or booting. These requirements typically specify certain signage (font, placement, language) and may even include specific prior notice (24-36 hours) before the vehicle can be towed or booted.

Karl these are excellent questions to pose the the HOA's attorney along with whether or not a non-profit corporation can use "booting" in your jurisdiction and exactly what signs are required.

If you do this I would suggest a private towing service place and remove the boot, unless you and your fellow Board members want to have someone banging on your door at 3am demanding the boot be removed.

I think it has to do with the specific situation, how it is handled, and what specifically the Docs have to say. I would advise against booting just because of the situation already mentioned, towing directs the rage outside the complex. We tow parking violators and have now for several years. Just the mere fact that people know we do this minimizes the issues.

I am not a big fan for either towing or booting as the core problem is usually inadequate parking.

That said, one of the differences between towing and booting is that if a car has been parked in such a way as to cause a problem, towing resolves the issue by removing the troublesome vehicle while booting allows the vehicle to remain in place and continue to cause a problem until the boot is removed.

To provide some info for others, I found the following articles where the County is encouraging booting vs. towing:

Broward puts the boot on unfriendly tow companies April 2012

Broward County Towing Ordinance Proposal 2012 (I understand that it was adopted)

Sun Sentinel investigation: Towing abuses in Broward still rampant May 26, 2013

Just a note, in Florida you do not have the right to limit the use of common areas such as access to parking for being delinquent in dues because you are restricting access to their unit. We checked with our legal firm on this exact issue.
In our condo complex we have limited parking and we issue parking passes to insure everyone has at least one parking place in our deck as spelled out in our Doc's. Those in violation are ticketed then towed.

Gregg, I think Richard is talking about common area parking where lack of use would not deprive the owner of access to her/his home. We have such scarce Visitor Parking common areas--just 16 spaces for 200+ units' visitors. Owners are not allowed to park in them. If they do, we certainly can and do have their vehicles towed. It's rare, though.

First I want to thank everybody who contributed to this discussion.
I also want to apologize for my extended absence from this thread. Unfortunately shortly after I posted my questions, my father-in-law passed away and as you my understand I was 100% occupied with attending to my wife and her family and my own grieve over the loss of a man who was like a father to me.

So thank you for accepting my apologies.

Now in response to some of your posts.

JanetB2: We are a townhouse community with attached single family homes governed by FL Statues Chapter 720 (HOA) - not a condo. - Thanks.

TimB4: As far as I can see in our docs, none of them contain a section which describes how the document can be amendment, so I guess we would have to look up the FL Statutes. - Thanks

GreggT: I appreciate you sharing your experiences in your community. It brought up some issues I never thought about such as moving the issue with upset homeowners of the property. Great point. - Thanks

And thanks to all the others as well.

Hi Karl:

So sorry for your family loss.

Tim posted above the State Statute for amending your documents when the documents are silent on the issue.

My second question still is unanswered and which can make a difference on response:

2. Does the HOA own the property in question where the vehicles are parked or is it public streets?

Thank you Tim