Annual Inspections in Virginia

I'm looking for a consensus from communities that perform annual inspections. The purpose is to identify any maintenance, appearance issues, unapproved architectural changes, etc. You know the drill. Many of the communities only do annual frontal curbside inspections and do not inspect the homes in the rear from the open common areas in the townhome sections. Most of our homes are townhouses and we have a few singles. The single family homes do not have open common space behind them, but the town houses do.

My question is this..Do you all think that most hoas do annual inspections to include the front, side and rear? or do they only inspect the front and side.

It seems silly to me, but the PM's contract does NOT include the inspection of the rear side of the homes. Then. when the PM does the HOA disclosure package upon sale, they DO inspect all sides, but there are usually a number of issues in the rear (that need to be addressed) due to the fact that it's never inspected since the last sale date. The purchaser then is supposed to review their the disclosure package (HOA docs) where they deficiencies or conditions are cleared noted. They never look at the docs and they put them under the bed. Then later when they find out that the violations convey to the purchaser, they're not happy.

I really think that the homes should be inspected front, sides and rear, in order to make sure that any violations or maintenance problems are addressed in a timely manner.

Can you please tell me what your experience is.. 1 - Front side inspections only? or 2 - Front, side and rear? Thanks.

Tim - I know that you have some insights on this.

VA aside, I would say the association has the right to inspect what they are responsible for.

In my case (standalone homes) they are responsible for all outside normal wear and tear of the house so I say they have the right to inspect the entire structure (from the outside). As we have privacy fenced backyards, they would need to schedule a time to inspect the back of the house from inside the fence. They should not just barge in. Also they should notify owners of an inspection "general" time frame so as not to scare people. In our case the time would be to do so during the annual power wash.

Let people know what is happening and sell it to them for their own good. Do not force feed them.

I went back and looked at the actual legal opinion and advice on this issue.

The basis for the opinion is that our CC&Rs do not authorize the Association to enter the property for the purpose of inspections.

David, Tim, and John - Great information - Thanks very much.

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