Interpretation of Maintenance

Our development has 45 town homes and 30 semi attached homes. Each owner owns their home and small lot in fee simple.

Our Declaration states:

Section 2.3. Maintenance Responsibilities. Unit Owners are responsible for maintaining and repairing their Units and all structures and improvements erected within the boundaries of their Units, including but not limited to sidewalks, but excluding Controlled Facilities, and excluding lawn maintenance and snow removal, which will be provided by the Association as provided in Section 2.4.

Section 2.4 Lawn Maintenance, Snow Removal. All lawns and shrubbery within the Community, including lawns and shrubbery upon any Unit are designated as Controlled Facilities and shall be maintained by the Association, with the expenses of maintenance being Common Expenses.

Would you interpret “maintenance” to include treatments with fertilizer, weed killer, etc.?

Up to now our HOA has only done mowing on lots and has left the treatments to owners. As a result, we have a variety of lawn conditions from super care to no care.

The Board members have differing opinions over how to get negligent owners to treat their lawns. My opinion is that we should not be trying to figure out ways to deal with negligent owners. I think, per the Declaration, that the HOA should be treating all of the lawns.

Anyone have experience with similar wording in their Declaration?

Sounds to me... the board has no idea what their own docs say. The owners are not responsible for their lawns, the HOA is. That said.... I dont believe the HOA is required to do anything beyond mowing to meet this minimum requirement. If the HOA wants to budget more money to do more, they are free to do so.

If the intent was to do nothing more than mow the grass then the declaration would have stated "mowing" instead of maintenance. It would seem illogical to intend to mow all lawns to the same height but leave the yards a patchwork of colors.


I agree with your interpretation. The intent of your declaration was to achieve a uniform appearance in the lawns and it also stated that "maintenance," and not just mowing, is the association's responsibility.

I would like to expand on my earlier response.

I agree that based on what Joseph provided, the cost of additional treatments (weed treatment, fertilization, etc.) would be the responsibility of the Association.

However, again based on what has been provided, the Board may decide what additional services above mowing/trimming are to be included. Once decided, it's now the option of each member to decide if they want to pay for additional treatments or not. The Board, in my opinion and based on what has been provided, may not force individual members to arrange for or pay for any additional treatments.

If the Board wants to have a more uniform look to the property, then they need to authorize the expense of the needed treatments. However, if they are happy relying on what a member may or may not do to enhance their own yards, then they may simply choose to pay for mowing/trimming.

Thanks to all for the advice.

My conclusion is that our HOA could treat lawns if we want to and probably should.

As regards cost - The extra cost added to the HOA fees would actually be lower for owners who currently contract individually for lawn treatment since our landscape contractor has told us he will give us a "bulk" rate and won't have to bill each owner seperately. Of course if an owner isn't treating his lawn then it would be an increase.