non compliance with exterior maintenance

Does your HOA have an architectural committee (often: ARC)?

Does your HOA have anything in its documents, maybe CC&Rs (aka, covenants, declaration), about the kinds of modifications Owners may make to the exteriors of their units without ARC or Board approval? Put differently, anything about what is prohibited from being done without approval?

In other words is the "non compliance" something in your documents?

Can we assume these are detached homes?

KerryL's questions and their answers are of the utmost importance.

Can your HOA force members to redo and conform? If the gov docs require members to get permission from the ARC and these members did not, then my reading of the case law is that yes, your HOA can do this. It might cost a lot in attorney fees. Members who will be required to spend a lot of money to conform will be miffed and have their attorney fight the HOA attorney. Also playing favorites is not allowed. Everyone not in compliance with a certain covenant, and who did not get an ARC waiver, has to be noticed of a violation.

As for those who have not yet closed in their porch but want to: It depends. Some scenarios:
(a) Assume that the gov docs require ARC approval to close in porches. The folks who currently have closed-in porches did not get ARC approval. Your HOA sends violation letters to all these folks. Then it is justified in telling new applicants for a closed-in porch, "No."

(b) Assume the folks who currently have closed-in porches did get ARC approval. Then the only way the HOA can say no to new applicants is if there's a way to distinguish the old applicants from the new applicants. The courts say that, with discretionary covenants, a HOA has to be reasonable in either granting or denying approval.

For some of these people it's probably too late to ask them to redo it, but that doesn't mean don't enforce the rule. You may want to start by walking around the community, noting which houses have changed and what the changes are and then decide if you're going to push for a redo and how hard. Then I'd send a letter to all homeowners reminding them what the documents say, that they're legally required to comply as association members, that the association HAS been inconsistent in its enforcement, but starting now, that will change.

Personally, I would let it slide if the changes aren't extremely obvious, but the homeowner would have to provide proof he/she did get approval. If not, they can keep what they have, but they are expected to follow the rules next time, otherwise the HOA will exercise its rights to compel the homeowner to modify the change at his/her expense. A letter to this effect should be sent to the homeowner and placed in his/her file, so future owners will know the change was made contrary to the documents and if the previous owner didn't fix it, he/she is now responsible for compliance.

Making sure people know the process and follow it is more important than quibbling over the size of a window - they may come back with "it's MY house and I'll do what I want dammit!" but if you educate the homeowners, document what you do and can back it all up if the person runs to the courts, you'll have a better chance of winning the case.

Of course, you'll need to go through your documents to quote the CCRs that refer to this, as people will squawk (because they didn't read it in the first place!) This would also be a good time to set up a committee that could make recommendation on design standards addressing materials, size of windows, color, etc., that will give people room to be creative (cookie cutter houses are really boring in my opinion), but not be so far out that a change is a complete mismatch to the home's original look and design (then the homeowner just looks like he/she has no taste at all!)

We can apply a lien.
But I see we need to communicate better and get community input.
Thanks for all your insight.