Family rental issues

I am live in and am a board member in a condo HOA (not a COA) that falls under old condo law acts in Washington state. We have a problem unit that is a family rental. A parent owns the unit in which he has allowed his offspring live in. The parent doesn't come around until they start getting a lot of fines. Then and only they does the parent come around long enough to correct the issues causing the fines.

The problem we have is drugs, stolen merchandise and high volumes of traffic mainly all night long. Several residents have been complaining for years to the HOA but the entire Board has yet to do anything more than fine the owner. The police are aware of what is going on but are limited as to what they can do. Within the past year the owner's offspring become a parent. Sadly the grandchild passed away at the age of 3 months for reasons unknown. Then the offspring became a parent again within the year after their first child's passing. The newest baby has yet to be brought home after 3 weeks.

There was a federal raid on the condo recently in which resulted in at least one arrest. The owner has told the board that only immediate family and the offspring are permitted to be on the property until further notice. The problem is... their offspring is inviting whomever they want including their druggie friends into the condo again that manage to avoid getting caught up in the raid.

We know the police can't do anything unless there is more illegal activities as the community is private property. The only way the police can be involved other than the obvious reasons is by catching the unauthorized guests in the parking lot and inform them they are trespassing on private property in which they can ask them to leave.

The problem is: Can the board enforce what the legal owner wants even though the offspring is the occupant? Or does the Board stand back and ignore the legal owners requests?

Short suggestion - have the association install security cameras covering the sidewalks going to and from the unit. Make sure the cameras are able to pick up the faces of everyone going in and out of the unit. I doubt these druggies want their pictures taken and possibly handed over to the authorities. Maybe the cameras will at least cut down on some of the traffic going in and out of the unit.

Say, PWells, what are the fines for that the board has collected? Why can' the board keep on levying fines if the rules--whatever they are--continue to be broken?

Are you on the Board?

Can you tell us what you mean by "stolen merchandise?" Are these your HOA's common area items? Or?

The HOA has 2 sets of cameras on the property and currently 2 residents also have cameras because of on going protection orders. What I can't figure out is the offspring doesn't care about the cameras and their friends don't really seem to care either. The owner claims they had no knowledge of the unit being used for illegal activities. Which doesn't totally surprise me since the offspring usually knows when their parent will be there so they do damage control ahead of time.

I can say that all the cameras have earned their keep 100x's over just in the past 7 months.

We have a no trespass agreement with our local police department. So the police do parole as they please but it's not very often. I have asked for units not occupied by the owner to have background checks done on prospective renters before they can move in. I have also asked for an agreement such as what you've mentioned but again... I can't get my fellow board members to listen to me or even consider it.

If other neighbors have contacted the police with their concerns, could you persuade them to attend the next board meeting and express them to the other board members? Your colleagues may be ignoring you, but it might be trickier to blow off homeowners who can vote them out or recall them for not responding. Perhaps those other neighbors could also also get together and write a letter to the owner detailing what's been going on and demanding he respond.

In the meantime, the best I can suggest is to keep bringing it up and hammering the owner whenever possible. At some point, these people may very well target other homes in the community (if they haven't done so already) and things can get really uncomfortable if homeowners find the board was aware, but most of them (except you) failed to address it.