Billing Owners for Cost of False Fire Alarms?

The above topic will be on our open board meeting agenda in late January.

Towards the end of last year, there were a couple of false alarms caused by residents' carelessness. Our twin towers urban high rise HOA was billed about $2,200 for each.

I need to study our lengthy governing documents, but don't think there's an article or rule that permits us (the Board) to seek reimbursement from the unit owner for this type of expense. We do have a clause that we can bill them, after a hearing, for damage that they, their lessees, etc. cause.

I don't think we have a clause that we can bill them, decided at a hearing, for expenses for violating our muni or fire dept. codes.

I can't look any of this up till tomorrow, so I'm interested in what you all think off the tops of your heads.

Could it affect your insurance premiums? If so, maybe your docs have a section that prohibits owners from doing anything that would increase insurance risk. I have seen several FL HOA declarations that contain such language. It might be a stretch but all sorts of wacky things could happen when emergency responders show up to a situation where it's not clear what's happening.

Rather then attempt to collect from past occurrences, I would suggest adopting a policy that any cost associated with false alarms (as determined by the fire department) will be assessed against the unit that caused the alarm.

Thanks--I still don't have time to review our docs.

Right, Tim, we'd only be assessing Owners for reimbursement going forward. Hmmm, your use of "damage" is interesting. Sure is damage to our budget!

Richard, when a board member at one of your property management accounts asks you such a question, do you answer them the same way you just replied to me? I asked because I have no idea if we can or not.

We have, for instance, nothing in our docs that we can charge Owners for our Building Engineer's OverTime pay if it was the Owner who caused the engineer to visit here after hours--usually for a plumbing leak. We placed it on an agenda properly, held the meeting, send out the proposed fine for a 30-day owner looksee, and met to approve it.

Kerry

I could respond to your question, but I won't.

KerryL1, do your governing documents prohibit nuisances? If so, then this might be a justification for billing the owners causing the nuisance (of causing the alarm to go off when it should not).

In my HOA's governing documents, what a nuisance is is explicitly left to the board to define. Granted the board must be fair and reasonable, pursuant to case law.

I am not sure I buy Tim's "damage" argument. "Damage" appears 50 times in my condo's Declaration, but the context seems to always be with reference to physical damage to the grounds or one of the units.

I would also like to know if this was clear recklessness on the part of the members who set the fire alarm off. What happened? Is there a way for members to call the fire department and tell the department that there is no fire; it was an "oops"?

I think the questions of whether a HOA can bill for services not clearly delineated in the governing documents is an important one. My current HOA's board wants to bill members for the cost of seeing previous election records (at the HOA CPA's office). Also the board wants to bill members for the time the HOA attorney has to take to redact his legal billing statements for viewing by members. (Case law says they are wrong on the latter.) I would like to check the Restatement of Property for cases where a HOA billed a member and the member says what was billed is not in the governing docs.

I did get a chance to review a little of our docs this AM. I started with your rules because I do know we have a rule that front door to our corridors must be kept closed at all time. The I remembered WHY we and all such buildings in our area have such a rule: Our front doors ARE fire doors and the Fire Dept. demands they be kept closed just like all of our common area doors.

To reply to Larry and related to the above: Owners had torn out their bathroom floors and shower surrounds (stone) to replace them. They also replaced the floor of their now-expanded shower. this involved "hot mopping." The fumes bothered them so they propped open a door to the corridor. this odor and I guess smoke/fumes set off the alarm.

The normal fine for someone who repeatedly props open their front door is $50. So.....

And yes, I did find our nuisance clause, which I knew we had. One nuisance is noxious odors (in one place) and odorous materials, in another. The normal fine would be $50.

I still have more searching to do later today especially will seek anything about violations of muni or higher level laws/codes

Yes, Sheila, I agree that our docs, especially our CC&Rs cannot cover every single possible problem. I do think we'll have to consult with our HOA attorney. Hoep something like this can be done by phone.

5% of our premises are two commercial "lots" divvied up into 5 businesses. One is a coffee shop/small cafe. The 2nd incident came from him. I imagine it had something to do with his cooking or grease trap operations. I'll know the details at our next Board meeting.

Funny, Richard; it's like a certain someone having a secret plan to get rid of ISIS, but not telling anyone else.

As mentioned above, we don't plan to revisit the hot-mopping h'owner. We already had called them to a hearing and fined them for propping open the door, damaging some corridor wallpaper & storing items in the corridor. But that total was just $150. Still, I don't think our board will want to try to revisit that case. And yes, the alarm was in the common area.

In the coffee shop case, I think the alarm was in the cafe which is owned by our commercial units sole owner. I actually think the bill should have gone to the commercial owner, but I can see how it was sent to the HOA.

The only thing I found in our existing docs, or Rules & Regs, is the following: "Note: Should a violation occur which imposes financial obligations on the Association, the responsible party for said violation will reimburse the Association for the obligation by way of special assessment. Example: damage to walls, carpet, and/or any other common area, repair and replacement costs will be charged to the Owner."

Now the example is the kind of damage we normally think of, but it is only an example. In thinking about the "violation" of our (and the fire dept. code) rule against propping open interior front doors to our units, and how it caused the false alarm, the Board is justified in making a resolution to bill an Owner for this type of expense without amending our CC&Rs.

The CC&Rs also say that the Board can make rules about the common areas and the fire alarms in the residential portion of our HOA are in the common areas. So, again, I believe we can make a rule that costs associated with false alarms can be assessed to the responsible Owners after a duly noticed hearing (or words to that effect)

I feel far less certain about the coffee shop partly because I know less about it and about the facts of the case.

In reply to another good point: Yes, units owners are required to comply with laws: Nothing shall be done or kept in units that can cause insurance rates to go up or that is toxic, contaminants, etc.

The other doc that I need to examine is our Architectural Guidelines & Arch. Change (very long) form.

Oh, Augustine, I like your wording so much better since it gives the HOA a lot of latitude if it's billed for some issue irrefutably caused by one Owner.

Our Rules & Regs only makes reference to issues caused by "violations," as you can see. We do though have a Physical damage clause, but still there might be other possibilities beyond false fire alarms. Maybe I'm missing something in our CC&Rs.

Oops, to continue my immediate above....

Our Rules & Regulations, which is a governing document here states: "Note: Should a violation occur which imposes financial obligations on the Association, the responsible party for said violation will reimburse the Association for the obligation by way of special assessment. Example: damage to walls, carpet, and/or any other common area, repair and replacement costs will be charged to the Owner."

So it seems that our Board can only make a reimbursement assessment if the "obligation" result from a broken rule.

Any opinions? Other interpretations?

Yes, ND, the rules-violation of propping open their unit door to the common area corridor released noxious fume & odors that set off the common area fire alarm. It was indeed a nuisance violation TOO as the odor came to my corridor 13 floors away, thus many others, --smells like tarring-streets processes.

It could have been more problematic, but mgmt. came on the loudspeaker soon after the alarms sounded to announce that there was no issue.

In retrospect, I think our Board could have billed the Owner for reimbursement given the wording of our rule. I also now think that we do not need a new rule, but I would like to amend our existing one to be more along the lines of Augustin's to give us more flexibility.

We have the damage assessments to Owners' violations of our docs covered. It's the unknown --and in high rises there are lots opportunities for freaky things, as Sheila notes, to happen that we don't have covered.

One example is our rule of a few years ago cited above that we can bill Owners for our engineer's overtime pay if they cause him to make such a visit. It's easy to assess them for expenses if their broken garbage disposal or overflowing washing machine damages our common areas. But if the leak is stopped by our engineer, using OT, I'm not sure we can legitimately bill them. That's why we need to check with our stoney on all of this.

Think it can be a free phone call as he deals almost entirely with high rises, so I doubt this is new to him.

KerryL1 CAL : If the triggered alarm was physically within the coffee shop, what feasible defence could that unit owner have in Small Claims ?

That Fire Dept billings allocate civil liability, as opposed to merely being a convenient umbrella target like a landlord ? That alarm malfunction is a corporation duty under your governance documents ? That the building's air circulation is undersized or was not functioning that day ?

What about next time it happens ?

Most likely you are allowed a certain number of false alarms within a certain time frame, after that has been met then charges generally will occur. It is similar with some security alarm systems when police respond. In essence after a false alarm they expect the issue to be addressed within a certain time period.

If happens with an owner once that is potentially an accident ... if more then potentially a problem. Generally most CCR's state that items causing harm to the HOA which are caused by an Owner is that Owner's responsibility. Without going back to discussion now trying to remember if the SAME Owner caused both incidents?

Depending on your documents and specific statements it potentially can be placed on Owner ... or as Tim noted you need to address for future occurances.