trying to make hoa better

Transparency - let everyone know what is going on via newsletters, web, etc.

Not aggressive enforcement - that is to say, if someone complains check it out and act accordingly but don't go looking without a complaint except for a yearly inspection

Notice of upcoming yearly inspection - gives people time to get ready.

Realistic time frame to fix - for example, if (during our annual inspection) we see that the home needs painted we give them a year to do that. If it isn't done, then it's enforcement time. For example: if we see that the hand rails need painting, we give them 30 days to correct.

Published guidelines - guidelines are standards that are used for the approving authority to determine if a request should be approved or not. Make sure everyone knows those standards by publishing them.

Review existing guidelines - It's important to keep things current with how the neighborhood is changing. When our committee reviewed the guidelines, we did a quick inspection to identify where we were now. We used that basis to amend our guidelines. Example: 85% of the homes had garden flags or other decorative objects. We proposed and the Board approved allowing decorative items no taller then 2 feet without approval (nobody wants to go after 85% of the membership for garden flags). If concerned of abuse, limit the number of items one can have without approval.

In my Association no approval is needed if they are replacing anything with the same style, color.

Keep in mind, you asked for tips that make Associations run well.

What I provided works for us.

System of fines do you mean first you get a warning then second offence is $50 only to double each offence or not corrected after that? We do have that and if they do not get caught for 6 months it goes back to a warning. Today and last night I have contacted a few of the better neighbors to see what they wish to have looked at or changed around the neighborhood that I can talk to the President tonight about. The ex president was voted off because for 5 months he wasted time and money of the HOA due to trying to find a vendor to fix one of the playgrounds. Basically in 5-7 months all the board truly has done was fix both playgrounds and ordered new furniture for the pools. They took the property managers time away from writing violation tickets away to make her run around doing other errands. So far alot of people are upset over the yards and the parking on the street. I have been speaking with the District Director about the parking itself and they contacted the TWP with hopes we can have some kind of parking enforcement added. The president told me he would be against that himself because he would basically be hanging himself if he backed that.

I second the Kudos!

Make a list of all these things you ask and all the questions you have about the HOA and go talk to an attorney. It was the best thing I ever did. There's lots of great advice on this site, but the attorney was very helpful in getting me stated in the right direction.

Good for you! But beware. As soon as you get on the board, and start being proactive and getting things moving again, those other board members who were satisfied with the status quo will bail on you. You'll need like minded folks to replace them.

I would start with the enforcement of the rules on the owners who are renting. That is the simplest one to address. You send a letter of violation to the owner, not the renter. The you send monetary assessments (fines) for the violations. Increase the fines till they force compliance on their renters.

The HOA should be enforcing the CC&Rs against the homeowners, not the tenants, and they're responsible for informing their tenants what the rules are. So if a tenant does something that results in a fine, you would fine the homeowner.

Oh I know its the owners that are held responsible but the problem we basically have is a company that worked for our neighborhood for 2 years basically kept sending out warnings but never any fines. So that allowed many people to think they could do what they wish as it seemed very relaxed. Many of us are pretty ticked off about the whole thing especially my neighbors and I with the renter next door. That company actually is being taken to court from what I hear because they tried to take off with about $60k worth of HOA funds that was not being accounted for. The new company we have came in guns blazing sending out notices and fines for those who were not following the rules. Unfortunately since so many had become relaxed they started posting on facebook all their drama like typical children causing problems for the board and management company. A few people in the neighborhood owe upwards of $6k because they did not feel like paying HOA dues or fee's which I think a more harsh act should be dropped on them instead of offering payment plans. The last company left so much work for this new management company which is trying to play catch up while the board is a whole other problem. The president and another board member do not even want to be on the board and want me to sign on because I care about the neighborhood itself and where it goes. Lately many investors are buying up property which is another problem because once it is bought a rental goes up. Weeks or months later if you are to look at those yards weeds are growing or trash cans which are not to be seen from the front of the home are in the driveways or in the streets once rented. Another problem we have is the City of Fort Worth does not want to work with us and code enforcement does not do their job properly. I spoke to the head supervisor with corrections only to be lied to which the District Director and I have been speaking and she has me voice all concerns with her after showing her on video code drove by a violation only to write nothing seen on the city online form.

WORDS TO LIVE AND 'GOVERN' BY

Our development here in Pennsylvania is 32 townhomes, 4 rows of 8 units each. Half of our units are rentals. We're self-managed by an all-volunteer board. I've been the HOA President for almost 10 years, and I've lived in the development for the last 33 years. What has always worked extremely well for us in terms of owners and residents complete compliance with our Bylaws and the CC&Rs, is that we maintain an-up-to-date email contact list of all owners, all residents, and all property management companies - and we email all of them anytime anything is happening or scheduled to be happening within the development. Spring, fall, and especially summer are our busy times of the year here, so we probably send out at least an email a week about what's going on to the entire list during many of those months. On top of that we send out occasional Public Service Announcements concerning things that might be of interest to owners and tenants, such as fire safety, adequate insurance, etc. During the warm months, our Board walks the entire development weekly, or so, as it only takes about 15 minutes to do so. If we spot any CC&R or Bylaws violations anywhere, we email the owner, or them and their tenants and property manager if it is a rental. Compliance with correcting any violations usually occurs in just a few days, but if not they get a follow-up email within 5 days or so of the original request. If another 4 or 5 days go by without a correction, then they get a phone call and/or a personal visit. We almost never have any problems which escalate to the this point.

How often do your Bylaws say there must be Board meetings, Bill?

How are you going to get the board to start fining Owners for violations?

They were monthly but then the ex president made the lawyers get involved which caused a massive hate group to show up and the back lash is pretty back here with many adults acting like children. Basically some people in dividing themselves into groups. After the ex president resigned from being part of the board all together we had another meeting at the start of June. Since then we have had no newsletters, no emails,no updated minutes since March, and the property manager is not contacting anyone. I do believe it says we are supposed to have meetings at least quarterly according to the HOA. Its almost like everyone is on strike. My father was HOA president back when I was younger in MI. He said at this point if the board is not doing anything and the yards like I saw coming to your home are not getting fined the board can be thrown off with elections for a new board.

If you are concerned and appears from the bold item above you noted ... you need to be on he Board to hopefully properly move them forward. If the current BOD is not following the CCR's that can open the HOA to legal liability. If there are items in the documents the owner's no longer want to follow then they need to at an appropriate meeting of the Owners choose to Amend the documents to reflect the owner's desires. This will remove any legal liability from the Owners and the HOA with regards to enforcing the CCR's.

You should check and see what various mortgage loans allow and currently look at with regards to this issue. Having this data on hand can potentially help the BOD in convincing owners to Amend your CCR's if needed. However, keep in mind if you need to amend your CCR's you need to do it while you have more Owner units vs Rental units. If you reach the point where Investors renting are more prevalent than those who Own and physically live on site, you will have big issues.

I understand that Texas is not Florida, but for what it's worth, in Florida, homeowners have the right to inspect all financial records and that includes the monthly accounts receivable delinquency report. When an owner gets access to that report there's no requirement that they sign a non-disclosure agreement, so there's nothing to prevent them from sharing that information with anyone. On the other hand, the board should not just publish the names and amounts. Florida's Consumer Collections Practices Act prohibits the publication of "dunning lists". Any type of verbal or written communication that has the potential for causing public embarrassment could result in a legal claim against the association. But once that information is in the hands of a homeowner, the homeowner is responsible for their own CYA so as to not cause public embarrassment for anyone.

Nevertheless, Florida owners ARE entitled to view the payment history of each and every owner.

I'm not opposed to that, theoretically, but the monthly A/R report we receive from our bookkeeper lists names and addresses. That report, as received, is an official record of the association and must be made available for inspection to any owner who requests it in writing as per the statute.

Now if a Board contracts with their management company or bookkeper and the contract specifies that the A/R delinquency report only refer to lots (or addresses), then that's fine, I think. Our bookkeeper is actually a management company with which we're only contracted with for bookkeeping services. They key every account according to the owner's last name so expecting any report from them to omit the owner's name(s) would pose a problem. A small problem, granted, but they nickle and dime us for every little thing. I don't think it's reasonable to ask all the homeowners, most of whom are not delinquent, to pay more fees to the bookkeeper in order to protect the anonyminity of those who do not pay on time.

All things being equal, I have no problem withholding the names. They're easy enough to look up anyway by lot number in the county records. As long as it doesn't increase our costs to do so.

It's definitely worthwhile to check what your state laws have to say on the matter. This is from a large Florida HOA Law Firm:

"Owners Have Right to Review Delinquencies

On the first page it talks about both the right of homeowners to see the list and the risks of publishing the list. Boards do need to be careful. For all of Florida's condo and HOA statutory failings I think the near-absolute rights of homeowners to see all financial records, in all their gory detail, is a good thing.

You're also right, Janet, in saying that people make mistakes. Last October the financial report noted that a particular owner was over 90 days delinquent on their account to the tune of approx. $750. Problem was, that owner had owned their home for less than 60 days. Someone made a mistake somewhere. The November report showed the exact same amount overdue in the greater-than-90-days category attributed to a completely different homeowner. Another mistake. That homeowner was not delinquent in any way.

The board and the bookeeper never did come to a satisfatory explanation for what was happening with that overdue amount and it was eventually written off. Quietly. Never sat right with me, but I was satisfied that neither of the named owners was ever actually delinquent in their obligations. Publishing those names would have absolutely been the wrong thing to do.

Some owners in our development pay ahead, and some fall behind. Anytime someone is beyond 90 days past due we send them emails kindly informing them of their account. Every owner has always been paid in full by the end of each calendar year. In the ten years that I've been the HOA President, not one owner has ever asked for a delinquency report, or any report of our monthly dues for that matter. Compared to the problems that many of you seem to have, we and our 31 owners must be quite fortunate indeed!

Well I know this next week is going to make a lot of people happy but a few might be a little rear hurt it was not them picked. Many have seen me stand up and fight for the community getting onto the board in the past for allowing 6 months to tackle tasks that should have been handled in 1 months time.

As for some of the problematic people along with massive amount of renters here I need to look into what all can be done to reduce that. I spoke to the property manager this morning and she said if i can find out from another HOA how they control rentals from overtaking the number of home owners we will jump on the same idea. Mainly its all the new renters that move in causing problems for us though but its a massive neighborhood with over 1000 homes. I was told another family that was causing problems was dealt with before so hopefully the people next to me will be taken care of next. From what I was told the owner next door is sick and tired of being fined for his tenants now that we have a company that will fine him for all his tenants are doing. The last company just handed out notice warnings Its going to be very interesting cause I was told the owner cant wait for the lease to be up so he can sell. After being threatened by his cop tenant on camera and all he is lucky he is not on the news right now. I have alot of great ideas and being the youngest on the board they agreed it will be nice to have some fresh new ideas.

The only way you could control the number of renters is via Amending your CCR's and which would require the vast majority of Owners to agree. However, if you end up with more owners who rent units vs those who live there, you will not at that time obtain the votes needed to amend.

Our HOA is 33 years old. We have 32 owners. We used to have regular public meetings every quarter, but no one showed up, so in recent years we just have one meeting per year as mandated by our documents. We have always had 3 to 5 officers at any one time, with just three for the last 8 years or so, as no one new will volunteer. I went back through our attendance records for the last 33 years, and we have averaged just 5 people per meeting, including the officers. For the last 10 years, whenever we want all of our owners to vote on anything, we do it all by email and we usually use e-surveys tied into the voting opportunities. We re-email the stragglers until every one has voted, and we always end up with 100% participation.

That is a good question I do not have the answer to. I am still learning all this but sure its somewhere in the contracts.

Does anyone know how we can regulate rental in the neighborhood? Does that fall on a neighborhood vote or something our lawyer can take care of?

If it doesn't violate State statutes, yes you can regulate rentals.

It will require a membership vote in an amount equal to the required percentage to amend your CC&Rs (anywhere from 67% to 100% agreement of the membership).

It is best to have the attorney draw up the paperwork and file the amendment (if you have a successful vote).