Inactive Board

Mike, your President needs to resign. His statement "working with an attorney to draft a survey to find out if anyone wanted to enforce the CC&R's, or have a HOA" is ridiculous. They should know such a survey has no bearing on either.

And why don't the members demand annual meetings and election of Directors by the members in accordance with your bylaws?

Roger

Mike,
You have asked for reasons to have an HOA or CCR’s. In my opinion there is only one valid reason to have an HOA or CCR’s and that is a majority of the owners actually want an association and see a valid need for CCR’s.
The owners need to want them badly enough to participate, to volunteer, to attend meetings, to study and understand the CCR’s and to agree to pay assessments for the operation of the organization.
If the owners don’t care, don’t want to participate, don’t want to contribute, and don’t want to comply, the best thing you can do is terminate the CCR’s and get the restrictions off of your deeds. You might even find it enhances resale values to be able to advertise “NO COVENANTS”.
I disagree with Roger. I think your president is on the right track in wanting to discover what the consensus is. He may not be going about it correctly, but he is trying to do the right thing. Perhaps you could help him out.
The first thing is to become totally informed. Study all your governing documents very carefully. Then do some outside reading to learn how other associations compare. Do some informal surveying of your own. Learn how many owners it would take to call a meeting and demand a new election. Get involved. Become an activist. But be careful what you wish for; you might get it. – Lou Day

Roger, I am quite familiar with what a declaration does and I am familiar with the amendment process for a conventional or typical declaration. I’ve “been there and done that”, even including the first mortgagee bit. I am also quite familiar with enforcement procedures especially in the matter of vehicles that offend neighbors. And I still disagree strenuously with your assertion that what the president is doing is ridiculous and he needs to resign.

In my opinion the current president is doing two things correctly. First, he is in contact with an attorney and, second, he is trying to determine the will of the owner population.

If there is no desire to enforce the existing CCR’s and if there is no one who is willing to take on the personal responsibility of enforcement, then enforcement will not take place. If this is the case, then the next step is to address the issue of either amending the CCR’s to a level that satisfies the majority and establishes a functional organization or to look into termination of the declaration.

Resignation of the president will accomplish little. He is probably in the office by default. Most likely, no one else will take the job or even take the initiative he has taken.

Clearly, Mike wants an HOA and wants to have enforcement. What is not obvious is whether he has sufficient support and whether he is willing to invest the personal effort necessary to do this. (Perhaps Mike will have to become the next president.)

Mike asked for “reasons to have an HOA and CCR’s”. I gave him my opinion that they should serve the will of the majority. They should not support the tyranny of a minority.

Lou Day

I am very much a supporter of having the association and enforcement, infact I built my home in this neighborhood for this very reason. I've been both the president and the vice president and I was the first to bring an attorney into help us through the rough times, everything seemed to be moving forward and slowly the members became aware of the CC&R's.

Our new President was not voted into office, there was no election, the officers that would do nothing for 31/2 years handed the organization to people that they knew would continue doing nothing. This new President wants to kill it if he can. He and his board have all moved into the neighborhood in the last 4 years so none of them know what the neighborhood was like when the HOA fuctioned at its best.

This very large trailer that is practically sitting in my yard is an eye sore and I shouldn't have to look at it. As it stands now we have the CC&R's, if they can shut down the HOA that's one thing, but right now we have the HOA and the CC&R's and they should be enforced until they are voted out. How do I get them enforced? And what is the best way for me to protect the HOA? I need some good advice and a plan. I'm more than willing to do the work.

I have to admit that LouD's comments about "serve the will of the majority ....not support the tyranny of a minority", really sickened me. Has LouD. heard of mob rule? Don't you just want to park a 30 foot trailer in front of his house?
And yet his opinion is not entirely unfounded. HOA's were created by government to govern communities. If there was no HOA in your situation you would be calling some governmental agency to solve your problem - the city or county - whoever had jurisdiction over this obvious violation.
Instead you have to deal with this so called board. Is it possible that you have a common enemy? I believe that your 30 foot trailer is part of a much larger problem and that that problem is apathy. Is it remotely possible that the president senses so much apathy, that they do not see the point of conducting board business properly.
Why are you no longer on the board? How can your friends not know what to do? Why don't you just show up for meetings that are supposed to be open? Why don't you challenge the authotity of a board that has not been legally elected by my state's standards?
Why haven't you gotten enough of your friends and neighbors together and forced a meeting and taken the illegaly elected board out and called for a proper election?
Is it apathy or tyranny of a minority, to quote LouD. out of context? I think that you will have to determine this. One may be causing the other.
Roger has given you some good advice, but for me that would be just the beginning. I would send registered letters to individual board members to see if any of them are worth keeping. I would take pictures of the trailer and create a written record of where your HOA is at, in terms of violations and lack of rule enforcements. Then I would stand on those church steps every Sunday passing out my pamphlet and asking my friends and neighbors if they would like this in their view and do they know what is going on and where they are headed if no one cares.
Be sure and tell your neighbors that the board is paying a lawyer to find out what they think. I am assuming that your HOA will have to pay for that. Ask them to tell the board members for free. Enlist the support of as many HOA members as you can to spread the word on what is coming if they continue to be apathetic and look the other way.
It would seem that your board wants to dissolve your HOA so that everyone will be free to do what they want - even park a 30 foot trailer next to their neighbor. Or are they so disheartened by the lack of involvement that they feel that if the HOA did not exist, a tax supported government agency would be called in to deal with issues of that type?

MikeR

Does your community have an ODP (offical development plan)? If there is an ODP recorded with the county, and that ODP has restrictions on storage of trailers on private property, you may be able to file a complaint with the county and they would have to address the violation. This may take care of the trailer problem, but not the important HOA issue.

Dale

MikeR, et.al.:
All of our board of directors go to church together--I've heard. And this is my chance to say--"being in a hen house doesn't make you a hen". The reason they all "congregated" to get on the board together was so that they could NOT enforce our deed restrictions, not inform the rest of the assn. what was going on and not tell us how our money is being spent. Roger is correct, the CC&Rs RULE! You should see what has happened to our neighborhood because of the group (which represents about half the neighborhood) have gotten mad over being nicely asked to follow the rules---they are the MOB and now they rule. The president had NO interest in our assn. except to use the pool for the swim team with 1/3 being from outside and paying nothing. She even discussed confidential matters from executive session that made people so mad at everyone else on the board that they literally rioted, have stalked, trashed yards, thrown dog ___ in the yards or at the end of sidewalks of the members who want enforcement, made up nasty stories accusing members and directors (that they wanted off the board) of affairs, stealing money, stealing mail,etc. ---- on and on! I don't know who is more stupid, the spreaders of the nastiness or the believers (who never bother to find out the real story).

If your assn. cannot enforce their CC&Rs, then I hate to tell you, the buck stops with the president. You actually have no need for an HOA if the laws are enforced. It is difficult to get rid of the allowers of rule-breaking, but the experience in my assn. is that once they've had a taste of blood (power), they can't stop. If the mob supports the pres. it will be very hard to change anything. Laws, like locks, are for honest people. I moved into my assn. because it had rules; I had lived where there were cars on blocks next door and I EXPECTED this to be different. Unfortunately, I'm beginning to like the thoughts of the car on blocks next door.
EdR