HOA Ignoring Davis Stirling

I thought everything would be wonderful when our family moved our elderly mother into a high-end mobile home community where you own the land the home sits on. Very quickly we started to receive "violations" with the threat of fines, but with no hearing dates. The notices said there would be a board meeting to discuss the violation and related fine and that we could attend the meeting, but it didn't say when or where.

The letters referred to the civil code which we looked up. It was very clear to state that, for any "discipline" to survive, they must give us 10 days advance notice with all of the date, time, and place of the board meeting. None of those things happened. Shortly after getting these "violation" letters, we'd get an "UPHELD" letter saying we owed a fine and that a board meeting was held on a certain date we were never told about. We maintained that these fines were not legal and not enforceable. But then we became nervous they'd put a lien on our mother's home so we paid the fines "under protest". So that we wouldn't create a "Laches" sitiuation, we wrote the management company a letter and told them their process did not follow the Code in any of the fines and that they needed to give us the money back.

Their response was to tell us they'd have another meeting that they didn't invite us to -- they said closed executive session meeting members can't attend -- and the'd let us know their decision. Again, we told them they must include us and inform us within the statutory limitations. The afternoon of the meeting they finally emailed us and said if we "wished" to attend, we could, and gave us the time and place. By the time we got the message, the meeting time had passed. Today we received three "UPHELD" letters, saying on that date they assessed two more fines.

The vast majority of the violations involved "weeds". Our mother has a Fennel plant out front which we guess is their idea of a weed. One has to do with tree trimming. There is a ficus tree out front, which we want to grow above the roof line so that it won't want to bend towards the street. Another involved "parking" on the narrow street. Actually, no one parked, only visiting nurses stopped briefly and needed ready access to their medical equipment. Visitor parking is too far away. A drive around the neighborhood makes it pretty obvious there are all kinds of various weeds, trees, cars, work trucks in the area off and on. Nothing big, just occasional things come up as people go about their daily lives.

We really don't know who is "reporting" us and why they're being so aggressive and why they don't care to follow the law. What do you experienced people think we should do next? Since the fines were never assessed legally, the concept of appealing them or mediation seems moot. They never even gave us a chance to debate what a "weed" is, or to explain our plans for the tree, etc. It just feels like they want money. It feels like they think our mother is wealthy, or maybe they think we aren't paying attention and will just pay whatever bills come in. Our mother is disabled and does have capacity issues. These things are very upsetting to her. Either way, it's becoming ridiculous.

Advice welcome.

-g

The reason I mentioned the nature of the "violations" was to point out that no common area violations occurred.

I would like to concentrate on the fact that the HOA and their management company did not legally notify us of the meetings, in order to give us an opportunity to discuss the matter, as afforded us in the civil code. In essence, we were fined via secret meeting.

According to the code, unless they properly notify us, their fines are ineffective. I really don't want to go into the specifics of whatever their problem might be. At this point all we can do is speculate.

-g

I would ask to meet with the board or just go to a meeting, express your concerns that the law was not followed and ask that the fines be refunded. I would also politely let them know that you intend to take them to court if they do not refund your money. Hopefully, the board will realize that the management made a mistake and will rectify it.

As Richard points, out Gary, Melissa is wrong. The board, by law, must call you to a hearing to give you a chance to tell your side of the situation.

Parking rules have different applications depending upon the circumstances. Under the ADA, the HOA may not be within its rights to restrict medical services to my mother. I'm really not here to debate the merits of their complaints or whatever my defenses might be. I really can't since they never let me go to a meeting to find out what the true complaint is. My main focus is on what to do about the fact that they fined us without due process.

First, you need to request an IDR ( Internal Dispute Resolution), which they can't deny. The next step, if that fails to resolve the issue, is ADR (Alternate Dispute Solution).

For research, use www.davis-stirling.com

What size is your community, Gary? Does it have a Property Mgr. or Mgmt. co.?

Who are you sending your written requests to re: hearings, etc.? I ask because it's possible the Board will respond correctly if contacted correctly. Again, as Richard advises, visit davis-stirling.com and use their excellent Main Index.

I don't know of a CA website that focuses on rogue boards in CA. The way we got rid of u ours is we voted them out at an annual election of the Board. But gathering support would be difficult for you since you don't live there.

Say, are you actually on title, Gary?

You could go onto Youtube.com and look for all types of HOA crap.

The unfortunate situation in California is there is no one to go to outside of filing a lawsuit. The sad part is there are more than 52,020 HOA's, generating more than $12B of revenue and there is no department within the government that regulates these damn things. We have legislators who don't know what they are doing and can't write legislation in plain English only to be left to lawyers to interpret.