Topic 2: Board can enforce but isn't required

It goes without saying that everyone must abide by the laws of the country, state, county, and local municipality. Just because that's in your documents doesn't give the association any power or authority to enforce them. If people are violating county ordinances then other people should call the county to file a complaint, not the board. Neither the association nor the board is a law enforcement entity.

"Quiet Enjoyment" is a common phrase. Usually, associations will either have things in their covenants or rules relating to "nuisance" situations, and usually, the nuisance prohibitions are designed to consist of those things that would tend to disturb one's "quiet enjoyment" of his or her property.

In a high rise condo like ours, noise nuisances can be against the local law and also our HOA rules. So our staff asks a group to quiet down or "take it inside) form their balcony, and do write up and report noisy groups. If the group does'nt comply, writes an Incident Report stating that and advises those who complained to call the police.

If something isn't in your documents, they you need to advise the complainer to call the proper agency--polisce, animal control or whatever. If the nuisance is weispread among many residents, the board might censor making a rule about it.

What examples can you supply of complaints about something not in your rules, but against the law??

Thanks- Examples would be ATVs, UTVs, off road bikes, drones, specific rentals (greater than 30 days but under 180 days)- a bunch of things which are not allowed (public roads, so driven illegally until get to our private roads), drones have rules for commercial use (like real estate agents,etc); rentals allowed over 30 days in CCRs, but County 180 days; things like that. Get occasional complaints on all these, but from what I've read, there probably would be retroactive issues with the vehicles, etc. I'm most interested in getting a feel for Board obligations vs other options, particularly when state seems to busy to get involved.

Thanks again. Sounds like a good philosophy.

If either a municipal, county, state or federal law is not being enforced, and the Board is fed up with this, then the Board can ask the HOA attorney about filing for a writ of mandamus. Mandamus is a pretty common tool for getting governments to enforce the law.

Controlling authority in Florida is Art. V, Sec. 5(b) of the Florida Constitution. It states that Florida Circuit Courts "shall have the power to issue writs of mandamus..."