Mold/mildew siding

We are looking for suggestions on what has worked for other communities for getting people to clean the mold and mildew off their siding. We currently fine them $100 month but we have many homes who are just ignoring us and letting their fines grow. It’s making our community look rundown. Our community is only 3 years old, most homes are in the $400,000 range, and they are still building homes in it but this is also hurting home sales. We’ve offered assistance if help is needed but again we’ve just been ignored.

Each home is responsible for all their own maintenance/landscaping. The mold is very common in our area especially depending which way your house faces and if you get a lot of morning dew. A small pressure washer or even a bucket and sponge with a little sweat equity once or twice year would easily take care of it. We’ve even offered assistance but we’re just being ignored.

It could be algae - as my condo community gets older and the landscaping grows, algae regrows more frequently on the siding. My association power washes our buildings every other year, and we occasionally try some new product that claims to inhibit mold and algae (available at your local big box home improvement stores).

However, if you're in an HOA that is not responsible for exterior maintenance, it's hard to force owners to do anything about it (and I agree, it looks awful).

You might try educating folks about lower property values as a result. I would suggest maybe getting people to agree to allow the HOA to clean the exteriors since you could get a group rate. However, if people own their homes, there would be potential liability issues if something gets damaged.

Re: the fines, many states don't allow an HOA to foreclose based on fines but I believe that Ohio does. (My COA's declaration states that fines are treated as any other assessment, and our attorney agreed that this means we can foreclose.) This may get people's attention. Or take 'em to small claims court for non-payment of the fines. You want the consequences of ignoring exterior maintenance to outweigh any benefit they get from it.

Your fines need teeth like a lien.

Steve, thanks for your reply but no need to be rude. I’m literally just reaching out for help here. Yes, we are legally allowed to fine for this. No, I am not making anything up, I’m just trying to give you the big picture and get suggestions. The builder has reached out to the HOA several times about this hurting the appeal of the community. Potential buyers are not wanting to spend this kind of money when many houses along the main entrance are ones looking terrible. They have a new section of $400,000 up to $500,000 homes and there are many other communities around to choose from.. Thanks for bleach suggestion, we know how to remove it, my question is how to enforce it??

That would probably be tough. I'm assuming that homeowners own their entire home as well as the ground it sits on (ie., not a condo). At the very least you'd probably need to get 100% buy-in from the community since you could be changing property rights. And there is the issue of liability if the product used by the HOA damages someone's siding (or they claim that it damaged the siding).

Courts also tend to side with homeowners when an HOA acts in a heavy-handed manner.

One thing to look at: does the OP's Declaration give individual homeowners the right to sue other homeowners for violations of the CC&Rs? (The Declarations from HOAs in my area tend to do so.) If so, perhaps a combination of education, liens for unpaid fines, and a little social pressure from the neighbors may help.

Sadly, though, I don't think you're ever going to get 100% compliance in any community without heavy-handed tactics, which may end up causing worse outcomes than the original problem you were trying to solve.

Joni

Search your documents for the right of an association to enter on an owners property to correct a violation the owner refuses to correct. I am not advocating doing it but it could be a cudgel to force them to.

As I said earlier. Back your fine up with a lawyer form the associations attorney threatening a lien. Thta will get their attention.