When owners successfully bully HOAs

As I've conceded, I loathe HOAs. I view HOA boards as sometimes filled with incompetent people on a power trip who wish to lord it over pliant homeowners, rightly or wrongly. I know that perhaps a large majority of HOAs are run by competent, well-meaning people who are simply trying to make their communities better, but I've had some negative experiences with HOAs and just loathe them.

To the contrary of my view:

Have you seen situations in which homeowners bully and browbeat HOA boards into submission, or otherwise lord it over HOA boards? If so, how have homeowners done that: by lawsuits, flaunting HOA rules or doing something else?

I'd be curious to hear real-life stories.

Thanks.

We had one person attempt to bully our BOD at an Annual Meeting. We informed him several times on procedures and finally when he opened his mouth, there were boo's from fellow owners. He stormed out in a huff.

I always took threats to "sue the HOA" with a grain of salt. They were passive aggressive ways for people to try to assert "power". My opinion is if the decision the HOA took followed the rules/laws then got no problem you not liking the decision made. Had people try to threaten to sue us over the lawncare pulling out their plants. That is what the landscaper's insurance is for. So not going to even put that on our HOA's radar.

Know your rules and the rest will fall in line. I never responded to a threat of lawsuit to bow down to anyone's issues. You want to sue then accept the fact you are suing yourself and your neighbors and go for it. Will wait on the paperwork until then we can work on a solution not empty threats.

The best way to address bullies like this is not to play. When people start to drink out, it's natural to respond in kind, but that makes the other person angrier and things soon escalate. Other people feed off that energy and you end up with a hot mess.

There were only two or three incidents I can recall from my 10 years on the board when people came to a board meeting upset about something, but mostly they would vent during the resident forum and leave. Once we anticipated there would be drama (we began towing cars without parking passes) so we asked our courtesy officer to stick around after he gave his report. He's an off duty cop and can toss people behaving badly during board meetings.

A few people will always try you, so it's best to sit and LISTEN without emotion. Some to.e you respond by speaking calmly and in a professional manner and that can defuse the other person because he or she isn't expecting that.

Then you can go home, tell at the top of your voice, and maybe have a glass of wine to calm down! Be careful of the booze consumption though, you don't want to create health problems for yourself.

Same thing I do.

In one HOA we had a guy who was angry about dog waste in the patch of common area grass next to his townhouse. He was also angry about cars parking near his house illegally but both he and his wife parked illegally themselves so he was really just wanting people towed from the front of his house so he could park illegally there. The tactics he used was to call the state office that has responsibility for HOA oversight. They have limited powers and his position was clearly flawed so nothing came of that at all. He also berated the Board and management company in annual meetings using an elevated voice. The effect of all that was people stopped coming to the annual meetings and when the board changed out, it opened the door to a self serving board member to essentially take control of the board and made several bad decisions that affected property values. He carefully selected appointed board members who would be compliant to him and not make waves for him but who would stand beside him when something he did came under scrutiny. Because the annual meetings became largely unattended, the hot head guy reverted to a heavy email campaign to the management company and then the board members. If a board member were courteous, then he wold target them all hours of the day and night with photos of cars parked in front of his house. Then, he reverted to calling the police whenever a car was one foot over a yellow line and made sure they got a parking ticket.

Michelle,

I am having a hard time following ...can you relook and retype?

We've had a situation where an owner tried to bully the board by threatening a lawsuit, because we refused to enforce ambiguous restrictions. The law was on our side so we diplomatically told him to pack sand.

As long as you follow your CC&Rs and the law and don't exceed your authority, you can counter any bullying.