COVID19 and your HOA.

Amongst the COVID 19 shelter in place orders and employment challenges. How is your HOA going to address potential hoa dues being arrears.
Also have your HOA”s done anything about education of your owners, or reminders of no social gatherings? While 90% of our building is aware fo this, I keep seeing our younger residents with “firends’ coming over in and out constantly.

My HOA has put a few bottles of hand sanitizer around and has copied some coronavirus emails from retailers and has forwarded them to HOA residents. Management says that things are being cleaned more but I don't see it.

We're not planning to do anything out of the ordinary with the exception of possibly closing the pool, the small fitness center, and our clubhouse.

We're not health professionals and we won't be cautioning people to abide by the state's (or the CDC's) guidelines. It's not up to us to be reminding anyone of anything, much less enforcing them.

We have no plans at present to relax or modify our collections policy. No one is bailing us out.

I'm guessing these are the same tenants Nicole has complained about in all of her recent posts. I think I asked her elsewhere if they congregate in the common areas and I don't think she replied. I'm thinking they're going in and out of a home or unit and I'm not so sure we can do much about that as a board.

We are under a shelter in place order that prevents public gatherings among other things in a metro Atlanta county. Despite that, two board members, hell bent on having an active social committee at any cost, decided to organize a Zumba class in the middle of the street and invite all 130 homes to it. We have a 130 home association with no amenities and public roads.

I managed to get them to distance it from being an official HOA activity by stating as such publicly(which would have been a legal nightmare). A group of people not on the board, other than myself, tried to talk sense into them, showing them the county executive orders etc. but they were not interested in hearing any of it. Since we are dealing with a public health issue and violation county ordinances, as citizens, we are bringing it to the counties attention.

Beyond that, most other people seem to be respecting it. Our management company recommended that we not have any official in person HOA meetings. I our AR was a little bit behind before all of this happened so now we are in an interesting situation and will probably need to look at tightening out belts.

Lance,

It sounds as if the Board is NOT supporting/sanctioning this event, but private homeowners are, right?

Assuming the roads public, I don’t see much else the Board can do.

Make certain the Board’s position is in writing.

Our playgrounds and picnic pavilions are closed. Caution tape and signage is up. The pools aren't open for the season yet, they would normally open in May. We'll see how things are in a month. Annual meeting postponed.

The board has suspended collection activity for 60 days. Homeowners who have financial difficulties as a result of COVID-19 are asked to contact me to make payment arrangements.

With a recession seemingly looming, we are looking closely at discretionary budget items.

It's going to be 2008 all over again, if not worse. I lost my small business in the recession - that's how I got in to property management. And I remember those days of 50% delinquency and ghost houses - foreclosures where the people had moved out but the bank hadn't taken possession yet. Broken windows, squatters, abandoned pools filled with algae. It's gonna suck!

I would absolutely make it publicly known that these people are not acting on behalf of the association or the board and would even censure them if you can.

If there is even a perception that this is sanctioned by the board, the association could be sued and judges and juries don't always care if someone is acting on behalf of their organization.

Yes and no. There is a little bit of grey area because the VP (who is also the board social committee chair) is putting it on, along with another person who is on the social committee.

They announced it using our social committee e-mail list, but didn't indicate that the social committee was putting it on or sponsoring it. After I pushed the issue the president followed up and said, publicly on the same list, that it wasn't an event put on by the social committee but that, as the president of the HOA, she fully supports and endorses the event.

This probably keeps the HOA out of it but was a bit murky.

When I assessed the situation:
1. We are in a public health emergency.
2. There is someone knowingly and willingly violating county executive orders (ie: codes/laws/directive) during said emergency to put on the event who is also a board member.
3. While the president publicly said it wasn't board sponsored event, she then said that as the president she endorsed this which creates confusion.
4. Consequences for violating these kinds of things can range from a warning to $1000 fine and 120 days in jail to someone charging you with reckless endangerment if the county wants to make an example out of this. Probably not likely to come back to the board but...
5. Our Directors insurance does not cover the board if they knowingly violate the law.

In normal times there might be a bit more leeway, but given that we are in a pandemic, public health state of emergency, and these actions could lead to the loss of life I wanted to completely distance myself from this since it wasn't a clear cut case of the board distancing itself.

So I publicly replied and made it clear in writing that I, in my personal capacity, not representing the board, that doing something that violates the law and could lead to hospitalization and death is something that I cannot support. I also urged them publicly to comply with the county ordinances. Then privately I told them that if they didn't alter the event to comply with the ordinances, myself and some other neighbors would report them to the county. They dug in their heels so we reported them to the county.

Yes, these people, including fellow board members are not happy with me over this, but public health/safety comes before ruffled feathers in my book. Also my ass is covered, personally, if something does come back on the board.

I do not think Georgia has the concept of a censure in this setting. I could be wrong though. I know other states do, but haven't seen anything for GA. I agree that this is not ideal and has liability written all over it and in an ideal situation we would censure them.

I'm thinking, Lance, that to fully protect yourself you might want something in a board meeting's minutes in which you make a motion to ban this activity and all activities like it. I think you want to be on record and meeting minutes might be the best place to do this v. ordinary emails.

Our board has been meeting by conference calls, so just get your item on an agenda. Even if no director seconds you, or you lose the vote, you're on the official record of your HOA.

We were going to have an April meeting but that was cancelled due to the pandemic. I will do that. In the event of a lawsuit, my e-mails would be subject to discovery.

I never said that I was. It sounds like some others disagree with your assessment though. The problem is that two board members and a social committee person organized it, used the HOA list to advertise it and the president said that as the president they endorsed it even-though the event is not an official social committee activity. Overall we may be OK with that, but, because it has the appearance of being official and the president's statement makes it murky I took extra steps to cover my ass as a board member in the event it comes back on the association and pierces the corporate shield, which is what I did.

Authorities were also notified.

Our BOD and GM are in alignment and running full forward backwards in what they do.

The San Andreas Fault runs through our community and once again the insistence is in building a million dollar pool. We do not have a population large enough to support the use, cost of insurance, cost to rebuild, etc.

We have many in the community staying at home and practicing social distancing. We also have the direct counter in attitude and behavior, "this doesn't affect me."

We have private patrol, without badges and teeth. We do not have a police department but a sheriff's department which has limits due to Covid-19. Several have tested positive.

Our golf course was finally closed yesterday. Our home is on the golf course and safe distancing has not been practiced. Even after the closure, golfers were still on the course.

We have a clubhouse and contract post office, neither of which have been decontaminated.