HOA serving as landlord for abandoned property

Our HOA is renting out the townhouse next to mine after bringing a case against the owner for non-payment of association dues. The owner has not lived in this townhouse for ~8 years now. The court is allowing the HOA to collect rent to make us whole. This means we have renters & have had 3 in the last 4 years. The first 2 defaulted on payments so their leases were not renewed. The renters now are paying, but because of the noise, trespassing on my property, & other issues, I have lodged several complaints against them including police reports, which have made me fear for my safety in my own home.
I am trying to work with our board to put pressure on the owner so we can get out of this rental cycle. Our board's legal rep took interest, not realizing there had been so many renters & there was talk of a forced sale, but that has not gotten anywhere yet after over a year of discussion.
I've looked into selling, but because of this rental situation & the condition of the unit, I am concerned about the ability to sell (our carports are directly next to each other with no barrier between & all their mess is clearly visible when entering my townhouse, for which I have lodged complaints).
To help assuage my situation, I recently refinanced & I would have to wait another year or so before it would be sensible to try to sell.
New owners on the other side of this rental have also lodged complaints & we have joined together with our complaints to the board. We can't even get our board to agree on a meeting to discuss our issues that are causing great frustration & concern.
I know bad neighbors are just that, but because the HOA is effectively the landlord of this property & the renters, it is their responsibility to assure abidance to the rules. I have been a renter & I know the rules that my landlords had laid down & I knew there would be consequences if I didn't follow them. And because the owner has created this situation, I ask why the HOA hasn't put real pressure on them to sell the property. It seems the board's only concern is the money regardless of the concerns of the owners like me & the owner on the other side of this rental.
This has really been a rough year for so many reasons & for so many people. I really liked it here when I bought my townhouse, I like my other neighbors & I don't want to have to sell or move.
I'd be grateful for any suggestions, recommendations, or solutions.
(First time "listener" & first time "caller" (poster) on this site.)
Thank you.

Thank you for your response, Cathy.

I mislabeled this post then, using "abandoned". Yes, as far as we know, the home is owned by a person. We do not know if it's paid off or not, or if it has been foreclosed. I imagine we would have heard if that happened?

This current lease was drawn up by our property management company. The HOA is collecting the rent, which I thought makes them (us) the landlord.

In addition to the delinquent association fees, we are collecting for repairs of damage made by one of the previous renters.

The current renter's lease has been moved to a 3-month lease after the 1st year, which ended in October, so this current lease ends today. There was talk of not renewing the lease, but that didn't happen. I was told the all the delinquent monies were collected, then I was told they were not. If the lease is up, we can choose NOT to renew for no reason with the proper amount of notice, is that correct?

I appreciated your stating "They're no doubt aggravated with the problems this owner has caused, but you're more likely to solve them if you're on the same page." You are absolutely correct, my correspondence with the board has been respectful & understanding, but they are making it hard. It feels as though we're being punished for complaining about this. While I understand & can empathize with our board - they are volunteers & obviously have other responsibilities - it seems like they don't want to deal with this & our complaints are annoying them. Meanwhile, I like my townhouse a little less every day because of this. :-(

And believe me, I have detailed records of this issue.

Thanks again.

It sounds like your HOA possesses title to the townhome through foreclosure so check your county tax records.
The HOA would not be renting out a property under a private owner's name. I see no situation how that occurs.

The HOA needs to restore a dues payer to the property and get out of the rental business. I agree.

I had to double-check your state, because this sounds like something that happened in my townhouse community - a lot! This is why I usually side-eye people who rent out their units - like you, I rented for several years before becoming a homeowner, and during my 10 years on the HOA board, I saw too many homeowner/landlords who didn't give a damn how their tenants behaved unless or until the rent check bounces.

You say the property was abandoned so the original owner of the unit is long gone. I suspect the HOA foreclosed on the unit for the back assessments, and because they were so hefty the place is being rented out to pay down the assessments and the local costs. That's not a bad idea - our community did this with one unit and managed to sell it, but as anyone who rents out his/her home can tell you, you don't always know what kind of people you're renting to until they move in.

In your case, you do need to speak to the board about these tenants, but you should also be prepared to come with specifics, like dates, times, and perhaps photos of the trespassing (e.g. if they're parking in your carport, that's an issue). The police reports should also serve as ammunition to compel the board to decide if these complaints are worth the money or if eviction notices are appropriate at this point. If they don't respond, you may have to talk to a private attorney about your options - you do have a right to quiet enjoyment of your property, and while I appreciate the board doing what it can to recoup the association's expenses, they also have a responsibility to be a decent landlord.

I absolutely agree!

Any repairs that are needed or improvements to this rental are paid for by my HOA & added to the bill that is being paid by the rent. And even if we recoup the delinquent dues, every month that there is no payer in that home, the dues start adding up again. It will be a never-ending cycle if they don't do something about the owner.

Our property management company "vetted" the current renters & drew up the current lease. The previous renters were chosen by a board member, & those leases were made by this board member, who was (is) a real estate agent.

The board members are getting annoyed with my complaints. They are making it hard to even meet to talk about this. I'm getting the distinct impression that they would rather keep collecting the rent instead of deal with putting an end to this. It's maddening & dangerous. I am very concerned about it not ending well.

Well considering the HOA could get into some big trouble for renting this place out, they may not do much. Why? Well I don't exactly trust the relationship the HOA has undertaken here. They may not legally be allowed to collect rent. They can not even collect the dues for the property except from the owner. So maybe they are renting it out at what the dues rate is? Anything above that could be considered "profit".

Here is what the PM and the HOA did to themselves. IF the bank decides to foreclose on this property or already has, the HOA could be on the hook for that rent paying back. It's not their property to rent. This is potentially a BIG issue if it gets exposed. Meaning the HOA including yourself could be facing a huge bill for this in the end.

I don't think the court would actually do that. Yes courts are to make you "Whole" but in this situation what does that mean? The HOA is renting this out for monthly dues? Wow! What a deal if dues are $100 a month and you get a 3 bedroom 2 bath house??? It doesn't pass the smell test...

There has to be more legal reasons for this to be happening. Which to me smells more like the HOA foreclosed on the owner and "won" the property at the bid. That situation would fit here. It is a bad bad idea to have the HOA do this. They should have gotten rid of the property than own it. A real life illustration of why I always tell people that the HOA owning their own foreclosure is a bad idea.

If the owner didn't pay assessments or even live in the place for 6 years before the board took action, I'm sure she doesn't care at all about what happens to the place now, so I wouldn't worry about her - yet.

You say there's a court ruling related to all this - you don't need to ask the board for a copy of the documents. Just go to the county courthouse and look it up. You may also want to visit the assessor and recorder's office and look up the property to see exactly who owns it. You may find the association has some sort of rent garnishment where the place is rented out and the association gets X amount before the rest goes to the owner - when I was on the board, we had limited success with this, because in this state, the tenant renting the property has to sign papers stating he or she will pay rent to the association -if they ignored the paperwork altogether, there wasn't much that could be done.

Another way to grab the house is by foreclosing on it and it goes up for a sheriff's sale. The owner can put in a bid to try and save the home, but usually, they're already out of the picture and the house goes to whoever has the highest bid. All of that said, I'm inclined to agree with melissa that the HOA may have overstepped its bounds in renting the place out if they didn't make sure everything was done legally. Especially if there was a mortgage - I'm sure the bank wouldn't be happy at finding out the place is being rented - that could be contrary to its mortgage agreement - or they're still trying to catch up with all the foreclosures from 2008 (and unfortunately the tsunami that's coming thanks to COVID) and haven't noticed.

Following up on my previous post, the real problem here is the tenants. They would be a problem even if the owner were not delinquent on assessments, and good tenants would not be an issue at all. So ignore delinquencies for now.

The problem becomes: how much control does the HOA have over rentals in general?

* Look in your governing documents to see if there is a rental restriction.

* If so, what does it say? For example, does it require a formal lease? What is the minimum length of the lease? Must the lease contain any language stating that tenants must comply with the community's governing documents and other rules? Must the owner provide a copy of the lease to the HOA? (These are pretty typical requirements, but not all rental restrictions have them.)

* For the lease currently in effect (and you may not be able to find out this info) Does the owner have the right to evict based on certain conditions? This won't be useful if the owner doesn't give a hoot, which sounds like the case.

* Do your governing docs give the HOA any say at all in rental situations? This is the important one. Some states allow this, although my sense is that it's not common.

Bottom line: governing docs and state laws must spell out what an HOA can do with regard to tenants. The HOA can't just make it up as they go along, or somebody will take them to court over it. In general an HOA has no legal relationship with a tenant, only with the owner - but the court order allowing the HOA to collect rents may have changed that in some way that we don't know about.

This is one situation in which apartment complexes have more options available to deal with problem residents. HOAs have comparatively few. And renters in apartments can just up sticks if they find themselves in a bad situation, even breaking the lease if they're willing to take the financial hit. Homeowners can't do that.

Thanks to all who took the time to offer good info & share your knowledge with me. I appreciate your responses very much.
Julie