How to have a minimal HOA and ACC?

I'm surprised that you are surprised that it wasn't brought up during the election.


It is the duty of the board to, evenly, enforce the covenants.
They don't have to go looking, but if informed, they should act within the confines of the governing documents - equally on all members.


Granted, there likely is nothing to compel a board to be rigid or relaxed on enforcement.
Hence, it's the choice of each board on how to respond to violations.


Expecting that the board has the authority for monetary penalties for non-compliance, fining all who are in violation would be the proper way to handle violations. Otherwise, it would be selective enforcement.

If there are many in violation, the board might not be reelected (providing that those who disagree with the board actually gather support and get themselves elected to the board).


I've heard of not having enough volunteers for an ARC.
I've never heard of a board disbanding the whole committee.

That said, committee members serve at the pleasure of the board.

If there are no volunteers to serve on the committee, then the board must be the committee until they can find volunteers.


Yes, you can gather support and amend the documents.
documenting reluctance to be punitive would be counter productive.
Simply, specify how to enforce and, since past boards refused to enforce but looked the other way (per your posting) then I would suggest an article that allows the board to grant waivers to the covenants.

That said, I chose not to purchase in such a community in TX due to the potential of friends of the board getting waivers while others did not.

Hope this helps,

Tim

You have the whole concept of HOA's wrong CB. Lawyers and PM's have not a thing about making any HOA rules. It's the members of the HOA that do. A HOA is a "club" of homeowner's whom fund and enforce the conditions they want to live in/within. So don't go blaming the professionals. The job is in yours and your neighbor's hand...

You may be reluctant now to enforce the rules, but what happens when someone does or builds something that's truly obnoxious? Your community has a habit of being lax when it comes to enforcing rules, and that could work against you.

Like Tim, it seems to me you should have paid more attention during the board election when the candidates told you what they'd like to do and how they wanted to do it - do you think they were kidding? What's "heavy handed" to you may actually be quite reasonable. Things can and DO change after 20 years (or two months or two weeks), and you're correct that documents should be updated periodically to be concurrent with changes in HOA laws and the community.

And yes it IS a duty of the board to enforce the rules. Actually, homeowners can enforce the CCRs against each other, so what's stopping someone from going after YOU for a violation? It's still a rule and if you've been ignoring it, that may not fly in court. On the other hand, if the rules aren't enforced, a judge may render them unenforceable and that can make things really tough down the road when you have a big problem. I think your board recognizes this and is trying to fix that now.

The key to rule enforcement is not to nitpick over everything, but to be consistent and fair. You don't need a ton, just try to come up with the ones that are reasonable and tweak them from time to time as needed. It's not an exact science to come up with just enough that help the community to maintain its original look and design and facilitate homeowners to behave as good neighbors (pick up the dog poop, no junk cars on the lawn, etc.)

You don't say how large your community is, but it may be there are A LOT of people who think differently than you. That's ok, but if you want "minimum rules," perhaps a better approach is to look at what type of problems you have, which ones are more annoying than others, if there are emerging problems that need to be addressed and THEN add, drop or amend what you have. Rinse and repeat every few years and keep homeowners in the loop.