Singles versus Family - Social Functions

Covid restrictions only made this worse. We have 1300 single family homes. No condos. Everyone pays the same rate to the master. We have some subs. As of late residents who have 1 or 2 people in their household have been arguing they are being discriminated against because they only get 1 of X and a house of 5 gets 5 of X. We are simply limiting X to residents and not guests. Thoughts on this? I can't find any legal stance on this. There is nothing in any of governing documents about it.

A little more explanation please - what do you mean by a household of 1 or 2 people get 1 of X - what is X?

With regards to COVID, I would think if someone's renting the flu house for something, social distancing may limit total capacity to X number of people. I don't see where the household size affects that. Likewise if you have a pool, every household should get the same number of passes for guests. I suppose the one or two households think the larger household would be able to have more peoples because those residents automatically get access to the pool because they live there.

If THAT'S the problem, you might limit access to residents only and skip guests altogether until the state or county lifts restrictions. That seems to be happening everywhere so you may want to limit events to homeowners and family members only until that happens. Otherwise, these people may need to make a better case explaining why this is unfair.

Sorry say one resident lives by themselves. And another has a family of five that all legally live in the house.

The social committee wants to put on a event at the ball park. And buy 1000 tickets to the game from HOA dues money.

The person of one is saying it’s not fair they only get one ticket and the house of five gets five tickets. Because we all pay the same amount of dues. There is an option to buy more at a discount rate we negotiated with the ball park.

It’s a social committee function. We have budgeted events we do all the time for the community. This is pretty common in my neck of the woods

This is exactly it. Every household gets a punch card for 20 people. The people who are single are upset because households with five members get more “things”.

I agree with Sheila. I personally think social functions should be participant-supported as much as possible. Just because it's legal to tell people to get over it doesn't mean it's a good idea. Why cause resentments when you don't have to?

Some developments are specifically marketed as having social functions and hopefully the CCRs are written to support that.

Ryan, what do your governing docs say about funding social activities?

Totally agree with the idea of issuing 2 tickets or so to each household and collecting payment for additional tickets.

Issuing two tix per household, as ND suggests, seems good. Everyone has equal access that way.

All amenities are paid for equally in my HOA and, of course, some folks never use the pool, or the gym, or the Billiards table, or... or. Some lower level condo units rarely use the elevators. Upper floor units use more electricity and "elevator contract than 2nds floor units. Cars parked in the P-3 level put a lot more wear & tear on our ramps to the levels, etc., etc. But that's what everyone purchased. Every unit has equal access to every amenity and component in our HOA.

Though we have a handful of condos w/close to 3,000 sf, the vast majority are 1,100-1,400 sf. We do have a sq. ft variable with larger units paying more for gas, water and building insurance.

Please quote the covenant that authorizes spending money on social functions such as this outing to the ball park.

Your HOA is going to do what it wants. But it is reckless not to consider the liability that may result once someone figures out the HOA is spending quite a bit of money on things not named in the covenants.

The debate over whether an HOA should pay for social events is evergreen on this forum and I don't think anyone ever changes their position so I'm not going to rehash it yet again.

OP, I manage a similar size community and have some suggestions for ways you can offset social committee expenses and mitigate the complaints about bigger families getting "more of X'. Use the power of your large community, which is also a large, highly localized customer base.

Instead of the association providing food, bring in some food trucks to vend. I have been doing this with *huge* success. People who want food can get it, and you don't have to worry about buying, hauling, storing, handling or disposing of food.

I've also had success with letting scout troops, sports teams, cheerleaders etc run a concession stand at events (for their benefit).

Instead of paying for events, get local businesses to sponsor them in exchange for advertising. We had a huge spring carnival, each booth was sponsored by a different local business. Realtors, insurance agents, dentists, local restaurants... They had signage at the booth and in all the advertisements for the events, and if they supplied a volunteer to run the booth they could have their business cards at the booth as well. Even better if the businesses are owned by people who live in the neighborhood. I am lucky to have multiple residents who licensed catering businesses and one who owns a bounce house rental business, DJ's, a photobooth rental... we can put on a professional event just with residents. You probably have a lot of resources too, if you look.

And as others have said, offer group discounts for tickets, instead of buying tickets.

You can have more events, and a bigger variety of events, by self-funding. We used to have one or two events a year, now there's a food truck every Wednesday, four major annual events, and a variety of smaller outings.

Since most of the common areas in the community are drainage or utility easements, there wasn't much that could be built in the way of amenities. (We have two pools, two playgrounds, two parks and a fishing pond but that's not much compared to nearby communities). A robust calendar of social events fills that gap.

For honks and giggles, I read through my CC&Rs and By-Laws, and they make it pretty clear that assessments are to be used to maintain the physical property of the condominium association, along with payment for things like utilities, insurance, taxes, and wages for employees needed to provide for these things.

Nowhere does it mention recreation or welfare of the residents. There is some vague language in the By-Laws giving the board the right to include "other expenses" but only ones that have been approved by the majority of the membership. Since my community has no amenities or areas suitable for recreation, we basically self-select for members who aren't interested in these things. It's unlikely that social events would receive the necessary votes.

So at least part of the disagreement over this topic arises from the fact that some CC&Rs allow spending for it and some pretty clearly do not. And as others have said, if your CC&Rs do not, then it's perfectly doable to host events without using association funds.

Or breakfast in bed on Sundays.