BillD16 (Texas)
Posts: 971
Posts: 971
Posted:
Hello. I’m sorry this is rather long. I live in a Texas neighborhood of 600+ single family homes. I was elected to my neighborhood’s 5-person ROA Board a month ago. Several years ago, the ROA Board hired a management company (call them AMCo) to assist in running the neighborhood.
For the past year+, AMCo has been “insensitive” about handing out CCR violations. A common question on our unofficial neighborhood FB group is “I need to do some yard work. How can I avoid getting a violation notice?” The notices are mostly “courtesy notices”, but they aren’t especially courteous, and they can easily escalate to fines. And AMCo makes too-frequent mistakes, citing violations that aren’t really violations, sending a 3rd notice when there was no 2nd notice, trivial “please edge your lawn” violations that don’t do much beyond raise people’s blood pressure.
This situation may or may not seem like a big deal - but I was elected to the Board because I promised to try and reign AMCo in. I guess I have to ask you to believe me when I say that the neighborhood is growing increasingly unhappy over this stuff[1].
Here’s where I’m having problems: the other Board members say that they recognize the issue, but they don’t seem to really want to do anything about it.
For example: AMCo patrols the neighborhood twice a month. The Board gets a report of the violations with pictures and details. This latest report listed ~70 violations, most of which were of the trivial “please edge your lawn” variety. However, the Board is *extremely* hesitant about asking AMCo to remove violations. One Board member has stated that we should ask AMCo to not send us the violations report at all and just let AMCo do whatever they want.
I learned that the violation patrols are scheduled. So I asked: why don’t we tell people the schedule? I mean, we just want to keep the neighborhood looking nice, right? There’s no benefit to keeping it all a secret, is there? I was told “notice of the drives should not be given since that would lead to people only taking care of their exteriors near the time of the drive instead of on a more regular basis.”
I’d like to be clear: I understand that some violations need to be sent out: extremely neglected yards, bushes and trees that obstruct the sidewalk, hazards, etc. But many / most of the violations are trivial stuff like “trash bins at curb one hour early” (when, in fact, there were no established rules about putting out trash bins).
The Board seems extremely paranoid about anything that might be construed as “selective enforcement”. I’m not certain how realistic their fears are. If the Board uses reasonable judgement to cull obviously trivial violations, is that a significant risk?
A thought I had: could we limit each patrol to a maximum of (say) 30 violations?
Again, I’m sorry this is so long. And despite my best efforts, it probably reads like a rant. I really just want my neighborhood to be a nice place where people don’t live in fear of the management company. Any advice would be most appreciated.
One last thing: our contract with AMCo is up for renewal at the end of the year. If anyone has had experience in leveraging a property management company to use a less-heavy hand, I’d love to hear about it. AMCo handles most things quite well - it’s just these violations that are a problem.
Thank you.
Bill
[1] if it matters the vote was 150 to 50. I won’t call it a “landslide”, but it was unusually high turnout, and I think I’m the only person *ever* to run for the Board on an issue (Ie, control AMCo violations).
For the past year+, AMCo has been “insensitive” about handing out CCR violations. A common question on our unofficial neighborhood FB group is “I need to do some yard work. How can I avoid getting a violation notice?” The notices are mostly “courtesy notices”, but they aren’t especially courteous, and they can easily escalate to fines. And AMCo makes too-frequent mistakes, citing violations that aren’t really violations, sending a 3rd notice when there was no 2nd notice, trivial “please edge your lawn” violations that don’t do much beyond raise people’s blood pressure.
This situation may or may not seem like a big deal - but I was elected to the Board because I promised to try and reign AMCo in. I guess I have to ask you to believe me when I say that the neighborhood is growing increasingly unhappy over this stuff[1].
Here’s where I’m having problems: the other Board members say that they recognize the issue, but they don’t seem to really want to do anything about it.
For example: AMCo patrols the neighborhood twice a month. The Board gets a report of the violations with pictures and details. This latest report listed ~70 violations, most of which were of the trivial “please edge your lawn” variety. However, the Board is *extremely* hesitant about asking AMCo to remove violations. One Board member has stated that we should ask AMCo to not send us the violations report at all and just let AMCo do whatever they want.
I learned that the violation patrols are scheduled. So I asked: why don’t we tell people the schedule? I mean, we just want to keep the neighborhood looking nice, right? There’s no benefit to keeping it all a secret, is there? I was told “notice of the drives should not be given since that would lead to people only taking care of their exteriors near the time of the drive instead of on a more regular basis.”
I’d like to be clear: I understand that some violations need to be sent out: extremely neglected yards, bushes and trees that obstruct the sidewalk, hazards, etc. But many / most of the violations are trivial stuff like “trash bins at curb one hour early” (when, in fact, there were no established rules about putting out trash bins).
The Board seems extremely paranoid about anything that might be construed as “selective enforcement”. I’m not certain how realistic their fears are. If the Board uses reasonable judgement to cull obviously trivial violations, is that a significant risk?
A thought I had: could we limit each patrol to a maximum of (say) 30 violations?
Again, I’m sorry this is so long. And despite my best efforts, it probably reads like a rant. I really just want my neighborhood to be a nice place where people don’t live in fear of the management company. Any advice would be most appreciated.
One last thing: our contract with AMCo is up for renewal at the end of the year. If anyone has had experience in leveraging a property management company to use a less-heavy hand, I’d love to hear about it. AMCo handles most things quite well - it’s just these violations that are a problem.
Thank you.
Bill
[1] if it matters the vote was 150 to 50. I won’t call it a “landslide”, but it was unusually high turnout, and I think I’m the only person *ever* to run for the Board on an issue (Ie, control AMCo violations).
HOA Board ex-President
Austin, Texas USA
“You can’t put too much water in a nuclear reactor”
Austin, Texas USA
“You can’t put too much water in a nuclear reactor”
