What are some of the best State laws for HOA?

Mandatory payment of directors of $8000 per year adjusted for location and inflation annually while retaining "volunteer" status under federal law.

Why? Because I am studying non-HOA neighborhoods that are beautifully maintained in one county but just across the county line, in another state, the houses are wrecks, due to lack of regulation. I think it's all about code enforcement by professionals.

This might be a good resource for you

https://communityassociations.net/oregon-resources/

Too many Boards don't fund Reserve Accounts because they don't understand them!

In addition, Board's who do not raise dues by the CCR allowed %'s because they want to be able to tell everyone, "Hey. We're not raising the dues". Should be the other way around. Raise the dues as allowed. Refund any dues, "cough, cough" over collected when there is a valid surplus.

Send HOA's into receivership when there isn't a Board quorum within a determined amount of time. Operating without a quorum is about the same as operating with no Board at all. Ours operated for over 10 years without a Board quorum. Too little got done and now we're paying the price.

Require that Board terms be 2 years and staggered. A Board with all one year terms can never get anything done.

North Carolina tried to require new Board members to attend an educational 4 hours course to be on the Board a few years back. It was voted down.

Overall, I think it's a great idea for those that are committed. Downside it that the few that actually volunteer may not if the requirement were there.

"Best" is subjective. You may think one way, your neighbors may think another, the developer thinks yet another way. So do the legislators (many of who will go along with whoever donated the most money to his/her campaign).

Instead, I'd like to see more transparency and training for homeowners who grow up to become HOA board members. I MIGHT go along with paying directors, although $8K is too much - you want that kind of money, we need performance standards that are fairly objective. Keeping assessments “low” isn’t one of them – just look at Surfside to see how well that worked out. I’ll have to think about the type of standards – maybe we can start with showing up to the damned meeting every month on time.

Mandatory and continuing education of board members is necessary (webinar or in-person is fine.) The developers must provide initial training to the first board – and attending training sessions must be mandatory. How subsequent boards keep their skills up is up to them.

Addressing underfunded reserves is long overdue – let’s start with requiring developers to obtain a reserve study for the initial board to use, along with mandatory training on what it is and how it’s used. Initial funding for, say, the first 10 years after the HOA changes hands would also be nice.

Pat’s suggestion about HOAs being put into receivership when there hasn’t been a board quorum is interesting. In case people are concerned about the courts being swamped with supervising receivers, maybe something within another agency could be set up (state or local, such as housing).

Requiring the CCRs, Bylaws, the last years’ worth (maybe two) of board meeting minutes, the most recent reserve study and an income/expense statement for the last two or three years – with a one or two week period to review everything and ask questions BEFORE the closing would be good. At closing, the buyer must sign a statement indicating he/she received this stuff. It doesn’t matter if the buyer is an individual homeowner or an investor.

Do we need states to standardize rules regarding fines? Perhaps – let’s start with mandating appeal rights, annual disclosure of a fine schedule and prohibiting daily fines.

In my city, landlords are supposed to register with the city, partly to identify who to go after when a house or building goes to shit. I don’t know how effective it is, but if you’re going to own a home (or several) in a HOA, there needs to be a way of tracking these people. There may need to be some special things done regarding out of state owners.

I think this exactly. I've called the Secretary of State office and Consumer Protection Office regarding HOA violating the already existing State Laws (think annual meetings, records requests, annual budgets & financials, etc) and was told that its a contract dispute between the Homeowner and the HOA. This is what's shocking to me. I think some states like AZ will enforce violations, but most states don't. What's the point of having laws for Non-Profit Entities if the gov't can't or won't enforce violations?

First, the government, via the courts, will enforce statutes and remedy violations of the same. Arguably doing so is a lot easier than only enforcing a covenant.

Second, I think what you want to say to whomever it is you say has clout is to re-write the law so that it is easier to enforce in the courts or by demand letter. For example, at least two states have HOA/COA statutes that charge fines for every day a record request is denied.

Those are some great laws. One of the worst ones recently passed in Nevada prohibits the towing of cars with expired registrations. Now one of our renting problem children has three junk cars parked in the
street we can't touch.

what gov't entity is going to enforce a violated statute by an HOA? How? That's the big question. As I've said, it seems that neither the Secretary of State or the Consumers Affairs depts are interested in taking an HOA to court for such violations.

What two states have the late fee for records requests? very interesting.

I would be curious too. I've been to court on these types of issues and can't get anything accomplished. Judges or Commissioners either don't know the law, or live in a HOA and won't rule either way. I had a case during a transition that a judge refused to act on the associations behalf to release the HOA's property.

I understand our legal system is supposed to one of the best, but it sure sucks.

humor me, because I certainly didn't see anything in your replies answering...

Whether a legislated TRIBUNAL MODEL ?

Respectfully, you should be aware that several Canadian jurisdictions have grudgingly enacted specialized ADJUDICATIVE TRIBUNALS that have diverted all but the most serious ( condo / cross-covenanted ) disputes away from the massively overloaded civil justice systems.

I myself was sceptical. But by now they seem to be delivering on quicker cheaper solutions partially funded by disputant governancers & owners.

The legislated platforms bar appeals except generally on questions of law or competing jurisdictions between tribunals. A defied tribunal Order becomes enforceable like a conventional court order by later registration in the civil justice system. They are arms-length from state government such as the controversial Florida model.

Amidst COVID 19 the Tribunal model has been more flexible / quicker ( than the conventional court hierarchies shut down ) to embrace ONDR online dispute resolution & ZOOM type interactions during the compulsory initial resolution stages. Ontario's started with records denial adjudication & has been expanded to pets/parking/nuisance disputes ( & butt-kicking ).

The downsides include that "recoverable" / "directly awardable" legal billings diminish ( because financial awards are capped ) . That's particularly of concern to a certain sub-category of junior or middle profession attorneys. Disputant parties can be represented by property managers or Directors, but financial caps restore some sorta commensuracy. Paralegals may benefit. LAWYERS will generally not dance with joy; state bars may fight this bitterly.

The jurisdictions are Ontario & British Columbia, both with massive past jurisprudence in condo legislation & prescribed regulation. ( The English & Welsh incidentally have a tribunal model that ruthlessly resolves applications to strike down obsolete cross-covenants, but the Brits are not into condo law. )

In perspective the Tribunal model CAN - CAN - divert "load" from a jurisdiction's overloaded civil justice system.

And arguably by cheaper & quicker addressing some ( but not all ) transparency issues - eg Ontario's records disgorgement Orders - it tends to address power imbalances that otherwise cripple the self-correcting tools of private organizations eg secretive Boards illegally withholding records sought by kvetchers & election challengers.

It is an incentive - howsoever imperfect - to transparency & an Open Book. And disturbers now face cheaper tools of enforcement to punish them.

It's unclear if providing quicker cheaper resolutions may increase the options previously too complex or expensive for disputants to even submit to the conventional civil justice system.

Respectfully Max, the Tribunal model is a 20th century American model.

( It did not originate here in the Big Freeze, but its borrowing of U.S. solutions breaks new ground. )

Just for the record, you had disparaged the credibility of an item I posted about Judge Judy's explosive resolution of a California window replacement slam-dunking. The current count of its viewers is over 3400 ( or about 30 times the typical viewer count for most topics here ).

And by the way, for someone with your many obligations & professional activity, how do you get the time to comment so widely ? Can barely keep up myself with servicing my own John Deere.

Did you mention exactly which law school ( or university ? ) provided your training ?

Anyway thanks for the comment about this alternative provided to the OP & others if interested.

I think maybe we are talking on different wavelengths. I never said any of what you are attributing to me. In fact, I'm asking for ways and means to get gov't to bring action and take HOA's to court. Courts can't enforce statutes if there is no matter in front of them. Someone has to take the HOA to court. Most states throw their hands up in the air and say "whatever" when an HOA violates the statutes, as I've given examples previously. The SoS and Consumer Affairs, which are supposed to regulate buisness entities (which an HOA is) usually say: well, its just a contract dispute between you and your HOA.... The only way currently for most homeowners to try to force an issue is to sue their HOA, rather than the State Attorney General to file suit against an HOA that is violating State Statute.

So again I ask: what State Agency are you proposing should assume jurisdiction and enforce current State Law? That's the problem statement

I would.

And do we really want our tax dollars paying for a state ombudsman with legal clout who has to wade through complaints that have no basis in the law of covenants/HOAs/COAs and explain to the HOA/COA owner that the state cannot help? The HOA/COA owner is not going to understand anyway.

Isn't about half of the griping here lacking legal merit and more of the nature of "My HOA/COA Board has set up a dictatorship!" (Wrong. Read the covenants.) I think these disputes are more often than not all about a flavor of consumer illiteracy.

In other words, and from where I am sitting: It's a terrible system but I can think of worse ones.

I am pretty resolute at this point that I do not want to live in a HOA or COA. I would just be unhappy with all the fighting; the likelihood that those serving on the board hardly do so happily (which is understandable); and how around one-third of what I pay is going to be money going to administrators (managers) who do take direction from unqualified volunteers. (I have seen some good HOA/COA managers. But it's a roll of the dice.)

Just imagine what I think of your understanding.

this is going in circles. Courts do not initiate and file criminal complaints or lawsuits. I don't know how else to rephrase this to you. If you don't understand how the branches of gov't operate, I don't know what else you and I can talk about here, if you think the courts are the ones that are filing these matters.

Sigh.

Anyway, can we please get back to the topic....
Has any state really written a good AirBnB/rental protection law?
Has any state written a good mediation/arbitration before courts law?
Has any state written a good transparency, open meetings or records law?