Common Property & Parking

Bought a Townhouse 30 some years ago in an HOA governed community with a mix of garage and non-garage units. The neighborhood has but the very basic of amenities, roads, parking spots, sidewalks, streetlights and a few open grassy areas.

When purchased all parking spots were unassigned and open to all without restrictions. HOA dues are divided evenly among all residence covering operating & maintenance costs.

Recently the HOA assigned non-garage units two parking spots each and denied all access to garage units from parking anywhere but on there own property, i.e., garage and or driveway. However owners of garage units are still being charged the same due’s which covers the maintenance & upkeep of the parking spots.

From looking at the county Plat, the parking spots are indeed part of the common grounds belonging to all living in the development.

Is it legal for an HOA to deny homeowner’s use of common grounds while still charging them for all expenses related to maintain said property?

with Augustin, my opinion also is the HOA board cannot make this change without changing the CC&Rs, which requires a vote of owners.

I agree, Jason, that it' inequitable to take common area rights away form some and give the exclusively to others without Owners votes.

Can you tell us what if anything your CC&rs a say about parking?

I'm not a lawyer either, Jason. Your CC&Rs have to be recorded so you just need to get them from your county.

I don't know the statutes in MD, but many states only require that you make your request in writing to your association--maybe its "agent"--for a copy of the CC&Rs. Your own Bylaws may even say how to do this. The CC&Rs should describe the streets, if you're correct, as common area. If so, that cannot be changed without owners amending the CC&Rs with their votes. The requirement to an amend might be 67, 75 or possibly even 100% to amend. Your CC&Rs will stay the % required.

Meanwhile do owners have in writing something form the Board that states this "new" arrangement? Does it say the decision was made at a meeting of the board? Or? Are board meetings open to owners in MD?

I left out the most important part: If the OP really wants change, run for the board with a group of like-minded people and win a board majority. It is a lot of work.

Oh dear. I hope you have an ombudsperson for your county. I agree this is now very serious.[snip, for brevity, stuff that is obvious to all, IMO]
I recommend that you leave the part about using the garage for non-vehicle storage out of your campaign to get the Board to comply with the covenants. If there's no room for a car on account of the owner using the garage for storage, this is not the HOA's fault. Furthermore, if I had no garage and someone was complaining that their garage was full of their workshop, home business, boat renovation project, or whatever, yet now they have no parking space, I would roll my eyes. It's the wrong tree to bark up IMO.

The only thing I care about is enforcing the covenants. If blocking the sidewalk violates city code or the HOA CCRs (or board-made rules, deriving expressly from the CCRs), then the HOA should go after the violators.

By any chance do your covenants say anything about garages being used only for vehicles and not general storage?

JasonS19, do consider continuing to read this forum from time to time. You will find many who are stuck in a bad situation like your own, with an entrenched board lacking basic competence.

You can fight them, hopefully using the ombudsperson. You can fight them using an attorney. You can threaten suit, but most folks need a short course in legal writing to do this. You can stay and put up with the incompetence, because life is short, and who wants to spend one's time fighting imbeciles. Or you can move.

Many veterans here have in fact moved from bad HOAs and COAs.

AugustinD – I appreciate your posts and if I had the ability to move I’d have done so many years ago. Unfortunately living on disability has ruled out any chance of ever moving. Financially speaking it’s virtually impossible for me to qualify for a mortgage and the cost of rent is far outside of my reach.

KerryL1 – I had the same concerns when they started towing cars thinking they didn’t have the authority. It’s absolutely shocking as to what my HOA has gotten away with, and so far I’ve only had the opportunity to addressed one of the many issues here on this forum.

We own a normal Ford passenger Van that we park in our private driveway and one Saturday morning we were jarred awake by the sounds of a tow truck dragging it away. The HOA doesn’t believe a Van should be allowed in the neighborhood so they simply had it removed. I immediately called the police to report that our Van was being stolen but once they learned it involved an HOA they refused to get involved stating it was a civil matter!

Oh and for the letter detailing the new parking / towing rules, which I did indeed keep, well it came from the management company and didn’t mention or reference the board or any CCR’s.

In seeking help I’d have to admit I’ve never dealt with an ombudsperson before and wasn’t even aware they could help in a situation such as this. I’ll have to check and see if I can find one serving in my area.

General comments:

* Yes, it's very possible that towing is legal, though laws vary by state. There may be some hoops to jump through, such as signage notifying people that it is a tow-away zone and listing the name and phone number of the company doing the towing. (We had to change our sign a few years ago due to a change in Ohio law. If we towed an abandoned vehicle, we tagged it first and gave the owner time to move it. We also notified the police before it was towed in case it was reported stolen.)

* Many condo parking restrictions prohibit parking of inoperable vehicles on the common elements, and towing may be required.

* Associations can make rules that supplement what the CC&R's parking restriction has to say, as long as the rules don't contradict the restriction. For example, a very typical rule says that owners must use the parking space they own (ie, their garage which is probably part of the unit) or that they have exclusive use of (eg. the driveway which may be a limited common element) before they can park on common area. Just because people want to use their garages for storage units doesn't mean that they're entitled to use common area that can't accommodate all the cars.

* Condo communities in general often don't have adequate parking space, especially ones built before everybody and his dog decided to own multiple vehicles. Per our attorney: if a homeowner chooses to buy a home that doesn't meet their needs (eg. they have three cars and buy a home with a one-car garage), then that's their problem - the association is not obligated to accommodate the excess vehicles.

* Bottom line: too many vehicles + too few parking spaces = something's gotta give.

* Changing common area parking space to exclusive use common space will may need a change in the CC&Rs, and this will require homeowner approval. Amendments to the CC&Rs usually require approval by a super-majority; eg. 67% or 75%.

The CC&Rs can't address every situation that comes up in condo communities, so rules can fill in the gaps as long as they don't contradict the CC&Rs which, as you say, are attached to your deed.

One unrelated example: For condos there is often a restriction that says you may not make any changes to or display anything on the exterior of the home without prior approval of the association. Many communities will also enact rules about holiday decorations (eg. may not be attached by nails or other things that penetrate the exterior of the building and must be taken down one week after the holiday is over). This rule adds detail to the "requires prior approval of the association" by indicating what is approved.

Our parking restriction gives owners the right to park on the common elements, but it also gives the board the right to enact reasonable rules about this. A reasonable rule in my community with inadequate parking may be to require owners to park in their garages and driveways first, with common area parking used only as overflow (eg. if you have three cars and a 1-car garage, you can only park one car in the common area). Another reasonable rule may be limiting the number of hours you can park on the common area.

However, if we wanted to give certain homeowners exclusive access to parts of the common area, we would need to amend our CC&Rs since they state that all owners have the right to use all of the common elements for the purposes for which they are constructed. We would need to convert certain portions of the common elements to limited (exclusive use) common elements, which would give some owners "more" and some owners "less" than what they currently have. Depending on how your CC&Rs are written, I'm guessing that your community would also need to amend the CC&Rs to do what your board wants to do. It's not the parking restriction per se that's the problem, it's the ownership rights that are the issue.

But all this is theoretical since your community has a certain amount of parking space available, and no rule or amendment will make more of it. Any CC&Rs and rules have to deal with reality as it is, otherwise they set up the community for constant conflicts which does nobody any good.

Rules probably wouldn't be recorded. But they should be available via a community's website or community handbook, or something like that.

So I don’t mean to beat a horse to death here but have to admit my surprise in hearing that supplemental rules might not be formally recorded especially after learning earlier in this thread that a copy of my CC&R’s are held by and accessible through my county.

In the world of HOA’s where Guidelines, Regulations and Legalese dominate the landscape it’s hard to believe that such a potential ‘loophole’ could exist. What mechanism is there preventing an HOA from modifying supplemental rules at a whim or upon the surfacing of a dispute. And if not recorded, how could my Deed of Trust legally be bound in upholding such unrecorded rules?

My head is spinning…

And yes I will be contacting the county first thing Monday morning to see what’s involved in getting a copy of my CC&R’s as trying to get them from my HOA has proved impossible. Unfortunate now I’m worried about how to get a copy of any supplemental rules if they are not accompanied by the CC&R’s.

As my HOA has refused to proved a copy of the CC&R’s, I’m fairly certain they won’t be all too accommodating or willing to cough up any formally adopted supplemental rules.

“Formally adopted supplemental rules” – Wow, at this pint I don’t even know what that means.

Jason

Rules cannot over ride Covenants nor Bylaws. They can supplement, clarify, etc. but not change. One common example is a rule can define pool hours but cannot remove the pool. The BOD can change a rule when ever they want. In many cases a BOD has to be changed (votes, etc.) in order to get a BOD that will change a past rule.

Jason,

Where I live, the city is very active in HOA's and their development. They have a list of on-demand webinars. They are specific to North Carolina, but you may find them useful for a better overall understanding.

https://charlottenc.gov/HNS/CE/CommunityInfo/Pages/Training-On-Demand.aspx
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Board Organization/Support

The one that may of be of current interest is:

Understanding your HOA Declaration of Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions (CC&Rs)
The Declaration of Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions (CC&Rs) is a legally binding document that detail the rights and obligations of the homeowners association to its members and vice versa. This document establishes a set of guidelines for maintenance and architectural standards, and also gives the board the power to issue violations to any homeowner who is not in compliance and to govern what an owner may, may not, or must do with respect to their property. Whether you are a homeowner in an HOA community or if you serve on an HOA board, this workshop will help you better understand the CC&Rs and your rights and responsibilities.

Video: https://youtu.be/t1uwYntel54