Should I remove myself in decision making regarding a noise issue that affects me?

Well, Nathan, first, in CA presidents do not approve fines, boards vote to approve fines. As president, I think you know that these alleged violators of your noise nuisance section of your CC&Rs & of your rules, must be called to a hearing.

In our HOA, the PM sends out letters calling alleged violators top hearings. Yours, too? In executive session you & the other directors discuss the violation, the Owners' reasons, if any, and make a decision to fine them or not.

Since a decision to fine and continue fining until the violation is cured, affects you favorably and no other owners, I'd say you do have a conflict of interest and should not discuss or vote on this topic. You should recuse yourself.

Say, who is responsible for the gates? In our condo HOA, the Assn. is obligated to maintain, repair & replace them. If the same in your HOA, I should think the Board can decide to have something installed to silence the slamming.

May I ask what you want to have done in regards to the slamming gate? I can't imagine it being feasible to stop slamming it shut. This sounds more like a maintenance item. I've lived in houses where the screen doors slammed because of the spring tension or lack there of.

Instead of noise I would make this a maintenance issue. Maybe ask for some tape to be put on the latch area? A sponge? You have better solution than just "not slamming when closing". That just means your going to get A-Holes along with your fence issue.

AugustinD, thanks. I have emails where i say clearly that I'm leaving the decision making up to the board but I do have to push them to act. It definitely feels like a grey area to me.Ideally i wish i could just report violations to the management and the Board would just handle it without me, but they are very slow if they get around to it at all without me.

Sorry this was meant for KerryL1

You're right, Nathan. I still cannot see this gate in my mind. Is it the same size as the front door? Is it solid metal like a door vs. a gate?

In our condo building, the HOA is responsible to repair/replace ordinary gates to ground level patios. The HOA also must fix the exteriors of our front doors that open to hallways. I'm guessing, with other, the the HOA is obligated to maintain them and could install something to make them quieter.

Go to Davis-stirling.com's Index to maintenance l obligations or some title like that. Your'll see these HOA attorney's opinions on obligations for Owners and for HOAs on many items. they point out that especially older CC&rs don't say much about who's respsoble, so they offer some default ways to think about this.

Btw, Nathan, you also should read about Owners' ights to due process for alleged violations. It sound like you HOA hasn't been handling them quite legally.

Thomas makes sense.

Kerry, yes same size as the door, I'm not sure how to post images here but if this link works it's very similar. Thanks for the advice. Hmm, it's possible we're not doing things completely legally here. It's just weird as there's actually only one owner that's been fined since I've been on the board and that owner ignored every attempt to contact them. They've run up such a large bill on violations and unpaid monthly dues and even ignored collections to the point where we're attempting foreclosure on them. We've consulted lawyers about them and we've never been told we didn't give them due process by not holding a hearing. I don't doubt that it's likely true but I think it's weird I've never been told this. Well I'll do some research, thanks again

https://images.app.goo.gl/9ZKsrKAcCrchXSWY8

NathanL2,

Is your board of 3 written in the By-Laws, or do you only have the minimum needed board members to function? Makes a difference if you have a board of 3 out of 5+ to achieve a board quorum when 1 board member recuses themselves.

Also, not having hearings before fines is serious. That needs to be changed immediately. No hearing, no fine. The hearing is to determine if the violation exists. Fines are determined by the Board within Governing document and state laws.

I do realize that now. And I will take this seriously. We hired a management company that's never mentioned any of this. We only have 1 unit that's racked up so many unpaid dues and fines over the years and has ignored all contact going back a long way. Their lawyer, to my knowledge, has never asked the question "Wait, did you give my client a hearing for the fines?" The vast majority of their debt has nothing to do with fines, just unpaid dues. We are currently initiating a foreclosure with them. This was all decided after a consultation with the collections lawyer.

So this brings up another question: where do I go from here on their issue? Do I bring this up to the rest of the board and management company? Do I get us to offer the offending owner hearings to cover the times when we haven't? Do I consult our lawyer and ask about the legality of those previous fines?

Again thanks for the advice. I'm sure I and my board and everything must seem really dumb compared to the people here that know all the ins and outs of the laws. But mostly we're just people that don't allocate more than 1% of our daily brainpower to thinking about this stuff and none of the other owners want to be on the board. It's not a great situation. So again, thanks

What if the Board member is the member called to a hearing? Can they vote that the violation existed and how much their fine should be? I would say definitely not.

Before everyone says "board members shouldn't have violations", think about a renter's violation, that, the Board member is challenging or trying to correct within their lease agreement.

Any set of Bylaws that says meetings shall be conducted pursuant to Robert's Rules requires, per Robert's Rules, the recusal that is under discussion here.

Googling this topic, I see court cases are not in favor of directors voting on issues that impact them.

Thus, I will retract my previous statements and say that directors should abstain on issues that directly benefit themselves.

I once checked out the actual Robert's Rules of Order from the library to sit down and read them. (Not the summary version or the paraphrased version or the similar versions found on the web). I quickly realized that it was far too technical for me to understand, and does not fit our meetings well. So even though the by-laws say we are supposed to conduct business in accordance with Robert's Rules, we do not. No HOA Board that I know of actually follows Robert's Rules to the letter.

The dozens of Robert's Rules sites shows a variety of plagazerized Robert's Rules that sound good but aren't the real thing. As a PE, I have learned to only accept data from the authority. Thus, I checked out the Robert's Rule Book (the real deal) and tried to read it and realized that the dozen's of Robert's Rules sites are not the real deal.

Actually, Henry, Nathan should not "abstain," he should recuse himself. He is especially wise to do this given suspicions by owners about the previous prez.

Yes, Henry is completely wrong about Robert's rules on the prez voting too. I'm surprised that his bylaws say that board meetings must be conducted per Robert's. while often a requirement for Members meetings, It's pretty rare for Board meeting (except, apparently, in CT)

Nathan, do read the citations that Augustin offers. Your board needs to write a nice little policy for Owners that tells them how alleged violations are treated. You really must abide by the statutes on this.

The violator who doesn't pay dues: His attorney probably has NO idea that he was never called to hearing. In this and all future cases do it legally. I would NOT worry about past cases especially since it seems there are few.

How many units are in your HOA?