Resident vigilante using HOA deed restrictions to harrss

We have one resident reporting on 7 neighbors about minor deed restrictions. They send in at least 4-6 reports every week about their neighbors setting out the trash too early (1 hour early) or parking on the street overnight (which is not illegal, but our builder put that in the deed restriction to keep construction vehicles off the streets while the neighborhood was built.

This resident has become a vigilante and is using our management company to harass their neighbors.

Is there anything the Board can do?

Paul

Are they or are they not violations?

What is the response your HOA responds with? Is it fines? Is there a time limit to correct? Plus maybe respond that this is a service your HOA pays for the MC to do. There is no need to keep reporting. Which you may or not pay the MC to do this but maybe respond in kind. I would send out a letter stating how the violation process works and reporting.

Our management company charges us for sending the letters to the residents in response to the report from that person. We discussed all this at the meeting last night and I told our management to stop processing the person's reports unless they can confirm a violation. They were processing the claims based on time-stamped photos the person was sent in with their reports. I was wondering if we were in wrong by stopping processing their claims, or if we could take action on the vigilante.

A homeowner can't "use" the PM or the board without their cooperation. Unless your CC&Rs say otherwise(*), the board is responsible for enforcing deed restrictions and may delegate some of the work to the PM. (* Some CC&Rs give homeowners the right to enforce directly through suing their neighbors for violations.)

Every community seems to have a few of these vigilantes. Similar to what Barbara said, we never send violation notices unless we get complaints from more than one homeowner, and/or the board/PM witnesses the violation, and/or the complainer provides audio or video evidence. All of our complaints must be in writing, and the form asks if the complainer would be willing to appear in court. Otherwise, it's just hearsay. Even if we'd get things wrong, the normal violation process that includes a hearing would weed out any false complaints.

As John alluded to, the neighborhood crank can't complain about your trash unless you're leaving it out. So perhaps people should clean up their acts? Ptherwise, the cranks usually get a reputation and others learn to ignore them.

Many of these comments are exactly right. First you have to decide if it's a violation or not (regardless of who reported it) and whether your board wants to enforce it. In our HOA our PM doesn't immediately go to a violation notice unless it's something really serious. She sends an friendly email or calls on the phone to remind the person of our community rules. That solves about 90% of the problems.

We have several of these challenging residents who are always reporting each other. Usually if I get a complaint from one of them I acknowledge it (thanks for reaching out!) and ignore unless it's truly a violation that we do enforce.

Suggestions for dealing with vigilantes:

* Remember: "brief, bland, boring". You want to remove the emotional benefit the person gets from stirring up trouble.

* "If it's not in writing, it's not a valid complaint." Create an Action Form that complainers need to complete to report the violation. The form should include the person's name and address, a description of the problem, and any evidence they have (photos, video, etc.). This creates a good record for your records and makes the complainer work for it. (If you really want to make a point, ask them to cite the portion of the governing documents that the homeowner is violating.)

* "Thank you for your comments." No further immediate response.

* Do not discuss the violation with the complainer - it's a board issue, and until they meet and discuss, there has been no official action. Any immediate response you make to the complainer will be out of turn, will be misinterpreted, and will give the person incentive to continue. If you reward behavior, you'll get more of it.

* Publish the violation process in the newsletter, community handbook, etc. If complainers know that there is a process that is followed every time, they'll soon learn that they won't see an immediate response (or possibly any response if enforcement actions are confidential in your community).

In my HOA, any report of a violation (verbal or written) is investigated by a BOD Member. If valid, we instruct the PM to send a violation letter which the PM does not charge for. We rarely, if ever, get any blow back from those receiving violation letters.

I'm lost. Why is a homeowner reporting a violation not acceptable?

Setting the trash cans out one hour early is really nit picky. I know someone is going to say rules are rules. Unfortunately peoples schedules conflict with some
"rules". If they were putting the trash out a day earlier I see no issues with complaining, even eight hours early to complain may be iffy.
Sounds like this vigilante is opening themselves up to a huge lawsuit if their whatever continues.

Yes, of course homeowners can complain about others. It isn't possible for board members or the PM to have their eyes everywhere all the time - and our attorney told us that level of surveillance isn't appropriate.

If the complainer isn't in the neighbors' faces about it, then that's not harassment - and if he is, it's a police matter. It doesn't become harassment by the HOA unless and until the board/PM acts on the complaints, and that's entirely up to them (as it should be, it's their job).

Those nitpicky items you mention make me cringe. I so dislike this aspect of HOA living. Real life is not pristine and wrapped up with a pretty red bow. There is a time and a place to voice complaints but putting a garbage can out 1 hour early isn't one of them. I would tell the constant complainer to chill and reserve their complaints to the serious stuff. Sounds like an owner with not enough to do except spy on their neighbors.

Unless there is safety involved can the Board or Management encourage the complaining neighbor to have a conversation with the neighbor violating the garbage rule. Maybe the neighbor putting the garbage out early is because they have to leave for work before the rule states. Maybe the complainer is disturbed by the noise of putting the garbage out that early. I think encouraging conversations between neighbors can be valuable.

1st Question: how is reporting a violation to the Management Company translate to harassing the neighbors? Is your PMC just blindly sending a violation notice to anyone that gets a complaint against them? No investigation or review? That's your first problem to address. Any complaints should go to the Board for review and next actions, rather than just direct from complainer to PMC to violator.


2nd question: this is the next fundamental thing. Is it an actual violation? Does the HOA have authority and jurisdiction to address the issue? There's a hierarchy of jurisdiction and a flow chart for investigation complaints. See here: https://imgur.com/a/1QfsxdW


This is terrible advice. If there's a rule/CCR, then it needs to be enforced or an official Memo released by the Board stating they are abandoning that rule, or amend the documents to remove the rule. Just telling the complainer to stop complaining is a dereliction of the Boards duty.

Cathy's post is perfect!

Per our Covenants:

Section 1. Enforcement. Each Owner and Occupant shall comply strictly with the Bylaws, the rules and regulations, the use restrictions, as they may be lawfully amended or modified from time to time, and with the covenants, conditions and restrictions set forth in this Declaration and in the deed to such Owner's Lot, if any. The Board of Directors may impose fines or other sanctions, which shall be collected as provided herein for the collection of assessments. Failure to comply with this Declaration, the Bylaws or the rules and regulations shall be grounds for an action to recover sums due for damages or injunctive relief, or both maintainable by the Board of Directors, on behalf of the Association, or, in a proper case, by an aggrieved Owner.

I think, in the United States, homeowners are allowed to complain to their hearts content about another homeowner. Freedom of speech is one of our basic freedoms we have in our country.

Now, whether anyone listens is a different story.

Of course, I could tell you about my HOA that told me, point blank, that I really should move to a different community based on the volume of my complaints. I am now the HOA president for that community, and I don't make a habit of telling people who complain that they really ought to move somewhere else.

This needs to change too. IMO, when a MC is incentivized to prepare and send violation letters to homeowners, this is a recipe for disaster. MCs see this as a revenue stream . . . the more letters that get sent, the more money they make. Letters that take minutes to prepare cost the association $10, $20, $30 each time.

I also wouldn't put it past some short-sighted, unscrupulous MCs to intentionally want to create disharmony within an association; with one of the simpler ways to accomplish this being the somewhat indiscriminate sending of violation letters (especially for petty things). Disharmony in an HOA generates reliance on the MC to do things and remain involved . . . send letters, track violations, engage/re-engage the attorney, send more letters, apply and collect fines/fees, generate account statements, process delinquencies, check/re-check for compliance, log the violations and status to resolution, provide updates to the Board, etc., etc. . . . all of which, depending on the contract, could be items billed to the HOA at different rates or as additional services (beyond scope of contract).

A resident is enforcing the rules, not the Board. Management companies, as a general rule, hate sending out violations, as we get the brute of the hate mail.

The question regards a neighbor passive aggressively using HOA process to harass their neighbors. These repeated complaints are not being filed to improve the neighborhood.

I'll tell an interesting story about this.

Before our HOA was turned over to the owners we had a neighbor that would report everything to the management company and nasty grams would dutifully be sent out with photos. Our welcome to the neighborhood was a bunch of nasty grams with minor infractions. After a few months we had a suspicion of who it was and used our camera to catch them in action. The rest of the neighbors had set up a community sourced mailing list outside of the HOA. So we sent out a message saying that we recently received a notice with a photo and when we checked out camera noticed that it was a neighbor that did that (without mentioning it).

Within minutes the complaining member came to our door and fessed up berating me (I closed the door on them) and I received several private messages that all asked if it was the neighbor we had identified, but not outed publicly. I privately confirmed it was indeed this neighbor. That lead to some other neighbors helping to organize a group to talk to the developer to ask this to stop which was successful and it stopped.

Now here is the irony, this happened during the housing crisis and the complaining neighbors ended up having their house foreclosed on after trying to do a short sale. When the for sale sign went a bunch of neighbors threw an impromptu party to celebrate the complainers leaving.

These days I'm on the board and when we've had people like this I've tried to do is re-direct their energy towards things that we need help with while diplomatically acknowledging and slow walking harassing complaints. Also, it is a bad idea to let the MC issue violations without review IMHO.

I suppose I might be considered a "vigilante" by some.
Blatant violations of the CC&Rs amounts to a disrespect for one's neighbors.
I've noticed that violations may demonstrate a "slow creep", with similar violations spreading to neighbors.
I equate it to "The Broken Windows Theory".
Although the theory is commonly applied to crime and policing, I believe it also applies to HOA communities and CC&Rs.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/broken-windows-theory

I noted that the theory is largely applied to crime but can also apply to transgressions of the CCRs. I submit that most homeowners are blissfully unaware of the restrictions imposed in the CCRs. One neighbor, for example, installs a (violating) fire pit in the back yard and that leads to a second neighbor doing so. Then a third, and so on.

I have yet to see "different priorities" enumerated in CCRs.

You should not make assertions based on fantasy.

I presume you don't have Bermuda or Fescue.

Good for you!