Need advice from a Lawyer

We here at XXXXX own our Home and Land the HOA has decided to open the Clubhouse as a Haunted house for Public people that will pay to come in they said they took a vote from people that attend the Meetings but a lot of us do not go to the meetings and hd no idea till afterwards what alot of us worry is the Liability of anyone that may get hurt for whatever reason I would like to know if that could happen where all of us would be held Liable.I believe something like this each of us that own here should have rec. a letter asking if we wanted it or not.

And...your governing documents may not have a provision for public events. If it did, there should be operating rules. And the entrance fee would be taxable.

In California, if someone sues and prevails against an association, and the association's insurance doesn't cover the judgment amount, the homeowners are individually liable for paying the remainder of the judgment.

Also, don't forget the increase in vandalism and other crimes that result from a community opening itself to outsiders. Halloween in particular invites pranks and misbehavior. And where does the board think that people will be parking?

I hope you work with your neighbors to push back hard on the board. This is a really dumb idea. Well-run Halloween haunted houses are years in the planning, and they take active managing while the events are in progress. They don't just magically happen and run themselves.

Our attorney was adamant about not holding public events in our condo community. He'd seen the ways things can go wrong:

* Increased damage to the common elements which everybody had to pay for.

* An increase in crime since the communities basically invited strangers to case the joint.

* Uninsured injuries. The insurer may well view this as a business event since you're planning to charge money, and you're almost certainly not insured for that at all. (Our lawyer has seen cases where somebody got hurt and sued the association, and the insurer said "nope". It wasn't pretty. Imagine homeowners being jointly, personally liable for a million-dollar plus settlement - homeowners' personal insurance may not cover that either unless they carry an umbrella policy or some such.)

This whole haunted house idea scares me more than any number of ghosts and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night.

My keyboard has a mind of its own.

People who write readable posts tend to get more useful help.