New Board decision to enforce violations that the previous Board and Developer did not enforce

We are a relatively new HOA. The developer turned the HOA over to residents in 2022. I was the first President of that Board. During our 8 months, we adopted a stance of going forward not back not backwards. This was primarily in relation to a couple of decisions that the developer allowed that were against the CC&R. Since the governing documents gave him this authority, we did not challenge this. This also included items that were "gray in nature" and allowed but we decided to go forward not fight those battles. We are now on our third Board and the new Board is now reversing some of those Board decisions.
My questions is related to selective enforcement. It was always my position that anything previous should be "grand fathered" and the neighborhood notified that "new violations" would not be. Instead they have effectively gone backwards and it is my opinion that selectively going back, without fixing obvious mistakes by the developer would be selective enforcement.
Any thoughts?

If you enforce some CCRs but not others for whatever reason, you run the risk of many of them being ruled to have been abandoned. That can come back to bite you in the behind if some people do something that's really obnoxious.

Communities change over time and it may be the new board realizes the CCRs you and your colleagues (and the first board) didn't bother to enforce are important and it's time to make it clear that everyone, including former board members like you, are legally obligated to comply with them. That's what happens when you buy into a HOA community.

That would include the ones the ones the developer didn't enforce, but that was his prerogative because he ran the show . That set a bad precedent, but he wasn't going to be around for the fallout anyway, so , what did he care?

If there were issues that were "gray in nature" your board shoukd have done the work nd take a closer look to make them clearer or poll the community to see if the documents shoukd be amended to drop them, but you didn't. And now you want to call this selective enforcement because people can no longer get away with ignoring the rules they were obligated to obey anyway?

Somewhere in your documents there may be language that states non enforcement of CCRs in the past will not prohibit the board from doing so in the future - you might want to pull out your copy and see if it's there. It's also possible a judge might agree with you but that would depend on the current case.

If you've received a violation notice, you can fight it on that basis and maybe you'll win. But how will the judge react when you say "well we didn't enforce that because this was a gray area." Or you can comply and then suggest that the board commission a special advisory committee to look at the CCRS to see what needs to be amended, cleaned up ((like deleting all referencesto the developer), added or dropped and make recommendations to the board to present to the homeowners for review comments and revisions they can vote on.

This takes more effort than simply deciding not to enforce but in the long run, you may end up with CCRs that can work and be flexible enough for the next board to tweak if needed.

Our declaration actually states this. It also says that if one section is found to be unenforceable, this does not make the entire declaration unenforceable. When our attorney drafted our amended parking restriction, he included similar language (since the restriction has a number of pieces to it).

This makes sense when you think about it. No two boards will see things the same way, and over time enforcement will not be uniform. If the law actually said "one strike and you're out", then nearly all CC&Rs would become unenforceable as the community aged. Clearly this is not what lawmakers intended.

As others have said, new boards aren’t necessarily beholden to what the previous boards did because they could have been wrong – remember, you and your colleagues chose not to enforce certain rules, and now the new board is taking another approach, which is their right. If you don’t like it, rally your neighbors together and vote them out. This may require that you return to the board, and if you do, I suggest you and your colleagues do what you should have done before and look at the CCRs to see what needs to be added, clarified or dropped.

You could do this every 5-7 years, if only to ensure your documents are in line with changes in city, county, state or federal law, as needed, not to mention community priorities can and do change over time as people move in and out. The CCRs and Bylaws aren't the 10 commandments - why should they stay the same when everything else changes (whether it's a good or bad change may depend on who's talking and who's affected).

Regarding the gray area – it would have been easier if the CCR section was updated to say “recreational and construction type vehicles must be stored within the garage”. “Within the dwelling” may be too vague – would a shed fit that definition? I’m sure this doesn’t mean the living room (this stuff wouldn’t fit).

You also remember that RVs and whatnot are generally heavier and if they’re on the street, they could wear down the concrete faster, and if the association is responsible for the streets, you wind up having to take a chunk out of reserves sooner to take care of it. And y’all couldn’t figure out how to make THAT more clear? Ok.

As for the rest, you’d have to look at all of the previous decisions to consider each circumstance to see if in fact, this is selective enforcement. To wit – vehicles should be parked in the garage where space is available and the garage cannot be used for storage, workshops, etc. The primary use of a garage should be for parking, but we also know there are storage systems that can be installed for stuff like brooms, gardening equipment, etc. However, there are people who load the garage with lots and lots of crap and then park their cars elsewhere.

The person with a boat knew or had to know it would take up the majority of the space in the garage, so why did he put it there? Recently I saw an ad in my area for a company that provides rental space where people can park RVs, boats and whatnot, so that owner could have considered that option. Depending on the size of his lot, perhaps he could have submitted an exterior change request to build an addition to his garage to accommodate the boat and the car.

Personally, I’m ok with people parking in their driveway AS LONG as it doesn’t create blind spots for passing traffic or hang over the sidewalk, pushing people in the street, and creating another safety hazard. Although three cars in the driveway don’t bother me, I know that’s been an aesthetic issue in some communities because some cars are well-kept and others are hoopties. When all that is crowded on a driveway, the area can look like a used car lot or worse if they’re broken down with outdated plates and drip oil everywhere, messing up the concrete. If the owner is responsible for the driveway, that’s his or her dime, but if the mess flows onto the street, which may be the HOA’s responsibility, I’d have an issue with that.

You didn’t say if your community allows sheds (and I know people have issues with those), so if there aren’t any rules on that, the board could have polled the community and come up with some design standards, such as requiring them not to exceed certain sizes or be made of materials that don’t hold up very well