HOA board grandfathering in homeowner violation

A homeowner that owns seven properties here in our HOA has been in violation of putting in a sidewalk last year when he was the chairperson for the architectural committee. Our HOA president has known that the sidewalk has been a violation. It was not approved he just put it in . The HOA president has known about the violation of the sidewalk for the past year and would not allow anybody on the board to do anything about it because the president wanted to get reelected. Said we would do something about it when we all got reelected. At the first HOA meeting with two new members to the board one being the violators brother. They all agreed to grandfather it in. Not worried about all the other homeowners that have had violations and had to pay big money for them. Selective enforcement is definitely going on here. When I question the president of the Hoa he told me it’s rearview mirror stuff we’re going forward we’re not going back. So question is, is there a lawsuit that can be taken out against our board for selective enforcement? Can the board just grandfather a violation in? I thought the board was here to enforce violations and rules and regulations from the CCR‘s for every homeowner not just one in particular that owns several houses, and that has a brother on the board now. By the way
The brother did not recuse himself from voting in that vote for his brother to have this grandfathered in. Our hoa is corrupt. They voted me in as the architectural chairperson but now I have no legs to stand on because I can’t enforce anything going on in our neighborhood because nobody’s gonna pay attention. So nobody else can put a sidewalk in because now it would be a violation and they would get charged, but he doesn’t. I thought HOA was across-the-board. Everybody plays by the same rules, no matter how many houses you have..

Somewhere in your governing documents state the board has the final say on ARC submissions.

Basically, your board chose not to enforce.

Although a board has the authority to enforce (just as every member also has authority to enforce), it's typically not a requirement that they enforce (just as members are not required to enforce).

Now, some governing documents do specify a requirement for the board to enforce. If this is the case here, it's a different issue.

Can someone else put in a sidewalk, have the board enforce and use selective enforcement as a defense to the enforcement action - YES. However, it would take a court case to decide if that would be a successful argument.

Can you bring action against the board for failure to enforce? Perhaps. Talk to an attorney to view your options.

Can you (or a group of owners) bring action against the individual for having the sidewalk? Yes. Again, talk to an attorney to view your options.

What a disgusting Board you're stuck with, Nicole. Yes, you can spend lots of time & $ on legal action.

Or, you can spend even more time + energy, but far less $ on uniting with your neighbors to vote out some of these sleazebag directors at the next annual election. We've succeeded in my hOA that way and so has at least one other regular poster.

Your only option is to--and I don't suggest this lightly--move if possible.

I agree you have a corrupt board.

Some declaration provide the board may declare an unapproved improvement is not a substantial violation of the declaration and not take enforcement action.

Great advice and thank you for taking the time to help me solve this issue. I really don’t know how I’m going to be head of architecture and write up homeowner violations. If they are going to open up this can of worms, then I guess our property values are going to go down because no one is going to take it seriously.
I was also told that anyone else that put in a sidewalk would be held to the CC&Rs

My boyfriend is an attorney so taking it to court is an option. Plus the other homeowner that has been getting fined left and right is also an attorney... Wonder what he would do with this information?
Thank you again