SC HOA's and Condo's

I'm back with more questions--trying to learn all I can. It seems SC doesn't have the legal statues for HOA's like other states. So any advice is greatly appreciated.

To give some background on my community-it is multi-layered. There is the town which rules zoning, etc.; then there is a POA, which is behind a gate. Finally behind the gate, there are neighborhood associations. Weeding through all the info is very taxing.

Immediate questions I have are as follows:

1. Pertaining to renters: I know my neighbor regime has nothing in the bylaws or cc&r regarding renters, long or short term. Any suggestions on what to add or not add to bylaws?

2. Every time a property is sold within the community, the buyer pays a % of purchase price to the POA and a % to neighborhood association. This is a one-time hit for the buyer. Annual dues are required too. With the downturn in real estate, one now sees the one-time % may not be a smart thing to do. A potential buyer could go down the road and buy a similar property and avoid the "tax". How do other HOA's handle this? Do you charge a buyer a % of the selling price?

I love this forum. In my permanent home state, there are very few POA/HOA's. Learning about S.C.'s rules (or lack of) is quite the experience.

Thanks.
Elizabeth

Elizabeth,
You have your state residence as Arkansas.

SC is lacking in good state control over Private communities. After some experience I am not sure this is a bad thing. The efforts of the associations should be to stay out of court, for a whole bunch of reasons.
Boardsfit no commonj description as far as interpertation of association Documents. But in SC and other states it is more important to have solid documents that state support. The goal of all private communities is strong documents and good education and communication. More effort should be made by the associations to understand their documents and understand their community. Through trial and error this process has to be done or it will be forced on the association and then it is CYA and run around trying to play catch up. It is difficult for concerned individual to wade throught all this mess but we don't know difficult until we have to contend with owners and boards that will not learn what all this is about. Taht is a job that hangs over a concerned owner everytime a unit is sold, not to mention BOD that are not going to learn the history and why there is such a thing as BOD.

I have found over my 18 years in this one condo that a tough skin and a concern sows better crops then all this fighting about who is right or wrong. If the fight is going to end up in court, let whoever sue the association, almost never sue the homeowner. Kidnap his first born but don't take him to court. You lose no matter what the judge says.
When you believe this then you can move on to ways to help the association and you don't HAVE to win every battle. Just keep chipping away and it's like painting a picture, after a while you begin to notice little changes that make the place better.
"It's not your money", and you own a part of everything but the whole of nothing when you live in a condo. Your committment is to the Real Property that you own part of and that Real Property runs with the land.
You use it when you are here and sell the right to us it to someone else, when you leave, so take care of it and make it better than when you got here.

Lots of the above apply to HOA's also.