Update on HOA issue

Hello,

As we talked before I had brought up of issue of covenant violation with HOA attorney and his reply was,

He thinks swim team does not violate the Declaration and is consistent with the Association’s purposes. Lifegaurds are paid by the swim team and that the swim team uses the pool before the pool opens.

Nonetheless, the decision of whether to allow the swim team to use the pool is a business decision for the Boa

CCRs can be enforced by one homeowner against another, so if you feel the homeowner who arranged for the swim team to use the pool, you could sue him/her and see what happens. And if you think the board won't enforce the CCRs you could sue the association or rally together other homeowners who feel as you and run a campaign to vote them out, either through the regular election process or a recall. Read your documents to see what's required to call a special homeowners meeting to do it.

Just remember, it's one thing to sue, another to win and a third to collect.

This HOA attorney that Board takes advise and management company takes advise, this the HOA attorney that our board engaged to represent the HOA.

I brought up the issue as part of the board.

In what sort of setting?

The lawyer represents what the board majority wants.

Did anyone bring up insurance?

Doesn't matter.

Regardless, the bigger issue is that you do not appear to have a board majority on your side. With the HOA lawyer siding with the board majority (one way or another), oh well.

CS10, practically speaking, where do you think this leaves you?

Even if you quit the board and lawyered up, it's still not guaranteed that you would win a lawsuit over this.

You have everyone's opinion here. The collective opinion here represents best practices IMO. But are bad practices something worth fighting? Ya gotta weigh:

-- the costs of fighting this battle (which may or may not be winnable in court)

vs.

-- the (pretty much) minimal benefits of winning this battle.

Too bad the board blew off the insurance concerns.

CS10, practically speaking and in my experience, your best chance of changing this is to find owners who feel as you do and help them to win a majority on the board.

Otherwise don't you agree that one cannot always get what one wants?

I think I agree with the HOA attorney, at least up to a point:

* If none of the swim team's costs are being passed on to the HOA (could be hard to prove one way or the other).

* If no one is being deprived of pool use during normal pool hours.

* If the HOA allows use of common areas for things such as renting the clubhouse for private parties (this is pretty common in HOAs).

This is different from the normal owner-guest situation, though. This isn't a one-off like a private party. Guests are usually random groups of individuals, not organized entities of some sort. Guests have to be accompanied by the owner who invited them. The owner is accountable for their guests' behavior. And guests generally aren't charged for their usage.

This transaction seems more like a commercial one rather than use by an owner and guests. Was a contract signed? Therefore, I'd be concerned about the insurance, taxation, and potential subsidizing of an outside entity's activities.

So I think pursuing this as a violation issue probably won't get you anywhere. However, money is a sure fire attention-getter in HOAs, so that's what I'd hammer on.

Are you adequately insured? Is the swim team being charged enough to cover all of the expenses, including long-term wear and water usage? Is this money being accounted for properly in the HOA's financial records and tax returns? I wouldn't be surprised if the answer to these questions is "no".

I think I'd write up a short, just-the-facts description of what an uninsured loss will mean to the community. Long story short: the settlement will be divided among the homeowners. Some years ago our insurance agent told us that many settlements were in the $2,000,000 range. That won't include whatever you have to pay the attorney when you get sued. Heaven help you if somebody drowns.

If I were a homeowner, I'd want to know that the board was taking such risks with my money.

Again, a lot of homeowners don't get too bent out of shape if you're talking about violations. But money? Their own personal money, of which they don't have nearly enough? And which they may have to cough up due to board incompetence? You'll get their attention.

Team uses pool 9 to 11 ( Three times a week) and evening 5 to 8 (three times a week), Wed evening and Sat morning, we have 2 pools and one pool remains close during week.

I finally went back to the very long previous post and see that CS10 is on the Board.

I also see that Dean and maybe Shelia (?) note the conflict of interest involving some board members whose kids are on the swim team.

It's not clear to me if CS10 has kids on the team.

Some of us --or maybe just me-- are slow at researching pervious posts, so it is far better if the posters put basic facts in every post and do not expect us to hunt and slog through previous posts.

That is a significant amount of usage.

Without doing the math, I'd guess that a public pool would charge a good chunk of change for that much usage and that the HOA is not charging anywhere near that amount. Part of that chunk of change is the insurance that a public pool has to carry. Therefore the HOA is subsidizing the swim team *and putting itself and all the homeowners at financial risk* to do so. The risk goes up as the usage goes up.

The fact that nobody else is using the pool during these times is irrelevant.

I agree about the conflict of interest others have cited.

So...

What are you willing to do about it?

I tend to walk away from conflicts that aren't worth the trouble they'll cause, but I would be raising a stink over this - not because I can't use the pool whenever I want to but because of the math above. I expect that many of my neighbors would see things my way once the financial realities are spelled out in all of their alarming details.

But this conflict would cause hurt feelings and other unpleasantness. Whoever pursues this would be viewed as a troublemaker who hates kids and other ridiculous accusations. Social media wars will erupt. A person who intends to continue living in the community needs to consider this. That's why I mentioned neighbors. The swim team and their board advocates would have a harder time vilifying a troublemaker if 75% of the community agrees with the "troublemaker".

So think hard about this. If it were me I'd talk to a lawyer and a realtor first (the realtor because I may want to walk away after what the lawyer tells me).