HOA Websites

Is it legal/ethical to start your own HOA website without board approval? I'd like the homeowners in our community to become more involved and informed as to what's occuring at board meetings, etc. The average attendance at our board meetings are the board members, my husband and myself, and the few and far between homeowner who have a special request, i.e, architectural change, etc. A forum similar to HOATalk.com might encourage our community to become more informed if they don't have to leave the comfort of their own home or feel intimated by the "big bad board members". I'm hoping that once they felt they had someone (me!) to stand up for their rights, they may be inspired to join together and become more involved.

Our bylaws are dated 1975, so I don't see anything that legally bans it, but how about ethically?

Denise, a lot of people will wwigh in on the pros and cons of an owner starting their web site about the association. I'm going to keep mine to a few do's and don't's" if you do it on your own.

Don't use the association's name in your web site's name. Whether or not your association has actually registered it or not, it will become a point of contention over your right to use the name without the board's OK. Just don't use it. Use some variation of it that won't be controversial.

Put a disclaimer on it to make sure visitors know it's not an official association site and directions on how to contact the association officially.

If you're going to have a discussion board, make sure you monitor it and that the rules are agreed to by anyone who wants to post, otherwise it could turn into a "rant" site that divides a community rather than helps.

Your intentions are good, and if the web site works out that way, good.

Joe

Well we sure have been around the tree a few times with this one. Use the search feature and look up Websites.

My personal experience dictates to me: If an owner wants to put up a Website sight, have at it, whatever the motivation. How can we possibly consider telling people what to put up on a bulletin board, and that is what websites are, electronic bulletin boards. Call it anything you want and insert a strong disclaimer that there is no official connection to the Association. Good Lord, even the Newspapers all have blogs that allow for posting of anything under the sun, as do personal websites that can print anything they want.
The crux of the matter here is the site going to be successful. If the sight is put up to cause trouble, you better have some proof for that. If the site is not successful that means it has no substance. Our Board was adamant about a website that was put up and had part of our associations name on it, with a disclaimer. Words fly back and forth and at some point the board decides they would like it to be an official site, after refusing to support a website to begin with. So now we have an official web site and the Board censors (and there is no other word for it) anything that goes on the site. Now suppose I want to put up a personal site and discuss association living as I see it. Can the Board say, No, we already have one official site. Come on!

Put up your site, protect what you allow on it and put up a strong disclaimer if you have a name that suggests domething it is not, like an "Oficial Web site", what ever that means. Some time, Google the words Home owners Associations and see how many there are, or Corporations, or LLC's. Our condo has three like named associations when you Google it.

After the first flurry of folks getting things off their chest, it will probably settle down to a place to go to get information about the association that you can't find else where. Things like, "I hear they are going to close the bridge to the island this week end, so if you are coming down (up) )across) or (under), go route 988, even though it is longer.

This is perfect timing as I'm thinking of doing something similar for our neighborhood.

There are several of us who rent our homes, short term, when we're not in our community. I thought it be great to have a webpage listing the homes for rent. On password protected pages, I wanted to list the current bylaws, rules and regs, etc. for member-owners to view

I appreciate the list of "dos and don'ts". I'll make sure to post the disclaimer.

Robert,

Yes, I along with many of my neighbors list our rentals on the various listing sites. What I'm considering is to "kill two birds with one stone'; A website which lists our rental units (concentrating on SEO that would direct folks to our neighborhood). Then on private pages, owners could access our private neighborhood info.

Thanks to all. This discussion has made me think hard on the legalities of posting association items even on a password protected site.

E

I did develop one for my area when the HOA failed to really do anything worthwhile. I made mine to be very informative of both the HOA and the community in general. I put a lot of effort into it for about a year and half.

I had very mixed results. If you don't constantly put new information on the website you will loose viewers. I tried a discussion board and it failed miserably.

It is a lot of work to be successful.

Denise,

I've found myself in the same situation with my own HOA, of course I'm got my own neighborhood email network that they have to contend with also. When the Board refused to involve itself in the safety issues associated with the construction of a convenient store / gas station directly across from our own (w/o traffic lights) I launched my own website. It has since been retired but seeing as the Board intends to continue holding their monthly HOA meetings in secret, a new website will soon be complementing the independent email network.

In most cases the only legal name the HOA can actually claim is something like the "Wildwood Homeowners Association" (ficticious name). They cannot legally stop you from calling yours the "Wildwood Community" or "Wildwood Herald", etc., unless they have actually trademarked the name "Wildwood". Of course that doesn't mean they can't just try to harass you with an attorney. I know my HOA threatened to sue me over my email address "[email protected]" and consulted an attorney but they never followed through as they were probably told the same thing I had already researched.

Domain names are cheap (<$10/year) and a lot of them will usually allow you a certain amount of space in which to post yours for free. Several high schools now offer computer courses and have groups that might be able to help you with setting yours up as part of their community service requirements.

If you do need to raise some money to set up something more elaborate, ask a realtor if they would like to advertise on your site to help cover your expenses.

I would first let the Board know of your intentions and try to establish it staying on friendly terms with the Board. But under no circumstances should you agree to let them play censor to a privately established website. Open communications is an essential element of an Association and if your Board doesn't step up to the task then they shouldn't complain when someone else does.

Good luck,

Randal