Homeowner disagreements

I am a first time BOD President in a new community, the HOA just took over in Nov 07 and the BOD was elected in April 2008.

I had a homeowner come to the HOA rep. who then presented the case to the BOD about a deck coming a quarter of an inch into her townhome line, which was causing this homeowner to not be able to build the deck she wants. We advised the homeowner to talk to the neighbor in question about the situation, if it is not resolved then we could help the homeowner find an engineer to come in and look at the situation (all expenses to the homeowner). Well, the homeowner did talk to the deck owner in question and they will fix the problem.

The homeowner then sent the HOA rep an e-mail stating " I just have to tell you that I am disappointed in the HOA?s response to this, because if it is any indication of how things will be handled in the future, I have not faith in my rights which I thought were protected by the HOA."

What does anyone take of this? Does the BOD have the duty to act as "parents/referees" to the homeowners? I could not find anywhere in my By Laws stating that the BOD has to "rights to protect", well at least not in little disagreements. This homeowner simply did not want to cause any friction with their neighbor, so she came to the board to handle. I think that we are all adults in the community and should be able to handle small things like this without the BOD. I thought the BOD was in place to organize contracts (landscaping, snow removal, trash), maintain continuity, budget, and so forth....not homeowner complaints about other homeowners quarter inch deck overage.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Melissa while it is almost always better if neighbors can work things out without involving the BOD in this case I'm not so sure the BOD had no place in this matter. Does your Association require ACC approval for decks? Did the offending H/O have it for his deck and was the deck built to what was applied for? Was it inspected and approved after construction to make sure it met ACC approval? Does the new H/O have ACC approval? Does your city/county have building codes for decks in addition to ACC approval? Require a permit?

Thank you all for your prompt responses in this matter.

To answer your questions:

- The deck in question had the plans approved by the previous Declarant who was President of the BOD for a short period of time.

- The deck in question was issued a permit from the township.

- In regards to the deck being inspected after it was built, I am not sure. I am still waiting on how inspections work from the township.

- As for an ACC for this community, there is not one, nor do I have any inclination there ever was one. This is an idea that I will discuss with my Board.

I do agree with Mary that the HOA/BOD should not act as go betweens for homeowners because they do not want to cause friction. I do agree with GlenL that the HOA/BOD should/can get involved with homeowner disputes as a mediator IF the homeowners cannot resolve the issue themselves.

Do you think I was wrong and violated the rights of the homeowners by recommending that they discuss the issue first before having the BOD involved? I do understand the deck should have been inspected, and I am not sure if it was or not once I was just elected to the BOD.

Mary - you said this situation was briefly discussed in another thread. Would you happen to remember the name of the thread? I was trying to find it last night.

Thank you again for all of your insites!

But what if the deck was approved by the ARC, but the deck ended up being higher than stated or encroaching on a neighboring property? Wouldn't the HOA have the responsibility to then address this with the person who built the new deck for not conforming to the original request?

Also, not to highjack this thread, but we just held an ARC meeting and the owner decided to just rebuild the deck as an identical replacement, which would not require ARC approval, because the adjacent property owners would not agree to the changes. The deck would be half a foot higher than the adjacent deck and extend to the water, 46" from the ground (plus an 18" railing) along the lake, rather than having a terraced deck that would not interfere with the waterfront views of the neighbors.