HELP! OUR HOA NEEDS ADVICE!

Started by PauG • 6 replies • 1530 views

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PauG (Maryland)
Posts: 53

Posted:

I know this topic has been brought up before, but our HOA is having a problem with illegal boarding houses. I'll be brief.

The new sign they have room is to tie a curtain in a window. Numerous complaints from homeowners. Parking is a nightmare.

We have contacted our city code enforcement department. Very slow and hesitant to do anything. A board member called the mayor's office and was told she was intolerant of other nationalities and blown off.

We are revising our covenants to say that our Association is for single family use, and that no boarding house, rooming house, hotel/motel, or bed & breakfast is permitted per zoning regulations.

We have sent letters to the homeowners.

Our lovely HOA is being affected by these illegal boarding houses. . . property values, the reputation of our community, parking, trash, and the peace & safety of our community.

We are having our annual meeting next week and will be discussing this. Any advice on how to solve this situation will be appreciated, although I think this will be an endless cycle as long as these people own these homes.

We are going to try to find out if.....

§ The Association can fine these homeowners?

§ Could we raise their HOA fees due to having so many people in their houses, due to the impact it is having on the Association’s parking, trash, etc.?

§ Reporting violators to the Internal Revenue Service for further action, since rents are usually collected in cash.

§ Inform insurance companies if we can find out who the policy is under, since most policies are written for single-family use.

§ If the City fire marshal has the authority to close down illegal boarding and rooming houses?

MikeS1
Posts: 668

Posted:

We've had this problem in VA in Northern VA and although zoning laws state that no more then 4 unrelated individuals may reside in a TH, the County has bigger fish to fry and I don't really think that they want to deal with this issue. I honestly believe that FFX County doesn't want to step into the beartrap that Prince William did last year. The only time that they seem to step in and do something is when they find people living in buried basements that do not have adequate ingress/egress (second way out) or additional window or door for fire escape. We've had this type of situation where the basement is blocked off and the basement renter does not have access to the upstairs. This is definately a zoning violation and then if they are cooking in the basement, that drives the inspectors crazy too.

BrianB (California)
Posts: 2,820

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By PauG on 06/06/2008 11:50 AM
I know this topic has been brought up before, but our HOA is having a problem with illegal boarding houses. I'll be brief.

The new sign they have room is to tie a curtain in a window. Numerous complaints from homeowners. Parking is a nightmare.

We have contacted our city code enforcement department. Very slow and hesitant to do anything. A board member called the mayor's office and was told she was intolerant of other nationalities and blown off.

We are revising our covenants to say that our Association is for single family use, and that no boarding house, rooming house, hotel/motel, or bed & breakfast is permitted per zoning regulations.

We have sent letters to the homeowners.

Our lovely HOA is being affected by these illegal boarding houses. . . property values, the reputation of our community, parking, trash, and the peace & safety of our community.

We are having our annual meeting next week and will be discussing this. Any advice on how to solve this situation will be appreciated, although I think this will be an endless cycle as long as these people own these homes.

We are going to try to find out if.....

§ The Association can fine these homeowners? Depends on if you have a rule they are breaking, and if your HOA rules allow you to fine them. You can't do it "suddenly" if you don't have the system in place to back you up legally.

§ Could we raise their HOA fees due to having so many people in their houses, due to the impact it is having on the Association’s parking, trash, etc.? Not likely, no. Not unless your covenants allow you to divide the annual budget by number of people, rather than number of lots/owners.

§ Reporting violators to the Internal Revenue Service for further action, since rents are usually collected in cash. Sure. It's a free country.

§ Inform insurance companies if we can find out who the policy is under, since most policies are written for single-family use. Sure. It's a free country.

§ If the City fire marshal has the authority to close down illegal boarding and rooming houses? In general, the city fire marshal is one of the most powerful people in local government, and can pretty much do anything. Getting him to, however, is the trick.

See answers above... and in addition: Do you have rules that allow LEGAL boarding homes? If not, why does it matter that these are illegal?

GloriaM (North Carolina)
Posts: 829

Posted:

Not only should the Code Enforcer be forced to carry out his/her duties so should you report this to the Zoning Officer as well. I would call the City/Town Clerk and ask to be placed on the next Mayor and City Counsel Agenda and speak to the heads that should make things roll!

Also what about the Owner of the home? You should definately force them to vacate the bordering home.

SusanW1 (Michigan)
Posts: 5,202

Posted:

You are going to have to prove that this person is sub renting out his unit. That may be difficult to do. The parking issue is the only real issue you can site to show your opposition to the situation.

P.S. If a family has 3 college-age (adult) children living with them in their home, how do you see that? That also could be a parking issue.

MicheleD (Kentucky)
Posts: 4,491

Posted:

It's a shame that other areas don't enforce the zoning restrictions for house occupancy.

We have actually had two issues within our HOA over the last few years.

In both cases the Zoning Inspections Officers came out.

In one case there were two families living in one house, one was ordered to move out.

In the other case it was just an extended family, with gram and gramps, and the square-footage per person and the room conversion issues (cannot use a room designated for dining space to be converted to a living quarter, for example), were okay and didn't violate any Zoning issues.

They were told to park in the driveway.

Oh, I forgot about another one because it was also part of a commercial business thing.

A guy was running a mulch business from a residence.

He was allowing migrant workers to live in the house while they were in town working on jobs.

They were also fined and had to cease operations. The migrant workers are gone.

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

I supposed you have read your documents carefully nad found no help there. Read them again and also the State Statute and non-profit corporations. I would think you are incorporated. See if there is some section that allows for fines and charging fees. Try to work from the angle that your association has similar powers as a town. Create your own occupancy office and create requirements for each unit. Reguire that each unit provide the association with names of all people residing in the unit, require written leases on any rent out, or forbid any rentals of any kind and make it very expensive and restrictive as to what the rights of any person living in the unit. Not sure this can be done in your case but sometimes a different approach can be unearthed if the documents and rights of the enforcing section of the association has some legal power. Create the infrastructure you need to control problem areas.
Visit each owner and inform him he is the responsible individual and he is the one that has signed to live under your documents. Show the owners the sections that allow for management control and power to effect his pocketbook. No parking overnight of any vehicle in the common areas or inside the property description as outlined in your documents, without a decal. Also best thing to do is shine the light on the practice without naming names. Flyers, e-mail blasts, letters, announcements at all meetings and plaster them all over the common areas. Put out dollar amounts for violators. Create a member Residence committee and be constantly visable and vocal. Call town hall meeting to make all residents aware of the problem and make the owners accept their responsibility to enforce the covenants just as much as the Board.
Think of new ways of correcting problems. See how other local HOA's handle the problem. If necessary and the problem is big enought form a coalition with other HOA's and sit at your represenative's door. Try and get TV and Newspaper coverage.

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