CONTRACTORS

Our Board is currently considering a new Rule to cover Contractors.
Basically we want to limit that work must be preformed on Monday to Friday and between the hours of 8a.m. to 6 p.m., only exception would be for emergencies.
Our HOA Documents give the board the right to create and enforce rules/regulations. We have a new board member,a lawyer I might add( who volunteered to fill a postion of someone who resigned,so was appointed), says we can't even tho for the last 12 yrs. with the support of our Association attorney we have written some new rules/regulations and amended a few. Never a problem.
Sorry rambling here. My question and request is, does anyone on this site that lives in a townhouse community have any rule/regulations regarding contractors?
Great site, great advice, and I want to thank everyone in advance.

Donna, really no reason except she doesn't like the new rule and is being out voted,so her answer is it isn't legal,she says I am an attorney and know the potential for lawsuits.She works for Securities and Exchange Commission. She says restricting contractors is to confining of a rule and is illegal. At first she argued it was a "material" amendment and without 66% of the homeowners voting on it the Board can't do this, she wants to open this up to all of the homeowners to discuss, put in all these exceptions, language and have non board members be involved in the writing of it. The two Board members that appointed her after she expressed an interest when the peron who previously had her position moved away are kicking themselves now.
We are a small HOA with only 20 townhouses and we self manage. Recently we had a home sell and the new owner hired a contractor who decided to install a new roof on a Sat. starting at 7:00 a.m., my phone was ringing by 8, upset that this was happening on a Saturday, since all of them work and their only time to sleep late is on weekends and besides they didn't want all that banging and mess while they were trying to enjoy the weekend. People were very angry, and requested that a new rule be put into effect that this could not happen again.
We are reviewing the documents closely to see if we can withdraw her appointment. In 12 yrs as the President of the HOA, we have never had this much controvery on the Board, nor with the homeowners.

It makes sense it is a lawyer. Lawyers can be crazy people. We tend to allow ourselves to think that anything and everything a lawyer says is gospel, and that failing to heed that advice is certain to draw lawsuits and send us all to financial ruin.

Lawyers are like any other resource--they require careful management. When they get on boards they can get out of control. They tend to intimidate other members of the board, as is being done here.

Most lawyers make their living telling people what they can't do. The secret to managing lawyers is to tell them that you want to do something, and it is their job to tell you how it can (not can't) be done.

I don't know Virginia law at all, but I cannot believe what she is telling you is correct. Establishing work hours is a reasonable rule on its surface.

Thank the attorney for her professional opinion, and then take a vote. Don't enable her to continue to intimidate the board. You are not obligated to accept her opinion.

Mary,

How about it being a rule because any member who hires for service would be responsible to inform the contractor that the rule states such and such hours are allowed. Yes, if it Board hired contractors like the landscapers or painter or whatever, then it is a policy to limit contractors of the association? Just trying to figure out where this really belongs I read my old Fl. R.and R. book and it is there

Heck - our township has an ordinance that lawn mowers, contruction work, etc. can't happen before 9 a.m. (but it's violated, anyway. They can receive a ticket for starting work before that time0

I see no reason why your board cannot pass a Noise Restriction policy or Rule - which would include all kinds of contruction work that would disturb others, (plus it cold cover the blaring music that the roofers would be playing, too.

NL,

Look at the language in your declaration that says the board has the authority to make additional rules. Rules are made for the members to abide by not outside contractors. It doesn't matter that "policy" is not outlined in your docs; what you're talking about is a board policy.

And, since when do the members hire a contractor? The contractor is hired by the BOD! Who's running your assn? The members in masse or a board of directors???

Donna,

You may have hit on something. But, from NL's msg I got the impression is was a rule for contractor's to abide by, not the members. My point is that the BOD can only make "rules" for the members. But, it can set policies for certain things, in this case the working hours for contractors. This "policy" would be written into any contracts entered into by the assn.

Mary, You read my post incorrectly, it said nothing about the Board hiring contractors.
What happended here is we have a new board member who is an attorney (specialty being government finance), who finally admitted after a conference call with her, HOA attorney and Board Members she knew nothing about HOA Law and was interpretting it incorrectly. BTW, the Board is a well run, very strong self managed community. IN 12 yrs. this was the first time we have had any problems, this includes both with HOA Board Members or residents. I guess we should count ourselves lucky on that aspect.

He never heard of them being called Board Policies..... we just use different language than your documents.
I owned two properties in PA and we don't use the work "policy" anywhere.