HELP BOARD MEMBERS BEING ASSULTED

We have the builder of our developement renting units. We have had NO PROBLEMS till this summer. We had a renter acost the Presisdent several times in the common areas. One month ago the renter paid a visit to my house and threatened to hurt the President of the HOA. We went to the police and filed a report. I was scared this renter is a ANIMAL. Last evening the President(female) and member at large(male) were returning from Sunady dinner and the renter assualted him. The police were called and the renter was not ARRESTED! He punched the member at large in the FACE! The renters girlfriend continues to acost and threaten the President of the HOA! At this point we are living in fear. We are holdiing a meeting to discuss this matter further in 48 hoours. What can I do to protect the community in the process of having a hearing and having the tenant evicted? This is going to take some time and the POLICE are doing nothing. What if one of us is killed or our children are hurt in the process of try to get a order to evict them? With in minutes of calling the police last night the tenants Gang Banger friends were here BEFORE THE POLICE! They have police scanner I assume. I am terriffied. I do not know what to do? SOME ONE HELP ME PLEASE!

It's strange that he was not arrested unless the person assaulted didn't press charges.

Other than a restraining order, which should be fairly easy to get if you provide all of the reports that have been filed on this person already, there's not much you can do.

Also, if your governing documents have a nuisance clause, pursue that against the owner of the apartment for allowing a nuisance condition to exist without "fixing it."

Whatever "fixing it" will entail. . . ..hopefully eviction.

Michele also offers good advice.

Based on the "rap sheets", it's sort of understandable why nobody wants to get involved with these bullies. However, the line has to be drawn or you're just asking for more trouble down the line. Bullies thrive on fear. If it was me, I'd follow the paths Kirk and Michele have outlined. And call the Federales every time you or your community members are threatened, punched, or otherwise hassled.

But it's your call, and a tough one if you aren't up for protecting yourselves.

Are the PM and attorney going to be there to 'splain the issues to the bullies?
I would hope so. If not, I'd can both of them.

November 15th Hearing? Who, what, where?

Actually, this really isn't an HOA issue, so to some extent the PM and the attorney are correct. This should really be handled by the police. As Kirk pointed out, if the police won't do anything, the member who was punched needs to escalate the matter to the Chief, the D.A., City Council, ... They are the ones who are supposed to be protecting the citizens, not the HOA. As Michele mentioned, the HOA should only be enforcing the CC&Rs with the property owner. He is allowing the nuisance to exist on his property. As far as the HOA is concerned, he needs to be the one to correct that situation.

As for the "hearing" in November, are these renters expected to attend? Again, the HOA does not have a contract with the renters, so most likely they won't even bother to show up.

Pie,
Everyone is telling you exactly what needs to be done. This is NOT something the HOA can settle. This is a police matter. But the owner of the unit absolutely is responsible for their tenants. I would have them noticed for eviction before the perps got back inside their doors. This is criminal assault and means jail time if convicted. Do not wait for someone to be really hurt.

Banning renters because of this is just plain a bad idea.

The best thing for you to do is to avoid contact with these people. Don't confront them or engage them in any way. Do take the steps I mentioned earlier. Do work with the owner to get these people out of the house.

To be honest, I think that someone on the BOD made the unfortunate mistake of directly engaging these people to try and stop some behavior. And while I am one who would advocate sending a copy of any correspondence regarding rules infractions to the house, I think directly engaging a renter is a bad idea. The exception would be that a reasonable person asking to understand what the problem is deserves the time to be given a copy of the rules and perhaps even a discussion so they understand the boundaries.

We had an issue where a man living with his mother has raped a women in the complex. For the members safty we took him to court and got a restraining order on him. You can do the same so he's not allowed on the grounds - if he lives there he'll be forced to move.

It's too bad your counterparts do not want to get involved. When a Board member is under threats of intimidation, it thwarts due process and does not allow for equal treatment of all members under the CC&Rs. It directly affects the fiduciary duty of ALL Board members. Perhaps they are afraid of these thugs and just don't want to speak out themselves?

I had the unfortunate experience of intimidation, stalking, and outright threats of violence from people who were renting in my community (might I add - we have rental restrictions). Similar to your experience, these people had a rap sheet, and were *obviously* abusing substances. My experience with the police/courts was mediocre; apparently, Nevada will only issue a protection order if someone actually gets hurt or killed. So we stuck our community attorney on the matter and held several hearings for each violation that occured. These resulted in fines and eventually liens on the homes. Between the fines, special assessments for attorney fees, management fees, the owners finally kicked them out of their homes. The last I knew, the owners were still trying to recoup their attorney costs from the former tenants.

What I learned from this experience is this: People who rent their home do it to MAKE MONEY and consider it a QUIET INVESTMENT. If you attach a major fiscal consequence, they eventually get the point (especially when they try to get credit and they can't because they have a property lien). Couple that with letters from attorneys, managers, etc. and they simply will not want to deal with it anymore.

I commend you for putting your foot down on this! Show your fellow trustees that THIS is how they reclaim their community!

I've had success when I have informally spoken to members about violations, but in one instance had to inform someone whose wife I had spoken to (what I thought was a positive resolution), never to step foot on my property again or I would consider it harassment and call the police when he came to my front door in a rage. I later discovered that he has been arrested for domestic violence on more than one occasion.

Most folks have been very positive and thanked me for speaking to them in advance of receiving a letter of violation. In one case I phoned a renter* and she got very angry on the phone. When I told her that I didn't know why her anger was being directed at me, as the rules were not my rules, she was quick to apologize. That was three months ago and I had never met her. I recently met her when she called the police about a problem that she was having and when I gave her my cell phone number and told her that I would keep an eye out, she hugged me as we parted.

*Technically, it is the owner who should be contacted, but for minor violations, paying the tenant a visit or phoning and approaching it as "I just wanted to make you aware, in the event your landlord did not tell you, that XXX is in violation of the governing docs and could subject your landlord to fines...." usually results in a thank you and compliance. For minor things- parking, trash bags left outside doors, towels on balconies etc., the "you probably were not made aware of this...." approach takes away the defensiveness that they feel if they receive a call from their landlord about a notice of violation.

I realize that the problem that you have, Pie, is in an entirely different league. I would be very, very careful, especially if drugs and violence are involved. Even if a restraining order is imposed, they only work if the person obeys the order. I'm thinking that someone involved with meth is probably not going to have the ability to take it seriously. The threat of jail only works when one is in right own mind.

I hope you will keep us posted.