Staff Doing Private Business

We have a chief engineer in our high-rise condo who also runs his own contracting business. Most of his jobs are remodels to our units. He claims he doesn't use company time to supervise his crews but many homeowners have reported seeing him spend time in units with his crews. He also seems to spend a lot of time soliciting business when people call the HOA Office to report problems. There have also been claims that he gives a hard time to other contractors working in the complex. There seems to be a clear conflict of interest but our attorney says we can't pass a rule banning staff from conducting private business on-site because it violates their right to have a private agreement with homeowners on their own time. Has anyone else had a similar problem? What did you do?

How do you know that he does not "stop by" to monitor the work done by other companies?

In any case, it's too difficult to tell what "hat" he is wearing, when. So let him know about your concern and remind him to keep his hours separate from his own business hours. Surely he can see that he is charging twice when he works his business at the same time he is on the clock for the HOA.

Maybe cutting the hours he works for the HOA is an option.

If the Engineer is an employee, you certainly can restrict his business dealings with owners in your organization. I will assure you that other organizations do just that. In fact my former fortune 500 company made me sign acknowledging that I must request permission of management for any outside business. And they made it exceedingly clear that doing contract work for any employee of a client was grounds for termination. (And such restrictions are the norm in the IS world.)

The fact that I would do such work on my own time and had no bearing on the situation.

I am becoming very disillusioned by much of the advice (reportedly) given out by HOA attorneys. Then again I would not spend money getting employemnt advice from an HOA attorney on employment law.