Owners responsible for guests, family members, tenants?

My BOD wants to set up a fine policy that would fine the owners for any rule or regulation, declaration or bylaw violation by their guests or tenants.

Our Declarations state:

"Any person entering the development, at the invitation of the OWNER, other than members of the owners household, SHALL be registered with the association and SHALL be subject to such rules and regulations as the association shall adopt, from time to time, applicable thereto, INCLUDING the imposition of any charges. This provision shall not apply to the invitees of the declarant."

I understand this to mean that we CANNOT fine the owners for their guests/tenants actions. I have several board members who read that and said: "This is the original developer of XYZ & has no affect on us & the others agree with us on what we are trying to do with the Rules & Regulations. Any questions, call me."

Am I missing something or just working working with people who want to do whatever they want?

Barbara, when I read it a second time I got the "Shall be registered" part, it means the HOA will automatically assume they belong to the owner. We have something similar in our docs although IMHO written better along with the ability to make a special assessment (fine) against the H/O to enforce against the actions of their guests. This is why when a home is rented and the tenant violates the CC&R's the owner gets the fine not the tenant although if s/he is smart they will have a provision in the lease to pass it on to the tenant.

Barbara,
If you are talking condos, and I assume you are.

In spite of what your board may think or say, it is not a good idea to operate under CC&R's or anything else, that references the "Declarant."
All this does is create the circumstances and the disagreement that you are experiencing. Our association operated for 20 some years without any modification (amendments) to the documents. It was a big fight to get it done and there was pros and cons. But a few things are not refutable. One is owner and Board apathy and worse. It is the responsibility of each owner to act in the best interests of the Real Property. You can not do this if your governing documents are a mishmash of declarant concerns or issues. Be safe, get rid of them. When the next board takes over they won't even know there was a Declarant involved........time marches on!

I am surprised Maryland does have some guideline about this. Maryland has a lot of newer legislation and I am surprised they didn't address it.

I will assure you that without reference to your declarant in your documents, those few owners that do read them will be thankful they didn't have to pick through the documents to find out what is relevant and what is not.

I am sure there are circumstances that will prove exceptions to what I am suggesting and if they are, treat them like exceptions and still get a lawyer (A good one to sanitize your documents.

Robert, our documents, and many others just like them in our area (yes, I suppose they all share the same boilerplate!) indicate that the after turnover, the term declarent (or Developer) shall apply to whomever he assigns transfer of responsibility.

I forget exactly how its worded and don't want to hunt it down now, but it was worded like that to prevent having to spend the money to go and rewrite the entire set of documents.

In our case, we have 9 different sets of CC&Rs to cover our development. That would entail rewriting each set to simply replace the word Developer with HOA or board.

I wonder if more associations don't have something similar in them and many don't realize it?

It's only a one sentence phrase that handles it.

Michelle,
I don't know what I am going to do with you.

Our documents didn't, declarant is gone, there is nor question because it is not there. It took 25 years to get it done. It cost about 5 K for a rewrite plus three or four amendments, plus we did a proof read and make corrections. Some language was cleaned up and that included the lawyer making a presentation at the annual meeting time frame to explain each and every change.

To dedact the words Declarant is a very simple process, at least in our instance.

Why would you have to rewrite nine different sets of documents?

Given any thought to why the developer put that one sentence into your documents? Do you think it was to save the Homeowners money?

I'm confused by your positions.

It's probably just me and not you.

It appears you think that your HOA can only fine the guests/renters of owners and not the owners themselves for their guests/renters actions.

Then you appear to say just the opposite in your last post.

The owners are ultimately responsible for compliance to the CC&Rs of their guests while on their property.

The owners can be fined for non-compliance of guests.

But then your documents also allow for direct fining of the guests themselves.

Though I would bet that would be harder to enforce, since the "guests" didn't agree to the binding documents, the owners did.

Robert, I didn't say yours did have that line. I realize many do not. But I also realize many do and was simply adding that to the conversation. Many times people THINK they have to remove the designation, but it's often not the case.

That's all I was saying.

And, yes, I do believe that phrase was in there to reduce or eliminate potential problems and/or expenses later on down the line.

SOME developers have a reputation they like to maintain. Not all developers are greedy a**hats.

The development community around here is relatively small. We have our share of out-of-staters, usually building sub-par homes and in-and-out for a quick buck.

But a good many developers are local, have a resume filled with excellent developments and work very hard to maintain a respectable reputation, especially now in this economy. Sure we still have some local ones who are low-end (they like to buy up the remaining lots of developments then try to claim the development on their websites or promotional materials), but they rarely initiate developments from the ground (infrastructure) up.

Robert,
WOW you were a neighbor...now I know why I like you so much!
Yes MontoCounty has boomed in the last 10 years or so. My vacation home is in Worcester County, near an ocean, in a city!!! Get the message?

I am a BOD, newly elected again in June. I was a BOD for 4 years back several years ago. My last term ended around 2004-05.

Now, this is why I came to the "HOA experts and ESQ's" for some adivce.
I hate to spend the $$$ for our HOA's attorney's review of these statements.....but may have to.

Again, many thanks to all and I am still open to suggestions/opinions.