How to get county to take over maintenance of community streets?

Katherine, there are these magical documents called CC&R’s (Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions), you know that pile of documents you got when you closed on your home. The ones you were always meaning to read but never quite got around to. In them buried somewhere should be how to dissolve your HOA; usually it will require between 90 & !00% of the homeowners and possibly their lenders voting to dissolve. Then you will have to get the county to agree to take over the maintenance and upkeep of your common areas. Good luck with that one; most HOA’s nowadays are forced on to developers as a condition to build because the local tax base isn’t up to supporting the additional infrastructure, at the very least expect the county to impose a Special Tax District on your community. Basically instead of paying your HOA dues to the HOA to fix the things required, you would be paying them to the county. Then after all of that you would have to dissolve the corporation that is the HOA.


You were very lucky; if it is not done correctly and legally it has the potential to be very costly. Say everyone decides they just want the HOA to go away and they stop paying assessments and the corporation becomes inactive and the insurance on the common areas is allowed to lapse; no harm, no foul and everybody is happy. Now along comes little Johnny who thinks it would be great fun to pitch rocks into the HOA’s storm retention pond. Well if little Johnny should fall in and be injured or drown who do you think little Johnny’s mum and dad are going to sue? They can’t sue the HOA it no longer is a viable corporation and there is no insurance so they get to sue each and every member of the HOA; remember just because everyone shook hands and agreed to pretend it wasn’t there doesn’t mean you are not still legally responsible for it. The term is jointly and severally, meaning the parents can sue each and every one of the property owners and collect from them all. As Oprah might say: “You get to pay and you get to pay and you get to pay.”

There are 2 storm water management areas (one small which is typically covered in weeds - only 2 houses utilizing it - the other one about the size of a soccer field) and a few walking paths (paths have fallen in to disrepair in some areas) - that's it. Because of financial issues due to recession and a large number of foreclosures (and causing the HOA to nearly go broke), neighbors having in fact gotten together and volunteered to do maintenance on some of the path areas to save the HOA money. Issues with the swm are mowing the area 2-3 times a year - perhaps there might be a need for regrading or drain maintenance in many years but mowing is primarily it. Well I plan on consulting with an attorney, zoning department etc etc on a variety of issues including this.