Most of the time difficult situations that arise during a meeting can be resolved on the spot, but occasionally, “fatal flaws” arise: those few errors or situations that arise that cannot be fixed at that meeting.
What to do when an HOA doesn’t enforce its rules
Q: I live in a townhome and condo community with a board of directors and a management company. We have bylaws and CCRs (covenants, conditions, and restrictions) as governing documents.
Duty to Call
A board’s reluctance to contact an attorney could be a risk not worth taking.
A Fort Lauderdale condominium association paid $100,000.00 to settle a lawsuit after an attorney-board member who wasn’t licensed in Florida wrongly insisted how overdue assessments should be collected.
Board members of a California condominium association didn’t consult...
Enforcing neglected provisions fairly
Remedies for long-ignored violations
Q. Our HOA has some very specific restrictions. For instance, one requires owners to screen trash containers behind a barrier. Over the last several years, many of these restrictions have not been enforced. The current board would like to begin an enforcement program. We would only require a correction of a violation if we determined that it could be corrected at reasonable cost and limited inconvenience, and we’d give the property owner plenty of time. Is there a statute of limitations that would “grandfather” a past violation and prohibit the HOA from enforcing it? Does the tolerance of violations over many years prohibit the HOA from forbidding future violations of a similar kind?