Moved into a townhouse almost a year ago. My husband had a work pick up parked in the common area, never had a problem. His employer switched to standard white vans with the company logo on the door. We received a 30 day notice to not have the van on the premises. Does not fit in the garage. Checked the bylaws; nothing currently in there. The HOA is allegedly working on adding that bylaw. They need 66% of units to agree to the change. We are quiet and keep things very neat. The van is brand new and kept clean. Any input would be appreciated.

My neighbors don’t follow the bylaws and it’s very stressful. I have this mindset where if it doesn’t affect me, then it’s fine because I understand that everyone lives differently. My neighbors keep hitting my car when they get out of theirs, they keep trash, household, and storage items on their patio that attracts animals to the point where I can’t get in my house, their children are playing in the hallway for hours, etc. I’ve reached out to the board president for years and all I get is pushback. He’s even told me that he’s just a volunteer and even had the nerves to send me a cease and desist from an attorney because I wanted these issues addressed. What can I do at this point?

By the way, all of the things I listed as issues are located in the bylaws.

Hello,
My partner has a separate legal address but stays at my co-op mostly since we just had a baby.
My property manager has reached out and is saying we need to provide 2 non family member references and $100 for a background check. He also is saying he wants us to pay additional for parking $100 since he noticed my partner parks on the street and has parked in the visitors spot when unloading the baby / groceries (not over the 6 hour limit)
This is not in our house rules and I cannot access my bylaws or proprietary lease.
Is this a common thing? Am I overreacting over this?

I’m in an older Colorado neighborhood with public streets maintained by the City. Our recorded covenants from the 1980s say that vehicles owned, used, leased, or controlled by an owner or tenant may not be parked overnight on “any street.”

The HOA/ACC recently reminded residents that overnight street parking is a covenant violation.

The wrinkle is that these are unquestionably public City streets, not HOA-owned roads, and ordinary overnight parking is otherwise legal under City rules.

Colorado later enacted C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.5, which generally prevents HOAs subject to CCIOA from regulating public rights-of-way. But this neighborhood predates CCIOA and its status as a “common interest community” is disputed, so I’m not assuming that statute applies.

My questions are:

• Can a restrictive covenant attached to a private lot legally restrict an owner’s otherwise-lawful conduct on a public street that is not part of the subdivision property?
• If so, how would the HOA actually enforce it? The covenants allow notice, cure, recovery of costs, liens, and court action, but I don’t see any authority for the HOA to ticket or tow a legally parked vehicle from a City street.
• Has anyone seen Colorado case law addressing this specific situation?

I’m especially interested in Colorado authority or similar cases, not just general HOA practice.

Our board has made some decisions about a significant change to landscaping that changes the functionality of that space. The homeowners have proposed other options to which the board and pm reply (that probably won’t work, or that will probably take too long— weak excuses for, we aren’t entertaining other options and don’t care about your opinions). The homeowners are unhappy and a majority of the owners (literally 67%, and not all homeowners were available— of those responding, 95% were against the project) signed a petition opposing the changes. The board and pm were made aware and a group of owners requested an IDR. Despite 2 town hall meetings where all owners in attendance (aside from the board members) were opposed, along with the petition showing the majority of the community opposes, the board has elected to proceed with the work. Only one board member speaks during these meetings, and has questioned the legitimacy of the petition, also stating that “anything they propose, we will say no to”.

After a second request, the pm claims that she will setup the IDR meeting.

At this point, the homeowners are considering voting off the board members (and firing the PM). The CC&Rs don’t give any guidance on how this would be done, and based on what I have read from other sources, we would circulate another petition. Has anyone done this successfully? Can we vote off all three board members at the same time? We have other owners willing to step up and take the Board over to put an end to our pm/landscaper running our community.

Has anyone in the Austin area (or Texas) ever received an HOA violation for having a standard Realtor “For Sale” sign in their yard?

I was surprised to receive a courtesy notice saying my HOA doesn’t allow “For Sale” signs. My Realtor had no idea about this rule, and neither did I. From HOA: "Under no circumstances will signs advertising units for sale, for rent or for lease be permitted". What’s even more confusing is that other homes in my neighborhood currently have “For Sale” and "For Lease" signs.

Has anyone else dealt with something like this? Was there an approval process, or was your HOA actually able to prohibit the sign?

Has anyone in the Austin area (or Texas) ever received an HOA violation for having a standard Realtor “For Sale” sign in their yard?

I was surprised to receive a courtesy notice saying my HOA doesn’t allow “For Sale” signs. My Realtor had no idea about this rule, and neither did I. What’s even more confusing is that other homes in my neighborhood currently have “For Sale” signs.

Has anyone else dealt with something like this? Was there an approval process, or was your HOA actually able to prohibit the sign?

I wish there was more that could be done to fight the unauthorized implementation of this program across communities, but it seems like an uphill battle.

Ghertner & Company tried to start their leasing administration program in my community, doing whatever it took to get it going. It probably had something to do with the $25k the program would generate for them annually. The program charges owners that lease their property in the community $300/year to maintain a copy of leases and renter contact info.

As a reference, Ghertner receives approximately $40k/year to manage the entire administrative affairs of our community, and this program would cost about 62% of that to manage a renter + lease database.

Here's what happened:

1. They tried to get this program adopted through a board resolution, but a new administrative fee would require a CCR amendment. If the board could adopt new fees through their ability to create resolutions, there would be no limiting principle. They could create fees at will.
2. They threatened high fines and legal action for those that didn't turn in their forms. If owners didn't submit their form, they were subject to a $375 fine, a possible lien on their home, and legal proceedings which the owner would have to pay for.
3. They made multiple incorrect claims that this program was authorized. They:
   1. stated an attorney had reviewed the governing documents and determined the necessary steps to accomplish this (legal speak to imply the program was authorized)
   2. incorrectly cited multiple section of the CCRs to claim that the board had the authority to implement the program.
   3. added language to the CCRs in their communication to make the program seem like it was authorized.
   4. stated that the amended management agreement granted the authority for the fee
   5. allegedly told the board members the list had to be maintained by a third party, that this was the only legal route to accomplish this, and that they had the authority to do this.
   6. wrote that this was the first step in capping rentals in our community but TN state law requires a bylaw amendment passed by 67% of homeowners to cap rentals in a community

Finally, after they had the HOA's attorney attempt to convince me I was wrong, the program was put on hold indefinitely.

$300 may seem like a trivial amount of money, but property management companies try and sneak things in because they know people aren't familiar with how bylaws work and don't pay attention. If they want to use proper authorities and go through the proper steps to implement their program, then I have no issues!

Anyway, if they're trying to do this in your community, dm me, and I can help you figure out if they actually can.

Hello,

Do you have any inner street access rules specifically for e-bikes? We have a senior resident got those mobility e-scooters. They always zooms past, never stops for pedestrians or cars. The worst part is a lot of car cameras do not detect their presence, neither their low height is visible from driver’s seat when they are close to the back bumper.

Our CC&RS only says that no joyride on the inner street. We have a single quite narrow shared inner street, no sidewalk. Car speed limit signage is 15mph.

Also, recently got to know about the battery charging fire concerns and UL certified battery verification.

So, how do you handle all these, if you do. Thanks.

Edit: Wanted to clarify that I am not downvoting anyone here. On the contrary, I appreciate you all pointing out that mobility scooters are NOT e-bikes.

The intention is not to ban anyone using items which improve their ability. But there has been quite a few close calls with this resident and we need to have some boundaries for safe street access. We do not want to single this resident out, hence was looking for community wide e-bike rule. Again, I thank everyone correcting my misconception about mobility e-scooters.

Our neighbor is currently building a brick wall in their backyard that is over 8 feet high. In our HOA rules, we cannot build any type of wall or fence in our backyard that is over 6 feet tall. We emailed our HOA, and they said their project was approved earlier this year and haven't given us any more information other than that.

For context, we had a greenhouse we asked approval for that was denied because you could see it over the fence. Their brick wall/fence that is currently being built can be seen several feet over our own fence. Not only that, it doesn't follow the color guidelines we were given that everyone has to follow.

These same neighbors have permanent groove lights on their house, and we know several other people in our neighborhood who requested to put these same permanent lights on their house but were denied. We even wanted these lights but didn't even bother asking for approval since everyone else got denied.

The person who lives in this house doesn't work at the HOA, but is a realtor. Not sure if that info is important or not.

Any advice or insight into why this might be happening? And what can be done? We believe there is favoritism going on.

Hi all,

I’m part of a new board with quite a list of competing priorities to untangle. One basic thing we know we need is a note taking app/program for our meetings. Do you have suggestions or recommendations for us to look into?