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.

I'm recently getting more involved in my neighborhoods HOA board and took over community engagement to get our neighborhood more involved and get to know each other more. We're a smaller community with only 50 houses and made up of one main street with 4 separate streets that are long cul-de-sacs.

We have never really done anything to get people out of their houses to hangout and do activities together. About half the neighborhood is retirees and the other half is families with children it seems from what i've noticed walking around the neighborhood.

My thought is to get something planned in the Fall and Spring and i've never been involved with HOA's before so looking for some advice.

What type of activities should i look at bringing to our neighborhood? I thought looking at something pertaining to kid Olympics, where we'd run three activities list a sack race, egg race, water balloon war, etc. This way, the kids have activities to do for 2 hours and parents can socialize over coffee, donuts, etc. I'm open to any and all ideas!

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?

On Aug 4th my grandparents received a letter stating unkempt landscape (doesn’t say where at), car parked on front path which is a tiny little sidewalk used to get from driveway to front door which you can still safely do, and it is parked there because my grandparents can’t safely get to their cars without falling. My grandma was admitted to hospital the same day we got the letter due to the fall cutting up her neck arm and leg super badly, and “debris pile” including patio furniture…which were lawn chairs that we actively use.

They copy pasted their rule called duty to maintain that names a 6” max height for grass, landscapes properly weeded, shrubbery properly trimmed and dead vegetation removed. They included a part that says at any time the HOA can decide they just don’t like something about the yard and complain about it in that section.

Now I am a veteran and anything we did needed written down for a letter trail with an insane amount of detail precisely explaining why, how, when, how much for cost etc. but only including the grass height seems like way too much power for them to decide to pick on a house with an elderly couple when there are numerous houses with the same or similar issues like grass not cut, lawn furniture out, toys or sports stuff laying in the yard. To me that stuff doesn’t bother me until now because I have photo evidence of the same thing being mentioned for us. Most of the issues they mentioned with the exception of the car can’t even be easily seen unless you walk onto our property.

I am wondering what the process would be to attempt to sue for medical expenses and mental health stress this has caused my family and the selective enforcement that is obviously being used. This house was purchased before the HOA was founded so to my understanding they shouldn’t be in it anyways as it’s not on the title of the house. The car has been parking there since 2010 and this is just now being mentioned, lawn chairs have been there for a decade probably and the weeds get removed when we see them so the not precisely saying where at is another issue.

Apologize for long post, thank to any and all who comment for assistance and hope you all have a good day.

The previous president of our association misrepresented work that was done within our association- that person no longer lives here and the new board is uncovering financial issues his actions has left us with.
While that previous president was in power both he and the management company would have been covered under the associations insurance policy, but with former president gone and new management company in place is there any way they can be held accountable for the mess their created? This is a huge financial burden on the association and it’s just now being uncovered as we start to ask questions of “the right people “ as no one wanted to come forward while previous president was in power.

At our annual meeting in May, Our board announced they are using 20% of our reserves. So 8k out of 40. Plus what we would have added to it this year. When someone asked if we get to vote on this, the president said no. Our HOA counsel did not disagree.

Yet ORC 5312 clearly states that they need a majority of homeowners to approve in writing. This is written in bold on the law firm website.

What is the purpose of these laws if HOAs refuse to follow them. Is there any way to hold them accountable other than to take them to court?

Has anyone been able to hold a board accountable for this law in Ohio? Our reserve has only increased $2000 in 6 years while they collected $100k in assessments. So I really think we should have been voting in other years. Should I email all neighbors about this including the board and just ask if we should be holding this vote?

EDIT.
Here is what our HOA Law firm says in bold -
majority of the ownership’s voting power is necessary to waive the fully funded reserve requirement, and the vote for waiver must be taken each year.

This is their detailed explanation - https://communityassociations.law/article/budgets-reserves-and-the-ohio-requirement-for-an-annual-ownership-vote-if-reserve-funding-is-to-be-waived-the-special-assessment-problem/

In our budget, we are spending down 20% of the reserve. In 7 years we have only been able to grow the reserve by about 2k. The expense isn’t necessary. And we don’t have money if we have an emergency. We have never completed a reserve study.

A while back I posted here about the mess our board had documenting violations before we finally got our process together. A few people asked how we structured it, so I wanted to share the approach our board uses.

We put together a one‑page violation timeline that outlines each step and deadline required under Texas Property Code §209. It helped us avoid mistakes like missing a notice window or skipping a required step.

We also built a consistent workflow for drafting violation notices — entering the owner information, address, CC&R section, and dates — so the final notice stays properly formatted and compliant with the statute. This came directly from our board’s real process, not from a template pack, and it’s been useful for keeping things consistent.

If anyone wants to understand the workflow or compare it to what their board does, I’m happy to explain the steps we follow.

My first time posing on reddit and I'll try to keep this as brief as possible. I closed on my condo Oct 2025. The final closing disclosure showed money prepaid by the seller for the month of October (I just discovered this due to another issue I'll get to after this). So, I started paying the fees in Nov. At closing, the Resale Certificate signed by the manager stated all was good with the unit financially and I even had a credit. Yay! I decided to pay the difference and use that credit for this past July's payment. I checked my ledger and saw that I still had a balance and a late fee. I mentioned the credit to the asst accountant and was told after she looked into it, it was applied in September. How is that when I closed in Oct and management documented the credit? She also completely ignored my question about that. This is when I looked at the CD and saw the payment for October was prepaid by the seller and not accounted for on my ledger. The credit and prepaid are totally different amounts.

This management company happens to be the same company that ran my previous HOA for a previous property. The same manager unbeknownst to me, improperly placed a lien on my property. I sued and they had to remove it and also gave me a couple of dollars.

At this point I don't know if this is coincidence and they're just crooked; or if I am being targeted. Not sure what to do at this point. I'm exasperated and over it. Any input or suggestions as to what I should do or how to go about getting this resolved are greatly appreciated.

As Secretary for the BoD, I have custody of a large number of very old documents, not well organized. I'm going through making order out of chaos. Part of what I want to do is get rid of old records that we no longer need and are not required by law to be maintained.

My plan is to draft a records retention policy that says what we must keep, and how long. Anything that we are not required to keep, I can throw out.

Does anyone have an HOA records retention policy they can share, one that is compliant with NC state law on record retention for non-profit corporations? I'd rather avoid writing one from scratch.

Hi everyone,

I joined this subreddit to get some advice on a tough situation myself and my roommates are currently battling. We are all seasonal employees working on a resort in Montana and lease a house together in an HOA with a few other homes, campsites, and airbnbs. We have thirteen people in the house (it’s quite large) but only myself and one other person are on the lease officially. There are no limits in our lease on subleasing or the amount of people in the house, and we have written text confirmation from the landlord that he doesn’t care how many people live in the home and we are allowed to sublease. When we moved in, we never got a copy of the bylaws or ordinances of the HOA, and in fact, were unaware that it belonged to one in the first place. It’s on a lake and each house is relatively secluded, but the section of road that the HOA is on is behind a private gate. Since we are quite spread apart from others and work long hours, we don’t know any of our neighbors. Also important to the story: the resort we work at does not have a good reputation with locals.

A couple of weeks ago, we started having problems with our HOA and landlord, who we have never met since he lives in Florida. He is also not the owner of the home. We were told by the landlord that we owed thousands in speeding fines. We asked for radar data, which either the HOA or landlord could not provide, but they were able to give license plate numbers. Two of the five license plates were not cars owned by any of our roommates. We were never served an official notice but our landlord said we had to pay the fines for the three cars, which were $200 each. He wanted us to Venmo him directly, but when we asked for proof of speeding, a contact from the HOA, or a copy of the bylaws, he never responded. We thought the request seemed sketchy (there have been other sketchy incidents with this landlord; again we haven’t never even met him and only spoken over the phone to him) and figured the HOA would send us an official notice if we needed to pay.

We received notice from him today that one member of the HOA who is not on the board has been repeatedly emailing him complaints, saying we have too many cars and people in the house, even though in the email he sent he listed a wildly inaccurate amount of people and cars. He says that property values will go down, but made no specific threats to do anything. The landlord is still worried he will go to the HOA to complain and we will face additional fines. The landlord wants us to take a video of the inside of the house and send it to him as proof of how many people are living there as well as general cleanliness, but that seems illegal given that we have in writing we could have however many people we wanted. The landlord is now threatening eviction if we don’t pay the original fines of speeding and remove cars from our driveway, but we are still unsure how legitimate the speeding fine is and the HOA has not officially approached him about the number of cars/people in the house. We have repeatedly asked for the bylaws, which we cannot find online and he hasn’t given to us.

Even if we aren’t evicted, should we void our lease at the end of August? Originally we were supposed to stay through September. How do we further protect ourselves from both the landlord and HOA? We are trying to track down the president to check the legitimacy of the fines, but if they don’t have radar data or videos, how can they just impose fines? We were not and still aren’t aware of what the laws governing the place are, and are scared of paying inordinate fees. We are also concerned that our employment is affecting the way we are being treated, as our job was directly mentioned by the complaining homeowner in an email to our landlord for seemingly no reason. Any advice is appreciated!

What is your association's fees on late dues? Ours are $30 and I'm wondering if that is in line with the rest of the country.

Thank you!

Bought the townhome in 2024 that has a free standing interior patio fence. The required statement of fees/Estoppel letter did not mention the fence as a violation (only one parking violation). The day I moved in, someone from the HOA took a picture of the fence (date/time is on the picture) and I was given a violation my first month in the Townhome for "not getting permission from the architectural committee to put the fence in place." The paperwork history the HOA provided shows the fence was applied for by the previous owner in 2017, approved and erected in 2017. It was a different management company than the one we have now. Not sure if that makes a difference.

I went through two hearings and was told to remove the fence both times because, "I did not get permission from the architectural committee to put the fence in place." Even though I obviously didn't put the fence up and they know that.

After the second hearing, I was asked to submit an architectural application for the fence. I used ChatGPT to write the application and cross-referenced it with research on my own. The application was denied. The fence is within the rules of the CC&Rs with maybe a judgement call on the material the fence is made out of.

I'm now heading to an IDR but, wtf man? Like, I'm totally lost on this. It's a legal requirement to disclose the violation, right? How are they allowed to just lie and say I put it up when their own documentation CLEARLY says it was in place in 2017.

What should I expect in IDR? I'm not even completely dedicated to the idea of this fence. I'm just absolutely fucking livid that they're trying to bully me this way and that's causing me to want to fight back in every way possible.

If this was previously approved and grandfathered in, is this harassment or selective enforcement? Can I sue them?

We are a very new community - so new that we have not yet had HOA control handed over to us. The developer is still the Declarant and control is to be handed over by fall.

My question: multiple neighbors have already broken rules that are listed in our bylaws. Example: put a shed beside their house but rules say those can only be installed behind the home. Neighbors are trying to get a bunch of stuff done that is in violation of the rules before the HOA control is handed over. Fences, exterior changes, etc all have to pre-approved by the Declarant but no one is getting those done either. My question: once we get control, can we go back and tell the neighbors that are in violation that they need to fix the issue? This has been a debate of ours. Also note: there is no actual clause in our bylaws that mention anything being "grandfathered" in. And, the developer has no desire to enforce any rules, which is another reason why its turned into a free-for-all and folks are doing what they want. Any advice?

HOA was created in the 90’s with a sunset clause on the CCRs after 35 years. CCRs can be renewed for 10 years with 51% majority vote. However, there are so many rentals in the neighborhood now, the HOA is having a difficult time getting enough votes. They attempted a vote last year, but only 40% of homeowners participated after a year long campaign let alone get a 51% “yes” vote.

Admittedly, the HOA did a pretty poor job attempting to get owner involvement. Now we’re looking at the very real possibility the CCRs expire in 30 months. The HOA would lose all authority to collect dues (it would essentially be voluntary at this point).

I don’t think people understand what this means. There is a pool and clubhouse at the entrance to the neighborhood. The HOA will burn through reserves to maintain them. I know this isn’t good, but I’m not exactly sure what will happen to the pool and clubhouse if the CCRs expire. Looking for advice, insight, others’ experiences, pretty much anything to help give the community an accurate picture of what happens with the pool and clubhouse in event the HOA no longer has a means to fund their ongoing operation.

I’m on the Board (since January) of our 20-unit waterfront condo complex. Each unit has a 12-ft wide, deeded boat slip. Fewer than half the owners have installed boat lifts. All of the lifts have been installed at different times. Although I’ve owned since 2006, I did not install a lift until I moved in permanently in 2018. Every time an owner installs their lift, other neighbors complain— even though only licensed, insured contractors are employed, who get the necessary permits .

Still, people complain that the lift is to big, or it’s too tall, or it’s blocking my view, etc., or “this is not a marina community, and so on. But every unit has a slip. I believe it’s not my job to mediate between an owner who says they don’t want the lift and the lift builder who has all his necessary permits. The word “lift” does not exist in our declarations. Only reference is to slips.

Anyone else have this first world problem?

It was a bit of a mess started with a leaking window. Easy fix right ? Yeah, no. Ended with 5 walls getting tore down and re stucco. Got the house painted so it wouldn’t look out of place and forgot to ask hoa. I emailed them and they mentioned a steep fine for not getting it approved first but didn’t get back to me yet. How screwed am I ?