HOA legal-eze

[ryker]

Not to mention one of the members of the "Board" is not even an owner in the development....he is considered an Occupant by the terms of the covenants.

Not always, but most of the time, HOA bylaws and ccr's state that members of the BOD be owners of property in the HOA. And that only owners of property in the HOA have voting rights. I would check the doc's on this, you could have a board member that should not be, and cannot vote on anything.

I would also check

what % of board members need to be present to establish a quorum to have a binding board meeting? Also most of the time, members are allowed to attend the BOD meeting. Check your docs.
what % of members need to be present (or by proxy) at a general meeting to establish a quorum, to make that meeting legal?
what % of members need to be present (or by proxy) to have a legal vote, at a general meeting called for the purpose of such vote and what % of votes has to be for or against an issue to make it so?

I would doc everything, in writing it down that the BOD/HOA has not done to enforce any ccr, what ever it is. Doc whatever meeting is not legal. Doc anyone on the BOD that should not be. You want to win. You become the BOD's worst nightmare. Anything that they have NOT done that they should have done in the 10 Years you have been there, you want down on paper, ready to present at a legal meeting at any time. In the 34 years in our HOA (which was basically a good HOA), we had to do this a couple times. You have to get their attention and let them know you mean business.

 

[chiefwej]

I will start by saying I have served on my (1326 homes) HOAs review committee for over ten years, and my wife is currently president. If your pool and fence was approved at the time of installation and meets the local codes, make very sure you have copies of the approval letter. That should prevent any future issues.

There are two kinds of controlling documents for HOAs, C,C&Rs (Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions) and DGs (Design Guidelines). The CC&R is a legal restriction on the property that is filed and which you as purchaser accepted at the time of purchase. The provisions of it are very difficult to change, requiring a supermajority of all property owners (not just of those voting) and legal filling of revised CC&R. The Design Guidelines are where changes are much easier and more frequent. My guess is that's what you are facing.

If so, I've seen several changes in ours over the years. In each case, all previous approvals have been grandfathered at the very least until, the homeowner makes a change in the item, or sells the property. So, as an example, if a current fence met the standards and was approved under the old DG, it can remain as is until the homeowner replaces any portion of it or sells the property. Either event would trigger a requirement to bring the property into compliance with the current rules. This is the same as building codes work, you don't have to bring your old house up to the current wiring code, unless you are doing a major remodel.

Make sure you have your documentation, and don't worry about it.

Note: After rereading each of your posts, here is my best educated guess. The current rules require a privacy fence for any above grade spa or hot tub. It sounds like they are saying that same rule would now be applicable to above ground pools. An inground pool logically doesn't require as much screening as one placed above ground.

 

[poolnewbies5874]

Thank you all for your input. We are going to address their inaccurate justification and request to be grandfathered in. We will definitely keep all of our documents in order in case we need them. I'm just really hoping that we won't.

 

[JamesW]

If you submitted plans for approval before installing the fence and the plans were approved and the installation followed the approved plans, I think that you're good.

 

[ryker]

I am not telling you something you don't know, I'm sure, but the bylaws of your HOA is a completely different doc than the ccr's.

I really encourage you to read them, because if that person on the board is a renter or something else, he (probably) is not allowed to sit on the board, and is not allowed to vote on anything in the HOA. If not, anything that BOD does could be illegal by the bylaws, and any meeting could be non-binding. Have a correctly run HOA.

 

[Griswald]

My suggestion is to ignore anything except the issue that concerns your fence. Don't even bring up the "occupant vs owner" thing as all it will do is cause a world of grief.

I read and follow specs all day long for the past 30 years, and my opinion is that 99% of the time, the biggest problem is the end-user trying to "read between the lines" or make their own interpretations of something that is clearly spelled out. If the language states above ground pools, you have nothing to worry about. Now if it simply read pools, you might have an issue.

Just my 2 cents worth.

P.S. My HOA board has asked me to help clarify some parts of our covenants when they get confused.

 

[ryker]

My suggestion is to ignore anything except the issue that concerns your fence. Don't even bring up the "occupant vs owner" thing as all it will do is cause a world of grief.


I agree with you that to take care of your main business first. But then we'll have to agree to disagree, and I'll let it go after this.

From the statements made of what has been not done in the past years, it is obvious that the HOA has a problem with enforcing the ccr's. If the occupant (by the bylaws) should not be on the BOD, and should not be voting on any issues in the HOA, in our 34 years in a HOA, there has always been some time, when some issue comes up, where it could be completely undone by this very thing. Yes, not by us, but lawyers did get involved, and if you want grief, then don't enforce the ccr's, or go against the bylaws, and the lawyers will give your HOA some of it (grief). If you don't want a proper HOA, then do away with it. If you do want a proper run HOA, then enforce the ccr's, and then when someone on the board gets a wild hair up for one of his pet projects, at least you know that the people on the BOD have the right to be, and vote on it.

I agree that we disagree, I will now let this go.

 

[Pdk01]

As someone familiar with this field, I would suggest you will not be bound to retrofit your existing structure to comply with rules and bylaws that come into existence after you met all laws and requirements at the time of construction. If you were to undertake a renovation of the pool, then you would in all likelihood be bound to update your fence.