Tag: enforcement

Contempt of court HOA legislation

Most current HOA reform laws inexcusably assume  that the HOA and its attorney will act in good faith; common homeowner complaints across the states have proven this to be grossly false.

It seems that meaningful HOA enforcement can be attained by filing contempt of court complaints. A “contempt” is disobedience to a court order in which the homeowner can seek jail time and personal financial penalties for the contempt. VERY POWERFUL!   

“A judge may impose sanctions such as a fine, jail or social service for someone found guilty of contempt of court, which makes contempt of court a process crime. Judges in common law systems usually have more extensive power to declare someone in contempt than judges in civil law systems.” (Wikipedia).

Disclaimer; I am not a lawyer and I am not giving legal advice or opinion. Please consult your attorney. Your state certified paralegal may be able to assist you in filing the contempt motion.

Here’s how the legal system works for HOA-Land.  The board as a whole, or president, or individual directors violate the governing documents or state laws. They refuse to correct the violations so you must sue to force compliance.  When you win in court it issues an order or an injunction to perform, etc. to the wrongdoers.  The court says in effect, I’m done.  Continued violations occur; what can the homeowner do?

The homeowner can file a contempt of court motion with the same court specifying the failure to obey the court and want you want the court to do. You can seek court punishment of the violators through financial penalties and/or jail time. The original complaint must be against the HOA individuals in order  for the contempt to be feared.

Check with your attorney or get the state/county specified contempt motion form;  follow the procedure and complete the motion.

Let’s give the Board something to fear. File those contempt motions!  No one can solve your HOA problem unless you act as required. You must act or continue to live at the suffrage of the board , or move out.

Below are examples.

To file a contempt of court, you need to1234:

HOA social media misguided expectations

Way back when, in the beginnings of time when the internet was first being used to contact people — remember email lists — a CAI poster on its page recognized the fact that CAI could not control the internet, like presumably with the news media.  And thank goodness!

Given all the above, social media is inundated with homeowners facing serious problems with their HOA  and who cry out for help and assistance, but discover no solution to their complaints.  Yes, there’s plenty of good advice and suggestions, links to state laws and cases, etc.  The truth of the matter is that it is they, the poster, who must take action to resolve his grievances following the leads presented on the social media groups.

I’ve found that a good many of these complaints do not arise from a wrongful act by the HOA or a violation of the law. They are simply an exercise in the broad discretionary powers granted to the BOD in the governing documents; the homeowner just doesn’t like them. Nothing can be done except try to change the make up of the board, which requires a specified number of neighbors to join in. Fact chance!  Do they charge their town council with wrongdoing when they disagree with a position taken by the council?  Not usually.

While homeowners airing their problems on the internet may get   a large degree of sympathy — poor guy, they dun me wrong, unbelievable, etc. — nothing is accomplished when dealing with rogue HOAs and directors. By definition, the law and governing documents mean nothing to them, and they know that some 80+% will not take effective action – sue the bastards! And the numerous consumer protection – regulation agencies are ineffective lacking in punitive actions. The HOA holds all the aces; you lose!

The bottom line is to lobby the legislature to adopt 1)  substantive laws that protect your individual rights and freedoms supposedly guaranteed by the Constitution, 2) fair elections procedures to level the playing field for the democratic functioning of the HOA (how about ½ vote per lot if the owner resides less than 7 months), 3) attainable HOA enforcement procedures that effectively serve as a punishment  and as a detriment to further wrongful conduct, as exists with misdemeanors charges in the public domain, and 4) prohibit the cruel and unusual punishment allowed in the current  homeowner losers all foreclosure procedures.

All social media groups must make these reforms a top priority and inform the complaining homeowner that there is no push button instant solution to the ills of HOAs in our society.  We can only  hope that the majority of owners will finally realize that they are up the creek without a paddle and get angry enough to get involved wholeheartedly. This should be objective for all HOA social media groups.

Homeowner price for justice and enforcement

Stan Hrincevich, President of the Coloradohoaforum.com, wrote a YourHub, Denver Post opinion on May 4th, HOA homeowner’s rights and voting rights of yesteryear.  Stan severely criticizes HOA justice for homeowners and the inequality of the financial costs to obtain justice.

“You have the right to vote but now you have to pay a poll tax and can’t afford to vote. . . . However, this seemingly fair mode of governance ensuring the rights of the homeowner and HOA is as much an illusion as ensuring voting rights in the late 1800s accompanied by the poll tax. HOA justice for homeowners is a pay-to-play enforcement system. If one has deep financial pockets, time, and legal resources, one can pursue one’s rights under their HOA governing documents. Others without such resources cannot.”

He recommends non-judicial hearings which, I assume, would include stronger enforcement of the decisions and the law than currently today in Colorado and in every other state. Implied is a reduced cost to homeowners  – the removal of the present day poll tax. 

I’ve also argued that the current status of HOA justice has the same effect as if it were a poll tax (made unlawful by LBJ in 1964)[1]. But the real obstacle to homeowner justice is the lack of state enforcement of HOA board violations of the law and the governing documents.  The vast majority of the reform laws rely on the good will of the HOA board and its attorneys to act in good faith with the intent of the law.  However, the conduct and acts of the HOAs and their attorneys has demonstrated that this reliance is unfounded. They should be held accountable as if they were municipal government employees.

“If there is no penalty [for] disobedience, the resolutions or commands which pretend to be laws will, in fact, amount to nothing more than advice or recommendation.”    (Alexander Hamilton, Federalist #15)

“Your HOA board (BOD) is unaccountable under state laws with trivial, if any, penalties, or punishments for violations of state laws or the governing documents?  Without meaningful enforcement to hold BODs accountable and to serve as a detriment to continued violations, you are forced to sue just to get compliance.”[2]

I strongly agree with Stan, reform can only come from the legislature enacting just laws and removing pro-HOA laws.

Notes.

  1. Poll Tax postings on HOA Constitutional Government. To say that a homeowner can go to court for a redress of grievances would be like saying that there was nothing wrong with the 1950s Poll Tax abomination, used as an effective, legal at the time, devise to stop voter registrations. (April 2010 Letter to NC House Select HOA Committee); In the late 1950s the Southern states enacted a Poll Tax and instituted certain “tests” in order for citizens to be eligible to register to vote.  No federal or state laws were violated, since the states were permitted to determine the methods for registering citizens, so long as it was not based on race (15th Amendment).  Of course, the tax was set at a level very few Blacks could afford to pay (Dec. 2008, Goldwater Institute: separate and unequal constitutions for HOAs);  Civil action amounts to a bar against justice much as the imposition of poll tax in the South in the 1950s used to prevent blacks from registering to vote. Justice for the average homeowner cannot be had a price which he cannot afford while the association is allowed to use member dues to hire a lawyer (June 2006, Where’s California’s Homeowners Bill of Rights?

2.      See HOA-Land Nation “Did you know?” Part 2 (2019).

HOA-Land Nation “Did you know?” Part 2

HOA-Land Nation “Did you know?”

Release No. 2 —  July 4, 2019

As an HOA member, did you know that:

 ·         Your HOA board (BOD) is unaccountable under state laws with trivial, if any, penalties or punishments for violations of state laws or the governing documents?  Without meaningful enforcement to hold BODs accountable and to serve as a detriment to continued violations, you are forced to sue just to get compliance.

 ·         The much touted HOAs are democratic because members can vote is utterly without merit?  Fair elections protections, as compared with those in the public arena, do not exist under a corporation law.  Members do not have equal access to HOA newsletters, website, member lists, and use of common amenity meetings rooms, among other denials.  

 ·         To bring about equal protection of your rights, the HOA attorney sides with the BOD, his client and not you, the membership.  And as a CAI member, lobbies the legislature to maintain conditions as they are – authoritarian HOA government.

 ·         You still retain your rights, privileges and immunities as a citizen but are denied these rights under the private HOA legal scheme, functioning outside constitutional protections.

 Discover the truth about HOAs!  The truth shall set you free!  Read The HOA-Land Nation Within America exposé on sale at Amazon.com. 


CA SB323 a model on fair elections for all states

California’s SB 323 seeks to introduce fair elections procedures for HOAs, addressing one of my 6 substantive defects in the HOA legal scheme.[i]  Deborah Goonan’s excellent discussion of this bill[ii] brought to my attention a second defect in the HOA legal scheme, the lack of enforcement of the law[iii].

The bill modifies California’s Civil Code, Section 5145(a), inter alia, mandating a court to void any election found to violate the law. The court no longer has discretion, as many have been found to favor the HOA over the member, and insures that justice be served. “A member of an association may bring a civil action for declaratory or equitable relief for a violation of this article by the association.”

Section (b) is modified to read, “A member who prevails in a civil action to enforce the member’s rights . . . the court may impose a civil penalty of up to five hundred dollars ($500) for each violation.”

In all fairness, the bill requires the violation to be intentional and material to the outcome to avoid frivolous suits.  With CAI “experts” in HOA law involved in many of these cases, it’s hard to view the violation as accidental.  There is an instance in Arizona at this time where this bill is sorely needed.[iv]

Without fair elections, all this pro-HOA clamor by CAI and other staunch HOA backers that HOAs are the epitome of democracy where members can vote, and should get elected and involved in the affairs of their HOA becomes meaningless tripe!

California’s SB 323 must be made law not only in California, but in all the states as well!

References

[i] See HOA Common Sense: rejecting private government, Democratic elections, No. 5.

[ii] See “California HOA elections bill update (March 2019)”, Independent American Communities.

[iii] Supra, n. i, HOA Boards can do no wrong, No. 7.

[iv] For example, see “Non-conforming HOA voting procedure”,  HOA Constitutional Government.

California’s SB 323 seeks to introduce fair elections procedures for HOAs, addressing one of my 6 substantive defects in the HOA legal scheme.[i]  Deborah Goonan’s excellent discussion of this bill[ii] brought to my attention a second defect in the HOA legal scheme, the lack of enforcement of the law[iii].

The bill modifies California’s Civil Code, Section 5145(a), inter alia, mandating a court to void any election found to violate the law. The court no longer has discretion, as many have been found to favor the HOA over the member, and insures that justice be served. “A member of an association may bring a civil action for declaratory or equitable relief for a violation of this article by the association.”

Section (b) is modified to read, “A member who prevails in a civil action to enforce the member’s rights . . . the court may impose a civil penalty of up to five hundred dollars ($500) for each violation.”

In all fairness, the bill requires the violation to be intentional and material to the outcome to avoid frivolous suits.  With CAI “experts” in HOA law involved in many of these cases, it’s hard to view the violation as accidental.  There is an instance in Arizona at this time where this bill is sorely needed.[iv]

Without fair elections, all this pro-HOA clamor by CAI and other staunch HOA backers that HOAs are the epitome of democracy where members can vote, and should get elected and involved in the affairs of their HOA becomes meaningless tripe!

California’s SB 323 must be made law not only in California, but in all the states as well!

References

[i] See HOA Common Sense: rejecting private government, Democratic elections, No. 5.

[ii] See “California HOA elections bill update (March 2019)”, Independent American Communities.

[iii] Supra, n. i, HOA Boards can do no wrong, No. 7.

[iv] For example, see “Non-conforming HOA voting procedure”,  HOA Constitutional Government.