HOAs should equally enforce its regulations
NOTE: One of my recent articles addressed the removal of a director by the homeowners. It was in response to a generic question from a reader. I was reminded that Nevada Revised Statute 116.31036 (1) has the following statement: “notwithstanding any provision of the declaration or bylaws to the contrary. …”
What this clause means is if your governing document, either the covenants, conditions and restrictions or the bylaws, allows the board to remove a director, then the process would be that in those documents and not the more common practice of removing directors by the homeowners.
In the reader’s case, the bylaws allow a director to be removed by the board who has three consecutive unexcused absences or is not a member in good standing.
If you have such a clause that would allow the board to remove a director, please check with your legal counsel as to the definition of a member in good standing and if such definition is in the governing documents.
Q: Our homeowners association has design guidelines that cover wall maintenance. Essentially it is the homeowners’ responsibility to remove chemical efflorescence that is created by the leaching of salts and minerals from irrigation stations. These rules are enforced (as well as others) through the community standards office of the management company. I was recently cited and required to clean the efflorescence from my walls, which I did, and I also notified the community standards office that the wall was cleaned.
On my walks around our development I see many common area walls that have the same efflorescence deposits that I was cited for but they have not been cleaned. I relayed this information to the HOA and also did so a couple of years back when I was cited for the same problem. In the two years that I have kept records about these common area walls, no cleaning, to my knowledge, has taken place.
My questions are:
1. Shouldn’t the HOA be held to the same standards that the homeowners are held to?
2. Having brought this subject up twice and with pictures, and receiving no signs of compliance by the HOA, what do you recommend as my next course of action?
A: The short answer is yes the association should equally enforce its regulations and that homeowners who are violating the governing documents should be held to the same standard as you to the maintenance of the wall.
By law, the association cannot discuss the violation status of homeowners who are in violation of the governing documents. (NRS 116.31175 (4b). You would not know if these homeowners are being fined on a weekly basis. What you can do is to send a written letter to the board and management company requesting that you receive the general records concerning each violation other than a violation involving failure to pay an assessment.
(NRS 116.31175 (5). This section of the law requires associations to maintain a general record concerning violations. It must contain a general description of the nature of the violation and the type of the sanction imposed, be it a fine or a construction penalty.
The record must not contain the name or address of the homeowner or any other personal information that could be used to identify the person or location of the unit. The record must be maintained in an organized and convenient filing system or data system.
Barbara Holland is a certified property manager (CPM) and holds the supervisory community manager certificate with the state of Nevada. She is an author and educator on real estate management. Questions may be sent to holland744o@gmail.com.