at least let the tenant know whats coming, a quick phone call or friendl;y visit.
you might also call local government and ask.
wonder what the liability is for the lawer, HOA, and voting members if the water is cut off, a minor fire occurs, that spreads thruout the building?
the other units insurance companies might have a $$ field day.
plus if the tenant losing water goes to the media, do they really want your complex in the news this way?
Sure it could. The HOA's relationship is with the property owner, not with the tenant. So the HOA may not have a right to butt in.
However, that doesn't preclude any neighbor or other individual (as opposed to the HOA) casually mentioning it to the tenant, or leaving a note on the tenant's door. Dilemma solved in a way that doesn't officially drag the HOA into the mess.
They'll start climbing for the rest of you dues-paying members as the deadbeats continue to renege on their payments. That's exactly what the HOA is worried about. It's odd that you don't seem to be concerned. Don't you object to having to pay your deadbeat neighbors' shares of the expenses in addition to your own?
Expect the number to grow as more debt-ridden desperate folks start skipping payments. It's common for cash-strapped homeowners to skip HOA payments while trying to keep up with their mortgage payments, so that may very well be what's happening in this situation. If they are seriously-debt stressed, their financial troubles will create more problems for the HOA as their financial situation deteriorates. Meaning their problems will become yours.
If I were you, I'd take the addresses of these townhomes down to the county's property records division and see if Notices of Default have been filed. The rest of you folks in the HOA will have a nasty surprise if/when homes in the community start going into foreclosure.
And this is wrong because...? (Personally, I think enabling deadbeats is wrong. But that's just me.)
Good for them!
So the HOA itself cannot *officially* notify the tenant. As noted, there's nothing stopping anyone else from unofficially taking matters into his/her own hands - as long as s/he isn't acting on behalf of the HOA.
For that matter, there's nothing stopping anyone else from volunteering to pay this deadbeat's bill. If this is such a matter of concern for you, perhaps you should consider assuming the responsbility for this property's HOA fees. One way or another, if the property owner continues to default, you and the other community members are going to have to pay it, anyway. You could be selfless and carry the entire cost yourself.
Oh, for pete's sake. If you are so outraged that your HOA is attempting to compel someone to pay their bills, why don't you just pay it for them? Are you nuts? Who do you think gets stuck with the bills when other members of the HOA don't pay? If you are truly a member of this community, you have a vested interest in compelling the other property owners to pay their agreed-upon share of the costs.
Unless you're one of the deadbeats, in which case it's obvious why you're irate.
The property owner has options. They can pay. They can sell their property. The renter has options. If the HOA cuts off the water, the renter can move. The renter can pay the arrears, then pursue a claim against the landlord.
If I were the renter, I'd be even more concerned about the risk of losing my deposit, or coming home and finding an eviction notice because the house has been foreclosed upon. Because if the landlord can't bother to pay the HOA fees, he's probably cash-strapped, and has probably spent the deposit, and is probably behind on the mortgage payments. And if the home gets foreclosed on, the bank will probably require the renter to vacate asap.
Get real. If the legal threats from the HOA got nowhere, the renter will get nowhere. The landlord will ignore him, too.
You wanna be a good neighbor? Warn the tenant to go down to the county and check on the status of the property he's renting. He can find out if his landlord has been paying his property taxes or if he's received a notice of default on his mortgage. If the landlord can't pay a fairly cheap HOA bill, the landlord's (in) trouble. Time for the tenant to find a more trustworthy landlord.
Or you can pay the property owner a visit yourself. Again, look up the info at the county. Then you can approach the guy and appeal to his better nature. Let us know how that works out.
HellT
Asking the HOA's attorney about the HOA is like consulting the fox that's watching the hen house.
Go to the Governor's Council on Consumer Affairs in your state, or the agency that regulates HOAs.
HOAs recently (thank God) are coming under more control and scrutiny by governments.
I do reserve studies for management companies who then pass them off to HOAs. We're the guys who count up how much landscaping, parking lots, lights, pools, sidewalks, curbs, etc, you have, and provide a five year projected budget for the association so they can then set the dues for the next five years on the projections. So, I do know a bit about HOAs.
That being said, they vary from state to state. I would check with the Governor's Office before I took the word of the HOA. It doesn't sound right that they can fool with public utilities unless it is causing an emergency situation. What if, say, they cut off water or power, and there was a disabled person in there who would be endangered by such actions?
I don't think messing with public utilities, and public utility property (the meters) is as simple a thing as they think it is.
See if your state has an ombudsman for HOAs. Many have them now, and they can cut short many a paper trail.
Good luck.
I wouldn't live in a HOA for any reason! Here in Las Vegas, you get your CC and R's on CLOSING. Nice time to read them and see if you want to live there, eh?
Steve
Once ther roofs need replaced association fees will skyrocket:(
I refuse to live in a a HOA area, my home totally my decisions!!!
I think the customary way to learn how to run a HOA or condo assn. is in learning from mistakes! Typical board members are those who want to control every detail to conform to their own idea of what is "right", and go overboard in rules enforcement...generally are poor planners and make issues "personal".
I would NEVER approach an owner to ask about overdue fees or assessments, no matter what .. that makes it personal. Your management company can send a letter, certified mail, whenever there is a delinquency or rules violation. The cost can (or should) be added onto the amount due. That matter should be in your bylaws. A HOA is not a club, it is a business. In Fl., condo associations are "corporations not for profit" (usually) and are governed by rules pretty close to those for corporate boards in business.
If your units have water meters, why is the HOA collecting the fees? If they don't have meters, why not get them? Then the city can collect and shut off the water if not paid. Too many other things to piss about than to go for years with unpaid bills :o)
clipped
In Fl., HOA's and condo assns are governed by different sets of laws. One clear aspect that I have read about is the "fiduciary duty" of board members and the principle that they can be sued personally for not doing their fiduciary duty. The law may have since changed, but it would be interesting to file small claims against the board members who neglected to collect the unpaid fees :o)
Fl. HOA's and condo assns. can have fines for late payments or rules violations, but fines for rules violations are generally considered a bad idea. I was told by a cert. assn. manager that a board member cannot vote on a fine against a member of his/her own family. Makes sense. But in the original issue of this thread, it might be legal but certainly not the best choice to implicate the renter in the dispute. By shutting off the water, the board is really punishing the renter for their own negligence. If my assn. was doing that, I would send a letter, cert. mail, to disagree with the decision...it isn't worth the potential difficulty to collect relatively small amounts of money. When other owners see the unpaid fees on their statements, they might want to change how things are run, or even serve on the board. With 110 units in the assn, there should be a couple of owners with some decent business sense.
clipped
That is the only obligation of the HOA because they serve owners. No reason not to ask the owner for a copy if you are considering a purchase. I would never, in a million years, buy into a HOA or condo again. In FL, unit owners in condo's can vote down keeping reserves, but reserve amounts have to be stated (I believe).
Unless the zoning board disagrees :o)
On Apr 27, 12:50 am, mm wrote: ...
fees, and the management company rep says that it is *illegal* to tell the tenant
...
...
Various others have various degrees of sound advice -- mine is similar but if I were on the Board and concerned (which I would be), the items of concern and actions I'd take include--
Non Scriptum, non est. Any time someone tells you somthing about the law that doesn't make sense, make them show you the law in question.
In this case, my suspicion is that it's not legal for you to be going after the tennant (who has no contractual relationship with you) for monies owed by the landlord.
But I'd be surprised if a simple notification that the water will be shut off in (say) 10 days was against the law.
IOW, I suspect that you can warn them, but not threaten them.
--Goedjn
We don't have a zoning board in Houston. We do, however, have HOA and Civic Associations. Plus a new gizmo, Tax Improvment Districts.
I seriously doubt that this is true. If you are a utility provider, (which you apparently are, if you can shut off the water and not just ask the water co. to do it), then you can certainly tell the occupants that you're going to do so, just as if it were a normal maintenance notice. When they ask why or for how long, you then say "your landlord has the details, talk to them."
" What is the Maryland Homeowners Association Act? The Maryland Legislature has adopted laws requiring disclosures to purchasers that a lot is located within a homeowners association for which fees must be paid; sets forth warranties; rules regarding meetings of the association; family day care activities and other aspects of homeowners associations. The Maryland Homeowners Association Act is codified and can be found in the Annotated Code of Maryland as part of the Real Property Article, Title 11B. The Act is refined by amendments from year to year. "
In NV the legislature has been getting involved in HOA abuse. Some HOA issued fines for parking on the street. The streets are public property and cannot be controlled by the HOA. One HOA that happens to be "gated community" has a friggin radar gun out to catch speeders. Because it is gated they are able to do this, because "the members want it".
HOA's went through this about Sat TV dishes, Rolladen shutters, etc.. The owners won and the CC&R were amended.
-- Oren
"I don't have anything against work. I just figure, why deprive somebody who really loves it."
I've been resisting saying I might do that, because when I was in Guatemala, I bumped into 8 people I knew in 8 weeks**, and I hardly knew anyone, so even though the odds are really low, I imagine that one of the other board members or the management company rep or one of her co-workers will come across this thread.
But I've been considering that, and the guy at the meeting who originally was concerned about the tenant also suggested it, after I brought it up. Maybe I should have mentioned that when I said he didn't mention it when he made his motion. Like I said in my first post, I'd like to have more facts in my favor anyhow.
**I was sitting in the lobby of my hotel, wide open to the street, waiting for my broken leg to heal, and the border guard I had met at least 2 weeks earlier, and hundreds of miles away, walked by and recognized me! Hobbling down another street and bumped into someone who met me at the hospital. I think Guatamala City had 300,000 people then.Do you know how many false hits one gets with a name that includes association *and* institute? :) But Google is not stupid and it came up first, even with no quotes! There are indeed two chapters in Md, and one is on the other side of Baltimore but the current president lives one big neighborhood over, only 5 miles from me. I'm figuring he lives there since all 3 addresses given look definitely.
She belongs to an HOA of a n'hood I've never heard of, but they are constantly building houses in that area.
I'm not going to lie and say we might joing, but maybe she'll give me some free information. But I can't call her until I learn more about why we aren't going the lien method all the way to foreclosure.
We're not. We do belong to some local community orgs, or send people to attend their meetings, but not even so many of that. Only 110 houses and few stay at home house-wives who actually do usually serve a good role in things like this.
We don't have that. I'll suggest it, but we also haven't been very successful in amending the bylaws.
Yeah. I got to learn more about this part.
I think that's a good idea in that it would be a lot easier to get an answer than from the water company than a judge. Because, they'd probably disagree with me but i think the water company must have fewer issues and fewer legal issues.
Well, I just called the water company, and even though I started with the Baltimore County number, I got referred to another number and midway in the conversation I found out she was giving me Baltimore City rules and didn't know about Baltimore County (which doesn't overlap the city at all.) so she gave me to her supervisor, who said they could not disconnect an individual house in my situation. They only disconnect where there is a meter, and we all share one meter. Even though there are individual valves. So she didn't know anything really about this. She did say that multiple homes sharing one meter is not unusual at all, and sometimes they arrange to bill based on the number of people living in each house. I would save a little if they did that, but then we would have to have a PPHMC, a Person Per House Monitoring Commission, and that would be bad. (Right now each house pays the same.)
Four billion people coming to an area near in the next 50 years.....
-- Oren
"I don't have anything against work. I just figure, why deprive somebody who really loves it."
Yeah. In Maryland or most of Maryland no new neighborhood can be built in the last 25 years or more without an HOA. The HOA doesn't have to meet or do anything, but it must exist.
I suppose if you buy a piece of land and build one or two houses, this doesn't apply.
I had a next door neighbor like you, Hallerb, though. They were supposed to get my approval for their new enlarged deck, and so they brought the plans over just after they started unloading the wood to do the job that day. I would have signed it, but I was annoyed so I kept them waiting five minutes, although the construction crew didn't wait.
About then I heard the wife walking away grumbling, no one's going to tell me what to do with my own house.
The only thing that makes this unusual is that she was a lawyer.
Because they aren't turning off the water to the people who the money. They will be turning off the water to people who rent from the people who owe the money.
First, this might open the HOA up to considerable legal trouble, if any of the tenants have children, or are elderly, or are disabled.
Second, suddenly turning off the water can make the units uninhabitable, so the tenants might have to go spend time in, say, hotels, until the HOA and the owners work things out. A tenant could quite possibly, with a decent lawyer, force the HOA to pay for that hotel.
Basically, in dealing with the owner, the HOA has to take reasonable steps to mitigate damages to innocent third parties (such as the renters). If they do not, they are asking for a legal reaming.
The claim that it is not legal for the HOA to warn the tenants is bogus. The only basis it might have is that since the dispute is between the owner and the HOA, there is a privacy issue in telling the tenant that the owner isn't paying the bills. However, think about that--when the water gets shut off, the tenant is going to find out that the owner hasn't been paying!
The HOA doesn't have to tell the tenant that the owner is not paying his HOA dues. All they have to do is tell the tenant that the water bill has not been paid, and that water service will stop in N days. The tenant can then tell the owner to pay the bill. If the owner doesn't, the tenant can pay it, and withhold that amount from the rent. (After checking the exact details of the law for this in his state, of course!).
Net result: HOA gets payment for the water bill, the tenant keeps water, and the HOA isn't opening itself up to legal action from the tenant.
Since the HOA dues appear to cover more than water, there will still be some owed by the owner. The HOA can put a lien on the place for that.
...
Of course, the HOA doesn't know whether the landlord has passed on the obligation to pay the association fees to the renter, either, so there's the other possibility that the renter _is_ the scofflaw... :)
But, I agree w/ your assessment overall -- particularly the "can't notify" strawman is totally off the wall imo. The HOA can't demand payment from somebody it has no legal relationship with, obviously, but the "heads up" can't be based on anything other than a misreading or overly conservative interpretation of a rule/statute imo...
Nope. The renter has no obligation just because the landlord and he agree. The member/owner of record is legally bound to pay.
Exactly
But I did post to misc.legal.moderated, and I'm reviewing the one answer I got so far. It's moderated so it takes at least two days to et an answer.
We have two like that, at this time counting the management company rep. The reaosn one is not defeated is that she is also willing to do work that really does have to be done, year after year after year. I certainly have other things to do, like read and write to Usenet.
That's how we do it.
That's how we do it.
There is very little HOA law in Md. Last I looked maybe 8 pages, and that included the annotations (case decisions). The rest of it is standard corporate law.**
They don't.
A lot of money to install them after the fact. Digging up, cutting into plumbing. Residents don't want to be without water. Putting in new grass and maybe repairing sidewalks because many valves are under plates in the sidewalk. None of this applies when the houses are under construction.
In addition, and probably most important in fact, the agreement 29 years ago was that every unit pays the same. That includes the apartment building, where no one has a yard to water and fewer people on average per unit than the average house. So less water used for everything.
Even though I don't water my lawn, and I live alone, I only pay 11.66 a month for water. I gather that is very cheap. If I had a meter, I would pay more, plus all the wasted effort reading about 400 meters of all the units involved. (The water bill is going up this summer, because Baltimore City is going to charge Baltimore County 15 or 20% more for water. It was in the paper.)
It's like when there was a draft, the army couldn't force you to have surgery so you wouldn't be 4F anymore. But if you chose to have the surgery and ended up 1A, you might be drafted. A lot of people postponed their surgery until they were over 26.
I was sleepy today, but this week I hope to check on why placing a lien and foreclosing hasn't collected all t he money owed.
It's not because the Board is nice to people. I think they are usually verging on heartless, so I'm getting more and more curious why they never afaik foreclosed. Generally just starting to is enough to get the money. Or telling them about the one house that was foreclosed on.
Not even because some people don't know they need to move to someplace cheaper, and aren't willing to sell their house, but because there are thousands of dollars of extra charges when the court does it.
**(The HOA once had a lawyer who once gave me an answer based on condo or coop law, but he called an hour later to say he'd made a mistake. No harm done. I had called him on the phone, so he was not in our HOA mode. It's not like he was at one of our meetings and forgot we were an HOA. Next time I call someone, if I ever do, I will remind him that we are an HOA, but this time I had just called to remind him when our big annual meeting was, and meant only to talk to the secretary, but I got him instead and he asked me something and I ended up asking him a legal question. That's was the basis on which the other board member accuse me of "illegally going to their lawyer" This is probably libel, and accusilng someone of a crime, in NYS at leaset if not in Md, iirc entitles one to damages even if he can't show actual damages. But I didn't sue anyone. I didn't even bother to tell him what he had done wrong. I only asked him if he was accusing me of a crime.When I had called the lawyer's office, it's true that I identified myself as a board member, but that was accurate. I didn't say the board had asked me to call. I wanted to know a detail about the proper format for an election proxy (if it had to name the candidates to be voted for if it could be blank and the proxyholder decided who to vote for at the last minute.) I think it is not out of bounds to ask that question of the HOA lawyer, but that isn't why I called him. I called him to remind him to come to the meeting, which he himself had insisted on doing, but it turned out he had the wrong date. I wanted him there to make the election run right, but I only intended to talk to his secretary.
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