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August 21, 2008
The Hypocrisy of Legislatures
The California legislature has passed another law because "the state receives complaints that associations do not fulfill their obligations to homeowners or abuse their power, but state government currently does not have any oversight power and a homeowner´s only recourse in disputes is to sue their homeowners association." Let's see, a freely elected body which doesn't always fulfill their obligations and a citizen's only recourse is to sue --- sound like anyone they might recognize -- themselves maybe? The only difference between the legislators and an HOA board - the legislators get paid.
Homeowners living in an association seem to expect perfection in the people they elect to represent them at the neighbor level, but I seriously doubt whether they hold those same expectations of other they elect to public office. Nor does any state legislature make it easier for citizens to overturn their legislation or hold them accountable for their actions other than through the ballot box or courts.
When the costs of these additional requirements are passed along to the owners in community associations, it is the boards that take they heat because the costs are passes through the regular assessments, not in additional taxes, which legislators run from, so they get another free pass.
A suggestion to all associations that have to deal with these active legislatures - create a line item in your budget for state mandated costs (hidden taxes), and don't forget to include that category all of the costs for services that other taxpayers receive, but which your association has to pay, such as garbage pickup, or road repairs. The reason legislators continue to adopt more and more legislation governing associations is that there is no organized opposition from owners, only from the professionals, who are quickly buried under claims that they are only in it for the money and don't have the owners interests (which is the usual method of painting everyone with the same broad brush). In any event make sure the owners know that the assessment increase isn't entirely due to association-related costs.
Going back to the eplanation given by the California legislature for the most recent acts, boards might want to start documenting homeowners' failures to abide by the documents thay agreed to and the abuse of boards by owners. The people doing the arguing for the owner's never present any data to support their claims of rampant abuse, just a few examples, so why not counter with actual facts.