Given the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, it is only right that the Congress passed a law in 2003 to assist military members with collections and foreclosure issues. Under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA), all creditors have limitations on debt collections against active duty military members. These limitations include the temporary suspension of judicial and administrative proceedings and transactions that may affect the civil rights of military members during their service. This article will examine in detail the protections afforded by the law to military members who own properties within homeowners' associations.
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As part of the Fair Housing Act, Congress granted the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) the authority to adopt rules to meet the statute’s objectives. In October of 2016, the department completed the formal rulemaking process and published the final rules that are now law. One of the new rules codified by HUD can potentially significantly affect the number of harassment claims an HOA will face. Today we will focus on what might be the most significant new rule: liability for discriminatory housing practices, found at 24 C.F.R. §100.7(a)(1)(iii).
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Unique to HOAs, the elected board of directors owe a special responsibility to all the dues-paying homeowners, called a fiduciary duty. We have previously written in depth about the different elements of this fiduciary duty, and if you are unfamiliar, that article is certainly worth your time. Simply for this discussion, we just need to know that because of this fiduciary duty that the board owes to member homeowners, the board has a legal obligation to maintain common areas with the same care and diligence that they would apply to their own private property.
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Getting in on the ground floor of a new master-planned community is very exciting. If you are fortunate enough to be in such a scenario, you likely now have a budding interest in how the developer of the HOA community will eventually transfer power to the homeowners. In a nascent HOA community, a new homeowner has the option to sit back and permit the developer to govern the community until he sees fit. Yet, this can be risky and may cost you money/time in the long run if there are any complications in the completion of the work.
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Today’s homeowner needs to know how to intelligently take on an HOA board if/when such a dispute may arise. As we will soon discuss, the mistaken judgment in pursuit of a claim against a homeowners' association could result in a five-figure legal bill. To assist if you are in such a problematic scenario, we will describe the three concepts you need to master before taking the fight to your homeowners' association: learning your association's CC&Rs, the relevant law regarding your dispute, and how to craftily pursue a resolution with your association's board.
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Little did you know when you first got into home ownership that your brain would be flooded with a plethora of new acronyms to comprehend. Whether a dispute has arisen, or you are about to participate in the conveyance of a property that part of an HOA, it is likely you have a now developed a sudden interest in what are termed “covenants, conditions, and restrictions,” knows as CC&Rs.
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Too many terms and acronyms are thrown around and used interchangeably when folks are discussing homeowners' association documents. Sometimes when people are referring to the entire suite of homeowners' association documents, they will use the term CC&R, which stands for covenants, conditions, and restrictions. In fact, CC&Rs are just one part of the association's documentation. This article will distinguish CC&Rs from the other documents you need to know including articles of incorporation, bylaws, rules, and regulations, and financial documents.
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Whether you are buying or selling a home that is a party to an association, we know how important it is to complete the transaction the right way so as to not upend the lives of you and your family. Today’s article will provide the guidance you need—either as a buyer or seller—to operate with confidence regarding the home transaction. We will address where these disclosures come from, how they balance the rights of buyers and sellers and clarify once and for all the difference between disclosure and transfer fees.
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The enforcement mechanisms of a homeowners’ association may seem a bit arcane and obtuse, but they are important to understanding if either you or a fellow member is accused by the board of violating the rules. There are very specific duties, obligations, and procedures that the board of directors must follow. We will provide the full explanation you need to understand how and why your board of directors is permitted to assess a fine by addressing why associations are granted the power to enforce Bylaws, the necessary procedure to assess a penalty to enforce the rules, and what is considered a “reasonable” fine under the law.
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We all have what we like to think is a general understanding of the basic elements of Homeowners’ Association—there is a president, a board, and a set of rules that these nice people are entrusted to enforce. And the cursory understanding of these elements of an association are perfectly fine, until something happens. Upon the formation of a dispute between a homeowner and a homeowner's association, these seemingly innocuous details will suddenly be anything but.
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This article will help elucidate what the law requires of an association Board with respect to its obligations toward homeowners. There are three broad categories of fiduciary duties of association Boards that we will discuss: the duty of care, the duty of reasonable inquiry, and the duty of good faith. With each topic, we will first explain general concepts then delve into examples for clarification. These rights for homeowners derive from old English common law (meaning that this law has grown over time through court decisions), but today almost every state has codified these rights into state statutes.
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Congress initially effectuated the Fair Housing Act (FHA)—codified at 42 U.S.C. §§ 3601-3631—in 1968 to prevent discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, or national origin. By 1988, the FHA had been expanded to protect classes to include sex, disability, and familial status. The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), in concert with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), brings actions against housing providers that violate the statute.
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