HOA responsibility for maintaining common areas
Dennis,
the Articles of Inc, CCR’s and Platt maps of our HOA all include: The Association is responsible for the maintenance of the common areas. The HOA maintained all common areas for many years. All of a sudden they decided to single out 2 common areas that aren’t visible from the road by the community and the public and quit maintaining them. They decided to only maintain common areas that can be seen by the public from the roads These common areas were planned and developed at the time of development for the use and enjoyment of the community. Many homes surround the common areas with their rear wall adjacent to the common area. The county use of property also indicates the common areas are open to the public. These open areas are now potential fire hazards and overgrown with unplanned trees, 6ft weeds, dead debris. Multiple packs of coyotes now call this home. Even though there are trail markers installed by the HOA for the trails it’s not safe to stroll on a trail through these areas.
The HOA quit maintaining these 2 common areas 4-5 years ago. Owners have been voicing their concerns and complaints and requested that these common areas be maintained per the CCR’s etc. The response received from the HOA was that they have the sole right to decide the level of maintenance and in this case no maintenance is the level of maintenance. Is this a legitimate response from the HOA?
In addition, the local Fire Dept. has sent two letters to the HOA to clean up these common areas stating “this dense growth and dead foilage poses a potential fire hazard.” The Fire Dept. also referenced the Internation Fire Code Section 304.1.2 which states, in part, “weeds, grass, vines, or other growth that is capable of being ignited and endangering property, shall be cut down and removed by the owners”
The HOA response has been to not notify the association of these letters. A few owners found out about the most recent letter and questioned why this information has not been shared with the community and what is the boards plan to ensure everyone’s safety. The response was that the letter did not say it was required to do this. Can the HOA board legitimately ignore the notices from the Fire Dept. ? Shouldn’t this information be shared with all owners? The HOA board has a fiduciary responsibility to promote the health, safety, and welfare of all owners and their properties.
Thank you,
J Priddy
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Denise,
First write a records request for any correspondence received from any city or county organization relative to the specific or any other common area of the association. They must provide you access to view those records in 10 business days or less. Pay the $0.15 per page and get copies of those letters. Depending on what they say then bring the letters to the city or county code enforcement office and insist that they take actions against the association based on these code violations.
The association has the Duty not just power to maintain the common property for the use and enjoyment of the members of the association. While some CC&R’s give the board the power to decide what the common property will be used for, I’ve never seen one set of Declarations that allowed the association to not maintain the property. As you stated the board actions are to the detriment of the homeowners and if something happened like a fire the association and the individual board members that decided to not maintain the common property could be sued and held collectively and individually responsible for the damages, and pain and suffering caused by their failure to act to perform their duty.
Some municipalities have in defining subdivision mandated that the developer designate natural areas for wildlife habitat, in my city they call those areas NAOS but those area must be designated on the plat and the individual lot maps. The association does not ever have the power or authority to designate NAOS space.
Send me your CC&R’s and Plat to the mailing address on the top of this page and I’ll look at them and see if they provide you other options. I’ve little faith that the ADRE dispute resolution process will ever provide justice from any administrative law judge, based on their decisions since the pandemic. They all simply fall for whatever argument the association attorney gives them no matter what the evidence actually proves, it was not always that way, but it is now.
Dennis