Can we ban an owner's guest from the premises?

Started by CarolR11 • 6 replies • 3633 views

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CarolR11 (Colorado)
Posts: 2,563

Posted:

A woman & her young adult son live in an upper floor unit of one of our 25-story towers. The son's male pal has caused a great deal of trouble here. Just a FEW examples are vomiting twice over their balcony rail onto balconies & their furniture below, climbing on the hand rail in the elevator, falling off thereby kicking the elevator control buttons (caught on tape), sleeping (blocking access) in our emergency stairwells, speeding his car in reverse in our parking garage.

The owner has been called to hearing many times and rarely attends. She gets fined and pays the fines. His behavior combined with the owner's son's own rule violations, which only seem to occur when his evil friend is here, are a real problem for the community.

Our CC&Rs permit us to withdraw certain privileges for a number of reasons and we (the board) are calling her to hearing for that reason next month. One valued privilege in our urban setting is visitor parking, which most high rises around us don't have. In addition, we'll deactivate mom's electronic fob so that they won't have access to the pool or gym--mom works out every day.

We're hoping that removing visitor parking will reduce the friend's visits. But if it doesn't, can we ban evil friend ("EF") from the premises?

Thanks in advance for your advice on this matter or any other solutions you might think of!

JeffR7 (California)
Posts: 251

Posted:

Carol, this situation sucks, really does.

Unfortunately I am afraid you can't do much. You can't ban this person's access to the property without a court order. You can't interfere with owner's access to their deeded real or personal property and their right to have guests over.

You also have to be careful with revoking their guest parking usage. What do your docs say about withdrawing privileges?
Usually it can be done of owners are behind in their dues or don't pay penalties. In this case it sounds like she is paying the penalty.

You need to carefully study your docs and find what is allowed for violation of rules. Most likely the only permissible action is to impose fine. If the fine is paid your authority ends there.

One thing you could do is to call cops next time you find him drunk on a community property (not inside his unit). Police will remove him from the property. You also might go to court and ask a judge to forbid him from entering your property, but for that you need to consult an attorney.

One option you might have is to revisit your rules for fines. Here is my recommendation to all clients and what we have at our HOA - first violation - warning, 2nd - very low fine to get attention, 3rd - moderate fine to really get attention, 4th violation and thereafter - ridiculousness high violation. For example warning/$25/$100/$750. Lets she what the owner does when she has to pay a fine of $750.

CarolR11 (Colorado)
Posts: 2,563

Posted:

Thank you, Jeff, for the info that we can't ban EF from the premises; I doubt we'll go the court-order route. Good idea about calling the police for, let's say, disturbances in the common area. You won't be surprised to learn that EF has been taken away from the unit in handcuffs twice.

Yes, we know we may not deny access to their deeded property including their parking spaces. So, we cannot, for example, deactivate the fob for use in the elevators, just to our amenities.

Our CC&Rs say that we can suspend the membership rights and privileges for any violation of the governing docs, of which our Rules & Regs are one. We've never actually resorted to this, though.

We do use the approach that you suggest; 1st alleged violation, warning; 2nd violation, call to hearing. For most, the fine is $50, which we may double for subsequent violations. Generally, though, there's one violation or maybe two but no further ones of an individual rule.

We can levy a $100 for liquid or solid materials off of balconies, and call violators immediately to hearing (giving them proper notice, of course). We did this in the cases of, uh, liquid off the balcony, doubled the fine for the 2nd occurrence and also billed the owner for clean up, which we also may do. One of those involved cleaning about 6 balconies and also some furniture. Mom's loaded, though, and just pays them.

LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099

Posted:

Even though it will cost a few bucks, I would recommend seeking a court order to keep EF off the premises. The order will allow you to call the police and have him arrested if he returns. This guy sounds like a ticking time bomb. The owner of the unit he visits seems to be totally clueless and willing to put up with his nonsense. Some of his acts are irritating but speeding in reverse in the parking garage endangers everyone.

BTW, since your board is aware of EF's behavior you have a potential liability if you do not take stronger steps to eject him from your premises. Negligence means that you were unaware of a danger. Gross negligence means that you were aware of a danger and deliberately chose to ignore the danger. Gross negligence is usually the trigger for punitive damages. In a lasuit-happy state like California I would not take that lightly.

JeffR7 (California)
Posts: 251

Posted:

Carol, what is your process for restoring access to amenities after a violation? What I am trying to say that if you issues a fine and they paid it it might be that the case is closed and you can't revoke privileges.

BradP (Kansas)
Posts: 2,640

Posted:

Carol:

I would ask your attorney what your rights are, I agree you just can't ban them from visiting someone's property. You can in my opinion issue a no trespass order through the police for common ground if the issues you have said are numerous and illegal and causing issues. I don't think you will ever be able to bar the person from being on private property but you should be able to ban them from common ground if their behavior is illegal and dangerous.

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,047

Posted:

Carol,

The Association may certainly fine the owner for a guests behavior. However, if a guest is damaging property, the Association may also contact the police and file a complaint against the guest directly.

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