Non HOA.

I have lived in my subdivision for 6 yrs. We have a mandatory HOA. But in the last 2-3 years there has not been a meeting or an election of board members. When we did attempt to elect board members the self elected HOA president/secretary stated the elections were not legal for one reason or another. The homeowners did try to follow the rules she stated needed to be followed but again she stated it was not a legal election. My question is if there has not been any meetings, newsletters or any communication with the home owners do we actually have a HOA?

Well as long as things are running OK, I would not say a word!! In my sub it would be a dream for ALL the board members to vanish.

Thank you for your post. Our deed restrictions only reference the square footage of a home, what the home can by made of, ie masonry type, fences, etc. It doesn't state anything about the HOA except to say there will be an architectual committee which consists of the builder who used to own the property and the HOA president. Even though the builder is the only one making decisions on new arhcitecture, he never involved the president when we had one. The only member of the HOA, the wife of the builder, is always referring to some bylaws but no one seems to know what bylaws she is referring too. At this point she has become quite uncooperative due to a law suit filed by one of the homeowners against the builder of their home and not the HOA.

Here is a question. Is there a way to keep the deed restrictions but dissolve the HOA? No one around here seems to want one and the only thing the dues pay for is to keep the grass cut in a lot they call a park. Pay utility bills for the street lights and I guess in theory maintain the private road (which has never been done). Seems like we could find an agency to do that without a HOA.

Not really. Without an HOA one neighbor would have to sue another and that is unlikely to happen, thus the deed restrictions would never be enforced. Or you get a sue happy neighbor which would be worse.



Just because no one wants the HOA doesn't mean you can get rid of it.

You mentioned at one point, all your HOA does is cut the grass. It seems its much more complicated than that. They own common area, that is maintained and probably insured (so the homeowners dont get sued). Because the hoa likely has insurance, it probably has officers insurance as well. It pays for street lights (might even own them), maintains private road (probably owns that too). There is much more to an HOA that you realize.



Yeah, they call it a "HOA" A HOA isnt just a company that pays bills, it also accepts all the liability and blame that comes with with all the assets mentioned above.

If your serious about getting rid of it, you should get all your neighbors to pitch in money to hire a lawyer to look into it. No two HOA's are the same so there is no "template". A lawyer needs to look at "your" docs to see if its even possible.

The membership had to have held a meeting to vote and amend the CC&Rs. Once adopted, someone had to file those papers with the county.

Are you sure that there is no Association? Who coordinated amending the CC&Rs?


This depends on the language of the contract (CC&Rs).

Some contracts renew automatically and by doing so typically wouldn't be tied to a statute of limitations. Do you have the exact language or can you provide a link to the statute? It's possible that it doesn't apply to deed restrictions.

I think someone is missing a step here. Where is the approval process? Many CC&R's may contain that fences, sheds, or other structures have to be subject to approval by the HOA's board or ACC. If the HOA or ACC doesn't exist, then there would never be a proper approval process per the CC&R's to begin with. Grandfathering isn't necessarily something that happens in a HOA either.

The lawsuit is in Superior court so that implies it's probably a suit for more than $5k I assume. What exactly are they suing for anyways? They have to show "damages". This is a code/restriction violation. The HOA (if there was one) would have to show proof of money they paid out to rectify the situation. That means if your fence is in violation, they would have to have an estimate or proof of the cost of removal of that fence.

A lawsuit can ONLY make someone "Whole" they can't make you benefit. If these people were to win, where would the money go? There's no HOA budget. Their legal fees would have to granite by the court for you to pay them. Seems they are wasting their money and time on this whole matter. I do hope you have filed a counter-suit and request for your legal fees to be addressed. Even though you most likely won't be awarded legal fee re-imbursement, just make sure to ask the court for that. The court will sort out who is responsible for those costs.

Make sure you have proof the city is in control of the streets and they don't have an RV/boat rule. IF there was an HOA, this lawsuit is a bad idea and the better solution would have been to lien you. However, that too would have to be for the amount of money they were out. Many states don't allow fines to be the basis of liens/foreclosures. Another avenue these people may attempt to do is to place fines.

You have a good counter-suit case here. Not knowing all the details, it sounds like they don't have much ground to stand on. There has to be a history of approvals, notifications, or meeting notes of an actual HOA to prove it exists. A group of owners can be an HOA but a group of individual owners not in majority of the other owners, is not an HOA.

Thanks Tim...I am working third shift right now and totally forgot about the injunction function. LOL...It was the injunction process that best makes sense for this situation. My mind knew that is what the proper process should be but got lost in the whole "lawsuit" term. I can see the injunction process being pursued to enforce the restrictions.

I would still advise to get some quotes from contractors on removing the violations. That way, they can have some control in removing the violations if forced to. You don't want someone else pricing out your job if you can avoid it. Plus may want to investigate the old "Hardship" defense as a possibility...It's just time to try to reduce your possible damages as well as defending what you have.