"single family use" home in HOA-no roommates? FL

Our FL HOA President says that since our CCRs state that our homes are for single family residential use only, no owner can have a roommate living with them, and wants a letter sent to these owners to evict their roommate....... We are under 720 statutes and I looked and I think he is not correct. Pres doesn't know if the roommates pay rent to their roommate/owner or not. He is particularly upset because one owner has three roommates living with them, and he wants them gone, too. Legal?

Dana,
Lots of luck on this one because it is splitting hairs as to the interpretation of what is a "single family". I think that your President should consider giving up on this one. Better to make sure that anyone living in the unit follows the rules and regs and is not disruptive to the community and obeying the parking rules because you would have a hard time getting this one enforced and to court. As long as they are not running a motel,and have cousins of cousins living there, you might just watch and monitor the situation.
Some associations limit the number of persons in a unit by the number of bedrooms in the house. That would need an amendment in your Docs.

Nancy,
You must have REALLY had a bad day. The documents committee that I chair had a request last year from the B.O.D, to write a definition as to what the Protective Covenant meant in "single Family residence". All we could do is to quote the definition from the covenants because that definition is what the developer meant.
Now, we then went to the dictionary but the attorney argued that-- "that is not what the developer meant". So we just quoted the definition in the covenant intro. By the way, What does the Attorney mean? We never know as it is never relayed to us in plain English. (except you)

"THE DWELLING UNITS SHALL BE FOR SINGLE FAMILY USE ONLY. NO COMMERCIAL OCCUPATION OR ACTIVITY MAY BE CARRIED ON (Assoc. name) A FAMILY IS DEFINED TO MEAN ANY NUMBER OF PERSONS RELATED BY BLOOD, MARRAGE OR ADOPTION OR NOT MORE THAT TWO-(2) UNRELATED PERSONS LIVING AS A SINGLE HOUSEKEEPING UNIT".

Maybe you could argue that technically everyone is blood relative if you go back to the beginning of human kind. lol

If you can rent wouldn't the fair housing act come into play? ...with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling, that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination because of race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.

Here's Florida court ruling regarding the issue. It may give you some insight on how a judge MAY rule in your case.

http://www.ccfj.net/courtdecFLCommHome.html

RW1,
So we conclude all handicap issues and fair housing issues are probably exceptions. If I remember that didn't apply in this case. This seems to be about whether one President of a Home Owners Association has the power to restrict residents in a unit cover under a HOA CC&R's. I believe if I was in that community I would petition the Board (with support) that any action by the president would have to be action outside the Boards authority and no association funds should be used to adjudicate the issue.
This guy is far off base and needs a reminder he works for the council of homeowners, not the other way around.

Dana, yes the BOD can reign in this President. Pass a resolution at a Board meeting that all actions, except emergencies, shall be approved by the Board and that all communications via email be sent to all Board members. The resolution can include any other items the BOD approves which might be needed to make this President act appropriately.

Here is an outline of the Presidents duties in a HOA. with a General Manager.

(a) Presides at all meetings of the Board of Directors and all meetings of the Members and has the right and privilege to vote as any other Member of the Board of Directors.

(b) Sees that orders and resolutions of the Board of Directors are carried out and signs all leases, mortgages, deeds, promissory notes and other written instruments with the Secretary of the Association.

(c) Supervises the preparation of the agenda for all meetings of the Board of Directors and the Members.

(d) Performs or delegates to a committee of the Board of Directors an annual review of the performance of the General Manager and reports such findings to the Board of Directors in an executive session.

(e) Acts as the contact for the Board of Directors with the General Manager.

(f) Performs such other customary duties incident to the office of President.

NOTE: I don't see anything there that supports him making any decisions to a one on one problem. So, I expect the Board is intimadated by him, or don't want the hazzle, which amounts to the same thing.

I can understand the single family use dilemma. In my subdivision, which is located just a few miles from a college, we have several rental houses which appear to be the new dorms. 4-8 kids to a house! 4 - 8 vehicles parked all over the place. Not to mention parties, parties, parties. ( I know I was a college kid once, but I guess I was a bookworm!) We have contacted our code enforcement and they basically told us unless we could get everyone to agree to DNA testing to determine if they were related we should move on to something else.

DanaA ; You need to vote off your HOA President...some HOA members think who they..possible being in the HOA got to there heads...LOL!

To all,
This issue has to be resolved withe the owner of the property. You should have clear rules about rental property and one of them should be that any corrective action or charges has to be made against the owner. If any action by any resident of the association warrents immediate correction that action can be instigated by any aggreived owner. The Board should take action to immediately resolve the problem. Immediate action would not be parking on the grass, but could well be for excessive noise distrubing a resident/owner. If a renter was being bothered by (for instance) noise, resolution of the problem has to be an owners action. If the renter contacted the board, the boards response should be directed to the owner of the property making the noise. This is a very difficult problem and each HOA should have clear steps for resolution and those steps must provide a clause on enforcement and specifiy it is the owner of the property that bears responsibility and fine action.

As most know, this enforcement action against renters is as old as the hills. I suspect the HOA's that can sucessfully deal with the problem are the ones that places the onus directly on the Owners of the property.
It is unfair to require any owner (except in a dire condition) to go to war with any renters on the property. They have to abide by the same rules as owners do, therefore, violations are a board matter, and the Board should provide. In fact the Board is charged to provide. It also is clear in most documents that the Board obligation is to the owners and in most cases, if the manager or staff has to go to any undue expense in solving renters problems, they can charge expenses to the owner of the residence. Unless specified and detailed in your documents the association is not in the rental property business. It can become a financial matter and is probably misuse of association funds. It is in my condo and also in the HOA I also pay dues to.

Ron,
Not necessarily, more a general comment on the fact, that this issue with renters, in general, should be handled in house and there should be documents in the CC&R's that have enforcement measures. Also to point out in most cases the rentals are not the responsibility of the regime as much as the owners are responsible to the board for the actions on their property.

RonW,
Not sure why we are going back and forth on this. I agree and have stated in the event the circumstances warrant an agrieved owner or the manager or the Board can all take action on any violation. That could be notifying a board member and reguest immediate action be taken if warranted. It does not include entering a neighbors unit and telling him how to correct what ever you feel is improper. If I recall right I believe there was some suggestion that an owner goes to the renter to solve a problem. You may start out neighbor to neighbor but if they don't agree with your conclusions, they are not going to do as you suggest and the problem will continue. I believe this is the Boards responsibility and between the Board and the owner of the property. Of course the Association can control the Common areas, and speaking of condo, there are no areas other than common areas. The may be limited to one owners use (Balcony) or a shared limited common area, say a storage area for a number of units, but all are common, such as a parking space (limited if assigned by Board). All of what I know I have learned from someone else. When the owners rights are assigned to the renter (lease)this makes the renter no different, as far as obeying the covenants, as the owner. The renter lives under the same rules. Yes, the association can control the actions of anyone residing in the condominium and to large extent in an HOA, but there are differences. I am not sure about banning them from the common areas or specific common areas, unless the association is consider a third party to the rental document. But the asssociation can attempt to contact the owner and demand that the lease be terminated by the owner. If the owner don't terminate the lease or immediately correct the problem, then he can be fined heavily and often. I repeat there is nothing in these actions that are any different to either party, renter or owner, guest, friend, child or relative. For the most part the documents that control are enforceable. An owner or renter can do what ever it is they do in their units, but suppose a fire breaks out? Then, if deemed necessary, any unit can be entered, but if there is a domestic dispute and it spills over and distrubes the neighbor, the board has to make the call on entering the apartment. The manager or agrieved owner can go to the door and request the distrubance stop, if it don't stop it is again the Boards responsibility which means, ultimately the owner is going to have to control the siyuation. I know, there are exceptions to all this but that just proves the rules. Our covenants have specific clauses the address owner to owner business and owner to renters business. They are not perfect but they do help[ the process along.

Dana,
I was reading today in the Florida handbook on HOA's that if the owner is in residence, he can rent out rooms in his home. Florida statute 720, sec 7.8 states "...residential purposes restriction does not prohibit parcel owners from renting rooms as an adult congregate living facility when the owner of the parcel is in occupancy."

Linda