Can an HOA get a restraining order?

Can an HOA get a restraining order to prevent a non-resident from entering the HOA?

We have a couple in their 60s who have a son that has been a professional car thief for over 20 years, and they have no ability to influence his criminal behavior. He has several felony convictions for car thefts and other crimes. Every time he is released from jail, he comes and stays with his parents. When he does, he brings crime and other criminals into the HOA. On video we have him bringing stolen cars and other items to the HOA and storing those stolen items at his parents. His parents no longer ask him questions about the items because they do not want to know the details, but after 20+ years, they see it 100s of times and know everything he brings home is stolen.

Local police have been informed many times and provided with video security footage, but the cycle keeps happening in our community because the parents provide him with a place to stay when out of jail, and he then uses their home as a base of his criminal operation. The only time we get relief is when he is in jail\prison.

If possible, we want to get a restraining order to prevent him from being on HOA property, which may force local police to act and arrest him for violating the restraining order. Currently, police take no action unless he is caught in the act of committing a crime (ie driving a stolen car).

This is something you need to talk with the Association attorney about.

Reading the post again, you want to ban them from HOA property. This is difficult because they are the invited guest of the owner, and you probably allow other invited guests of owners on HOA property.

Also, it is not clear what property you want to ban them from. If you are talking parks and pools, then the person might just avoid those areas. If your streets are private and you are talking streets, you have better leverage.

It's not clear to me what you are really asking for.

This is a tricky situation. Since the son is likely not on the deed or a property owner, you can have a police officer trespass him from the community common areas.
You would have to have rock solid proof this guy is the culprit, there are always the avenue of the homeowners suing the offending homeowner individually.

No, the corporation cannot get a restraining order against a bona fide guest of owners on the basis of people suspecting (nothing more) he has stolen xyz and is storing xyz at his parents' home in the HOA.

If a guest were, say, harassing vendors of the HOAs; the HOA manager; or the HOA Board, then the corporation might have standing to seek a restraining order.

I hear you that you feel the police are not doing your job. But this does not give your HOA the authority to act as judge and jury and become some flavor of vigilante.

NealN1,
Have you checked online to see if Washington State has a "HotSheet" for stolen cars? Not sure if this is ever Public information. If it was and you see new cars near the area if they are on the list, you could have every right to call them in. PDs today do not have time to do much regular sleuthing, but everyone likes to get the easy ones.

I feel for you as someone who has had a bad family in my Ca. HOA. You know more trouble is coming you just don't know when it will happen.

Don't you think there is a lot of overlap here between the corporate workplace and who was claiming harassment? Assuming actual harassment occurred rising to a level of inappropriate disturbance of the manager's ability to work, I do not find any of what you described to be particularly unusual.

I am glad you settled. I trust you are well aware that having a restraining order on one's record is not advisable. Maybe you did not get justice. But you did consider the reality of the situation, and I think this is a good thing.

On the other hand, I know there are managers out there who will claim asking them a question is harassment. Such managers want owners to stay away so they can do xyz (which may or may not be appropriate conduct).

You are accusing the manager of a crime. This may be hazardous to your legal health, starting with the manager claiming defamation. Leading to a manager who seeks a restraining order, possibly lying to the board and court to get it.

In my experience, too many owners think that it is okay to apply pressure to a manager, because the manager does, after all, work for the owners. No attitude could be more misplaced. If an owner does not like something the manager is doing, the correct, legal means to correct this is to go through the board. Or possibly run for the board with a group of other, like-minded owners.

To be clear, this problem has been going on for over 20 years. The only time the community gets any relief is when he is in jail\prison. It's not like we are looking to harass anyone because they are not cutting their grass or leaving their trash cans on the sidewalk. We are looking for solutions to 20 year problem of one individual (non-resident) who brings crimes into the community. Not only crimes, but his criminal behavior has attracted the attention of gangs, and gang members have come into our community looking to do him harm.

Recently, a homeowner found out that a potential buyer backed out of the deal because the buyer (or his agent) did a crime check for the area, and found out this one home has had 20 years of problems that required law enforcement to be involved. As high as nightly 911 calls to the homeowner's property (his parents). Other times we had bounty hunters parking in the nearby waiting for the guy to appear.

Yes, the HOA and everyone else in the community has to follow the law, but this individual knows that he can cross any legal boundary he wants knowing that rest of us will not. He can bring a truckload of stolen items and store it in his parent's home and the local lolice don't want us calling them because his unloading expensive items from a truck, even though he has 20 year history of burglary, car thefts and has no employment history of any kind. His career is crime, and he knows how to work the system to his advantage. Police are more ticked off at the community for reporting his activity than they are at him. He is not causing them any specific problems, so if we stopped calling them to report behavior that indirectly involves crimes (unloading a truck is not a crime, but how the items got into the truck is involved a crime(s)), local police would be happy if we just accepted this 20-year pattern in our community as normal\acceptable. From the police perspective, we are calling for trivial reasons because he has not harmed physically anybody or threaten to do so. Its like the community standards are too high because we reject a criminal lifestyle where the personal and the professional revolve around crime; the police (and some outsiders) perceive those standards as being unreasonable.

The HOA again is a group and a corporation. It is up to the individual person or persons that are a victim of the crime to take the proper legal actions. You can all form a "neighborhood watch" SEPARATELY from the HOA. This means absolute NO association money or associated with the HOA in any terms. The membership is open to everyone including non-members/renters. It is people in the community.

This option may fit your needs the best as you can act as an individual to report the crimes or suspected activity to the police. Someone sees something, they say something. The local police department can assist you in educating and providing a sign when entering. We had one in our HOA. A son of a board member had a kid committing crimes in our HOA. It was well known it was him. Seen him commit a crime myself. (Stole a cab ride and me and the driver had to locate him).

Please do NOT associate the Neighborhood watch in any shape of form with the HOA. Again can NOT stress that enough. Trevyn Martin case in Florida proves that the HOA should not be associated with a Watch program nor carry guns. (Unless licensed properly, trained, and legal). It is opening the HOA to a huge lawsuit if you do. Doesn't mean you can't still have the same people in both. They should even have separate meetings. It may be the best bet to educate everyone on recognizing crime and what to legally do about it.

So you want to get rid of a PM that is helping do the work of the HOA because you don't like the President. Got it.

Trying again, for clarity:Okay. I appreciate your statement of how you could have handled things better.Got it. It happens a lot. AFAIC this does not make said retaliation right. But I think recognizing when a party, that one opposes, has more power is important. The other party having more power might even be an excellent reason not to go to war.To repeat: You are accusing the vendors and presidents of crimes and you are holding yourself out to a lawsuit for defamation. This HOA can stop you dead in your tracks with another lawsuit.

Do you understand what a long process it is to prove kickbacks? You may think you have the evidence, but are you either a district attorney, or a HOA/COA attorney? Do you understand how involved an attorney's investigation would be before the attorney concluded anything about what you allege?

Do consider taking your evidence to a HOA/COA attorney and paying whatever it takes to get sound legal advice. I think this would likely save you a lot of money and grief.Do you realize that only the board has the legal power to fire the PMC? Do you realize that, even if you get a board majority who feel as you do, the contract with the PMC might not allow instant termination?

If you want change, then competent HOA/COA attorneys say this is best caused by a massive campaign to elect new directors at the annual meeting, or calling for a Special Meeting pursuant to California law to remove and replace directors.

I recommend you run the wording you propose to use at any meeting by this forum first.

If you spoke at a Special Meeting of the owners and said what you say above, I would be thinking, "What's her proof? Does she know how to read HOA accounting statements? How much experience with the operations of a HOA does she have?"

Is it a crime to receive a kickback? I was not aware of that. I simply thought it was a violation of their contract. I have been offered at my job $250 gift cards to hire a certain company for a job. I never accepted because it didn't feel right. Are you saying that if I accepted it would have been a crime? I have asked the PMC to disclose their conflicts and have been told on more than one occasion, that they have none. I now know this is true because of one of our vendors receiving a contract at a greatly increased rate from the previous vendor and the owner of that new favored vendor being associated with our PM at another HOA. Do I need more proof? I have asked the PM for more information on this contract and he continues to throw the corrupt president that is longer with us under the bus.

Good point. I think a kickback in this instance amounts to bribery and/or a type of fraud, both of which can be crimes.

-- Anyone working for company X who accepts payment to him- or herself, in secret, for hiring company Y may very well be breaking a number of laws, company rules. I really do not want to get into this here. It's not the purpose of the forum. All I can say is I think you were right to turn them down. I would have reported company Y to my superiors at company X as well. I say this knowing full well that corporate America is rotten, political, and dog-eat-dog. What you describe sounds way over the line.

-- As for the HOA situation, sitting here in anonymity without all the facts in front of me, I do not think you have anywhere near enough proof to claim kickbacks are occurring.

To my knowledge, properties cannot file restraining orders against people. And this sounds like a difficult situation because the parents are willingly housing their son/his items. If he is not victimizing anyone in the association, it would be hard to create a case against him.

You should reach out to a lawyer for this to see what actions are available to the HOA.

Below is a link to a report from Burlington, Vermont about the increase in crime in recent years and police saying they do not have the resources to address the lesser crimes. Said 'lesser crimes' include punching a person in the back of the head in a city park.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/12/business/burlington-police-stolen-bikes.html

Thank you Augustin, you have been very helpful. I understand my proof isn't perfect but the circumstantial evidence is undeniable. I attempted to attend an HOA meeting tonight for the purpose of asking the Board about this and also in regard to approval of plans for construction to my unit. Even though the court has told the HOA that they have to let me attend the meetings remotely, the minute I connected to the meeting, I was kicked off and not allowed to rejoin. I have tried sending emails to the email address for our Board (again, allowed per the court's direction) and they have blocked my emails. The PM I am allowed to communicate with directly is now ignoring my emails and will provide me with no further information. My husband is handicapped and I need to have work done on my unit to make it safer for him (i.e., changing the bathtub to a shower and adding handrails) but I am not allowed to do these things without first obtaining Board approval. Since I am cut off from the Board I cannot proceed and the situation is dangerous for my husband as it stands right now. I have decided to withhold my HOA fees until I am allowed to appear at an HOA meeting. I understand that the HOA fees are what supports the whole community, but I am receiving less benefit from my fees than other homeowners and being kept in the dark. I am willing to pay the fees when they stop discriminating against me.

Not true. Different vendors charge different amounts for their services. In addition, inflation is causing the prices of most things to rise significantly - it's unreasonable to expect to continue to pay the same amount for the same service.

Many associations make a mistake by always going with the low bid. I believe that you get what you pay for. The really good vendors usually have more work than they can handle, and can charge more for a better quality product. Finally, a vendor may not want to mess with small jobs. They may bid on them but quote a higher price - this encourages the association to go with someone else but still keep the first company on the list for future jobs.

Pardon. Please start two new threads (one thread per topic).