Help, inexperienced board member

I want to make this short and to the point.

I joined and was elected to the board of directors at the request of a good friend and neighbor. I have lived in the neighborhood for a year and bought my house as it was a former rental. I went to the sitting president with a color scheme I wanted to paint my house and he approved. Mind you that it was a complete color schem that included a full color picture of the house and on the back were color chips. After I was elected to be an officer some six months later, a homeowner anonymously posted taht I was in violation of the CC&R's with the color of my house. I spoke to my attorney and she said that since the former board approved the color scheme, I would not be liable for any fines imposed byt the any future board members.

In anyones experienced opinion, What do you think? As a board mdmber, I have been fair, but I am accused of violating CC&R's so I have no right to enforce other CC&R's that are being violated. It has put me in a very strange position. I am the legal liason and know a bit about the law, but how should I proceed. The comments have been posted on our community blog and it has been pretty harsh.

This is my forst post, so please be patien with me. I am new at this.

Thanks,

Patrick

Patrick:

That is why it is so important to get approval, in writing, of any exterior changes made to your home. If it is approved it is approved there is nothing anyone can do about it. My response to anyone that questions the legality of your home would simply be that you followed proper procedure and the board at that time determined your request was in compliance and they approved it.

The CC&R's state that any alteration, Inlcuding, but not limited to repainting, etc, but be approved by the board. This was not a favor as I only moved in three months previous. The CC&R's do not state any particular color scheme or such only that scheme of such building has to be approved by the board of directors or the Arcitectural Control Committee, which to my knowledge has never existed. We have only just begun to draft a set of rules and regulations which have been nonexistant in the six year history of the association.

My personal opinion is that someone who undertands that the Rule and Regualtions are coming down the road is probably in violation of a CC&R like the RV and boat, pet or other. Because their has been a couple of postings saying that how can I enforce Rules when I, as an officer, am in violation with the color of my house. I have had several postings in support of me and my color, but I am still uneasy.

For the record the color is a light yellow with sage green trim. Some of the other colors are peach, violet, gray, blue, white and other tones of yellow.

Thanks for the replies so far,

Patrick

Roger, thank you for the response. Just to clarify, we do not have published color standards, only that it needs to be approved by the board. That is why I am so confused by the statement that I am in violation. We don't have color standards, just that it has to be approved by the BOD, which I had done. I will get it in writing retro'd and file it. I am lucky to have an attorney that specializes in HOA and owes me a ton of favors.

I have been put in the same situation as Patrick. I have written ACC approval for something but someone felt the need to put on a neighborhood blog board that I am in violation and feel I can do whatever I want. I have ignored the posting and they have blocked my log-in and password to the site. This is probably best as the site is very nasty and negative. When we created an official HOA website, we purposely didn't include a blog board for this very reason.

I have recently thought about emailing a copy of the approval letter to the person who posted this accusation as well as the webmaster, as it was posted with malicious intent and can be a basis for a slander/libel suit. The webmaster can actually be held accountable for what is posted. I am going to request that they remove this posting or shut down the site due to it's content. Also, when I do an internet search for my name, this nasty blog comes up for the entire world to see.

We did not have a reserve study and the MC when I first got on the board said we didn't need one. We hired a new MC, got a reserve study and started increasing the annual assessments according to our reserve study. Of course, everyone threw a fit because the assessment went up and we were accused of 'wasting money'.

Last year, I came up with the idea of an initiation fee as most HOA's have them. We started collecting signatures for a fee of $150. I was removed from the board and nothing was worked on again until I was back on the board a few months after being removed. In January, we decided to try it again only the fee would be the same as the current year annual dues. I got this thing passed with reluctance from the people who got me removed and we have started collecting. They thought it would hurt the sale of their home by having a one-time initiation fee but didn't see that if the annual assessment is very high year-after-year could be a negative for buying a home. Anyway, the board is responsible for protecting the assests and without the money, you cannot do your duty.

Good luck with the major repairs...

PatrickS,

Unless I am mistaken, you got approval to paint your house by the President. Are there other board members, or is the President the board, or with final say over everything? For that reason, I think you need to be a bit methodical and dot your i's and cross your t's.

Don't get me wrong, I sympathize with your situation, I'm just playing devil's advocate.

Correct me if I am wrong, because there is no pre-approved color scheme, it's not the color that's the problem, it's the fact that you modified without documentation, or written approval to do so. But the color scheme could still become a problem, correct?

To avoid repainting the house, you could, and may want to seriously consider burning the candle at both ends, so to speak.

I offer this because, you may be getting targeted, I don't like that.....I find it unneighborly, and you are doing an honest and good service for your community. Ignore the blog post because anonymous communications are cowardly, obscene, must be ignored, and have absolutely no legality.

So here goes.....you could always become board liasion to the ARC, your color scheme could become one of the options for viability and ARC approval. Since you went to the trouble to provide a real-time example, and it doesn't sound like there are any other objections but an anonymous one.....why shouldn't your color scheme be a standard? Oh well, so much for my philosophy against grandfathering.

More importantly, two agenda items need to be added in the same meeting, 1) ARC (Architecutral Review Committee) color scheme approval, 2) Approval of unit owner modification with your letter of request. Approval or dissaproval of BOTH can then become part of the minutes and you can move on. Hopefully, you'll slam dunk both.

Best of luck!!
GeraldT1

Why not shut down the blog?

I and another board mdmber ask, but the President is adamant that we are getting something out of it. I do support him and the Vice-President fully. Make no mistake, it is only one person making the noise.

Patrick