HOA resident offers potential solutions to board member shortage

Our recent articles about homeowner’s associations (HOAs) have stirred many readers to write to us about why people don’t want to volunteer for HOA boards and the difficult situations sitting HOA members face every day.

Here’s one email we recently received:

Comment: I have read and appreciated your articles. You bring useful information and new perspectives to complex problems. Thanks!

Please let me respond to your recent article about HOA residents not stepping up to be active as board and committee members. I have been an HOA resident for 38 years and was, until recently, an elected board member (secretary) for 10 years. I have seen a huge decrease in the number of interested residents active in our HOA. However, this inactivity does not stem from laziness, lack of time or irresponsibility.

Being an authority figure on an HOA board or even on a committee has become stressful and dangerous! HOA rules may be fair and understandable. However, many residents today just don’t like rules.

I have heard about HOAs with members who tape threatening notes to others’ front doors after being reminded of HOA rules. People block in vehicles of board members as retribution for upholding HOA parking rules. Threats are made to board members when people disagree about laws upheld by the board prohibiting walking dogs without leashes. False reports are made to local police in order to bully a board member to change perspective.

A drunken, cursing resident followed a board member to his vehicles because of a permit violation. An elected elderly board member was harassed at a meeting by being told that older residents aren’t important. Board members have received nasty phone calls and endured social media comments as a result of their board activity.

Why would anyone want to serve on an HOA board? Many HOAs in my area don’t even publish contact information any longer because of rude, nasty residents. Can you blame them?

Maybe our society can no longer expect civility from community members for HOAs. There seems to be a general lack of respect for groups like HOA boards that have little power. I have five suggestions that might help HOA boards attract members and decrease the animosity that seems to exist:

1. Comprehensive government legislation should be passed concerning HOAs and their authority.

2. Government should then promote, support and enforce such legislation.

3. Real estate agents should be required to give and carefully explain each HOA’s set of documents before any final sale.

4. New owners should be required to sign legal forms saying that they read and understand their HOA’s authority.

5. Government should send all relevant laws to HOA board members and their management companies. Perhaps even training in interpreting relevant laws and HOA documents should be provided.

Ilyce and Sam respond: Well, this is some list of bad behavior. Unfortunately, this stuff is going on in many places around the country. When we lived in a medium-size building on Lake Shore Drive, in Chicago, some 25 years ago, people could be nasty. But you felt it behind the scenes, in a sneak attack, rather than upfront, in your face, scary.

So, let’s be clear. Threats, altercations, and violence are never acceptable in civil society and certainly not against neighbors. If people feel that sitting on an HOA board will be painful, they won’t do it. And, then who will run the property?

On the rules front, some HOAs do have prospective buyers sign that they have received the rules, agreed to abide by them, and agree that the HOA can enforce those rules.

Most states already have laws in place that provide for a basic structure for how an HOA must be organized. But as a private body, the HOA is essentially made up of the homeowners in that complex. If there are disagreements between the homeowners, and the HOA that can’t be resolved within the framework set up by the HOA, the homeowners or the HOA can sue the other in court. It’s costly, but it is a method for ultimately resolving issues between an HOA and its homeowners. We doubt that most municipalities want to become involved in the many civil disagreements between homeowners and the HOA boards.

If our readers want to share HOA horror stories and solutions that helped calm things down and resolve these types of situations, we’ll publish them in an upcoming column. Please email us at questions@thinkglink.com.

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(Ilyce Glink is the author of “100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask” (4th Edition). She is also the CEO of Best Money Moves, a financial wellness technology company. Samuel J. Tamkin is a Chicago-based real estate attorney. Contact Ilyce and Sam through her website, ThinkGlink.com.)