Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: staying in a homeowners association

Adding to what the other attorney advised, yes you must. Best thing might be to get on the board and try to influence what occurs.

Joel Selik

Attorney/Real Estate Broker

www.4thelaw.com

[email protected]

Re: staying in a homeowners association

The homeowners association is responsible for maintaining the commonly owned areas, and if this is a condominium or townhome, often the exterior of all the units.

Yes, they can foreclose on the property. They actually have a lien ahead of your lender and behind the county tax lien that is on every property.

The association is required to have meetings, and you are entitled to go, ask questions and review the books. If you have others who feel the same as you, get together and vote out the current officers, and elect your own group.

Be careful, though. You might find out that it is harder running the association (and more expensive) than you think. A well run association which really maintains the property helps keep the value of your unit up.

Re: staying in a homeowners association

A homeowners' association (HOA) is something like a private government with taxing authority over the residents in its jurisdiction. Your obligation to participate in its finances through dues flows from covenants in your deed and perhaps other instruments referred to in your deed.

An HOA's power to assess dues is limited in several ways including the deeds, its bylaws, by statute, and by a general limitation of fairness and duty of good management imposed on the HOA board. The HOA has, nevertheless, fairly wide discretion to spend (for repairs, e.g.) and pass along the costs through dues, The HOA should also collect enough to accrue reasonable reserves.

One suggestion might be to see whether there are other homwowners who would participate in the cost, then take up a collection to cover the fee to have a local real estate attorney review the HOA's operations and management to make sure it is conducting itself lawfully and intelligently.