July 2013

 With the influx of new foreclosures the past few years, you may have heard of homes in your community that are being sold through a ‘short sale’. While short sales are fairly common, few people understand what they are or how they should be handled by an association.  

 A short sale occurs when a lender agrees to accept less than is owed on a mortgage/Deed of Trust to permit an owner to sell their property. For example, an individual owning a home with a market value of $200,000 but with a $225,000 mortgage would not ordinarily be able to sell their home since a necessary condition of sale is to payoff the outstanding mortgage and any liens. In this example, the homeowner would need to come to closing with $25,000 in cash to allow the sale to close. Since most individuals are financially unable to sell their home under these circumstances, a solution is to convince a lender to accept a payment of $200,000 on their loan to permit the sale to go through. Continue Reading Understanding Short Sales in Your Community

It’s no secret that Colorado’s housing market continues to improve and according to the Denver Post, some buyers have even been forced into bidding wars over the low inventory in certain areas.   While the increase in home sales is great news for the local economy, this is also an important reminder to associations to…

Earlier this week, I was asked by the Alternative Dispute Resolution Section of the Colorado Bar Association to participate in a luncheon conversation about the use of mediation in HOA disputes.  We talked about the types of disputes which can occur in HOAs and the importance of mediators understanding the role of the governing documents and Colorado law in the HOA context.  However, I found the experiences shared by mediators…

Jase Robertson, a star of the hit show Duck Dynasty, got a bit sideways with his HOA for burning leaves and keeping chickens in his yard. As you might expect, Jase was sent covenant violation letters and seems to have been fined for these violations. 

In an attempt to “flush these rules down the commode” and get "creative,” Jace and members of his family (armed with a casserole) attended a meeting of their HOA Board to discuss the issue. When his time came to speak, Jase stated that: “We are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Chickens make me happy. They get insects. They fertilize your yard and if anything goes wrong, you can put them in a pot!” 

 

The Board President calmly and professionally informed Jase that when he bought his home he signed a document stating that they are not allowed to burn leaves in their yard or keep chickens. Jase, understanding the governing documents of his association covered these issues, stated: “They got me. I signed the contract. I didn’t know that was in there.”

 

//www.youtube.com/embed/uMTTpi5KmKkContinue Reading Does a Casserole Cure a Covenant Violation?

I think I’m pretty spoiled.  I only have to deal with bad weather when I choose to.  My garage at home is attached, and my garage at work occupies the lower levels of the building.  Sometimes I forget a jacket on winter days and don’t realize it’s a problem until I have to go outside.…

 Does your Board record its meetings, either with audio recordings or video recordings? Do you allow members who are present to record meetings? Do you know? Do you care?

With all the discussion and action in recent years focused on transparency of association operations, it might seem like recording meetings, or allowing them to be recorded is consistent with notions of transparency. However, that is often not the case. When your association has not thought about this topic, too often the result, when the Board discovers that a member is recording the meetings, is uncertainty, and then the call to the association’s lawyer’s office to find out what is allowed, not allowed, and what can be doneContinue Reading Recording Meetings – Should We or Should We Not?