Mark K. Payne

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Well, here we are, Ash Wednesday; past Martin Luther King’s birthday, President’s Day, and Mardi Gras, and some homeowners still have their Christmas and Hannukah decorations on their homes from those holiday celebrations. As we all know, many restrictive covenants specify a period of time following the specific holiday during which the decorations must be removed from the house. And yet, our weather has been such that, in many cases removing those decorations may not be done safely due to the onslaught of snow storms and the accumulation of snow, all of which seems to have been exacerbated by the regular weekend snow storms. Should the board nevertheless enforce those restrictive covenants and impose fines, or is there an alternative?Continue Reading What To Do About Those Holiday Decorations?

Occasionally, we’ll hear from an association’s board of directors about how proud they are that they haven’t had to raise assessments for some period of time – 10 years, plus or minus. Typically, they are touting what great stewards they have been of their members’ money, and how grateful the members should be. Oftentimes, the comments come in the heat of candidacies for election of members to the board of directors. Sometimes, they even wonder out loud why their members don’t appreciate the money saving efforts of the board. What they are missing follows.Continue Reading Not Increasing Assessments? Good For You – Or Is It?

We all know that our 2006 legislature was very busy cleaning up SB-100 adopted in 2005. The legislature, in its haste to get SB 100 passed, left more than a little ambiguity in its provisions. As we’ve reported in the past, SB-89 (formally known as SB06-89) is the clean up bill. We’ve attached here a…

We frequently get questions from our clients and their managers asking about enforcement of architectural guidelines, and particularly, the ability to either require a homeowner to obtain architectural review committee approval before making improvements, or alternatively, requiring a homeowner to remove improvements already made without committee approval. While there is no universal answer, there are some generalities.
Continue Reading How Enforceable Are Those Architectural Guidelines?

On June 1, 2006, Governor Owens signed into law HB 06-1387. This is a substantial, sweeping, overhaul of Colorado’s real estate foreclosure law. Among many other things done by this law, the most significant change made is the elimination of an owner’s right to redeem property after a sale of the property. Lienholders still have the right to redeem. As a tradeoff for elimination of the right of redemption, owners are given a longer period of time to cure the default before the property actually can be sold at foreclosure sale.
Continue Reading Colorado’s New Foreclosure Law – HB 06-1387

The pool has only been open a week but already you have started to receive some complaints from the community about noise and roughhousing. If you already have a policy regulating pool use, you can breathe easy and follow the guidelines that the Association has in place to handle noise and unacceptable behavior, assuming, of course, that those guidelines have been approved by the Board of the Association and reviewed by your Association’s attorney. Just make sure that you apply all rules in regulations in a fair and consistent manner.
Continue Reading Summer Pool Fun Brings New Concerns