Have you signed up for our free manager classes on Colorado law yet?
As previously blogged by Lindsay Smith, Winzenburg, Leff, Purvis & Payne, LLP is offering free lunchtime teleconference classes for community association managers designed to help prepare managers to take the Colorado law portion of the licensing examination. The next class is scheduled for July 9
It is not uncommon for homeowners to wonder where all their dues are going. Some owners might see their dues go up with no visible changes to the property and even get suspicious. Of course, associations often bear a lot of expenses that are not directly related to property condition, such as insurance, management, and
If you have ever served on the board of directors of an HOA, you know that some members are never happy to see their annual assessments increased. In fact, some folks can be downright hostile when faced with an increase. This can even be true when an assessment increase is absolutely necessary to adequately fund reserves to be financially prepared to handle major repairs and replacements to association common elements.
When boards are unwilling to propose essential assessment increases or members are unwilling to ratify budgets with these increases, it is not uncommon to see a couple of things happen. First, these associations tend to defer routine maintenance on common elements which reduces the remaining useful life of components like roofs, siding and asphalt. Second, these associations may not have enough funds in reserves to cover the costs associated with these major repairs and replacements. In such cases, without levying a special assessment or obtaining a loan to cover the associated costs, the infrastructure of these communities will begin to erode and eventually fall apart.Continue Reading Failing to Reserve and Deferred Maintenance is a Recipe for Disaster
As a community association attorney, I attend a lot of homeowner meetings to discuss legal issues and provide education to boards and owners. I enjoy the opportunity to meet the people who live in my client’s communities. It’s always great to put faces to names and get a feel for the relationship dynamics that make themselves apparent in the meeting space. Often, I stand out as the only person in the room wearing a suit, and I quickly get introduced as the association’s attorney or “the board’s attorney” or simply “our attorney.” This introduction provides a chance for me to answer a question that many owners in the room have: Who do you represent, Suzanne? In fact, I try to answer the following questions, quickly and concisely, with any group of owners that I am meeting for the first time:
Who does the association attorney represent? My firm represents the community association entity, not its board of directors, any of the individual directors, the manager or management company, or the members of the association.Continue Reading If You’re My HOA’s Attorney, You Represent Me, Right? (No, Not Quite.)
Earlier this month the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced that it had reached a settlement with an apartment complex in the Denver Area for rules that discriminated against familial status under the federal Fair Housing Act (FHA). Readers of this blog will be aware that the FHA applies to residential community associations too, and this offending rule wouldn’t look out of place in many common interest communities:
"All children must be supervised by an adult at all times while playing outside. No sports activities, skateboarding, roller-blading, or general extracurricular activities are to take place in our community. If we see anyone violating any of the above activities or see any unsupervised children they will be sent home immediately."
The settlement required the rules above be amended, that the apartment owner build a $10,000 playground, and that all employees of the apartment complex owner attend fair housing training within one year.Continue Reading Family Friendly Rules
As we contemplate the observance of Memorial Day, we need only briefly look at the news to be reminded of how lucky we are to live in the United States of America. As we witness the repression in other countries that is unimaginable to most of us, we must remember the men and women serving in the United
All of us have complained about a loud and noisy neighbor or some other disturbance that we have deemed a nuisance at one point or other in our lives. However, we should all be thankful that none of us reside in the Plaza at Five Points Condominium Association in Sarasota, Florida. Apparently, the condominium association sits atop of a nightclub. As a single man I appreciate a good nightclub and having one downstairs from where I live sounds interesting. However, this is not just any nightclub but rather one which allegedly stages “drag queen pillow fighting and gelatin wrestling”. Some of the older residents did not appreciate the noise and activities downstairs from them and filed complaints with the city and police and, according to the club’s attorney, pressured the owner of the building to break the club’s lease. The efforts by the association apparently have failed and now the club’s owner has filed a lawsuit against the association claiming that it went too far. www.heraldtribune.com/article/20140515/ARTICLE/140519808Continue Reading A Nuisance or Not?
Sometimes during a collection of an account, we become aware that the homeowner is in the military. When this happens, there are certain procedures and precautions we must take before proceeding with collections. This is due to the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, which affords a number of significant protections to servicemen and servicewomen who are on active duty.
Okay – so the nicest thing I can say about the snow we had on Mother’s Day is that it was really annoying. However, regardless of our quirky Colorado weather, spring really is here! That means HOA boards and residents need to anticipate and avoid common pitfalls and controversies that can arise as we spend time outdoors during the spring and summer. Here are some important tips to keep in mind:
Senate Bill 14-220 (“SB 220”) is dead for the session. Sponsored by Senator Jesse Ulibarri (D-Commerce City), who represents himself as an advocate for affordable housing, this bill was a molotov cocktail created to destroy the ability of homeowners living in HOAs to recover from builders for defective construction. The plan was to significantly increase the construction of condominium projects by making it impossible for builders to be held fully responsible for their shoddy construction.
SB 220 was double assigned to the Senate State, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee (‘State Affairs Committee”) and the Senate Judiciary Committee. The State Affairs Committee, which is chaired by Senator Ulibarri, held a short hearing on the bill yesterday which did not give all of the folks who were passionately against the bill a chance to be fully heard. The bill passed the State Affairs Committee on a slim 3 to 2 margin.
In order for the bill to proceed through the legislative process during the final two days of the session, the Senate Judiciary Committee needed to take up the bill last night and pass it out of committee to the full Senate for consideration. In a procedural move to protect the rights of homeowners living in HOAs to recover for defects against builders, the Senate Judiciary Committee declined to meet last night on SB 220 which kills the bill for the session.Continue Reading Construction Defect Bill Dead for Session
