Mistakes and misdirection are common in community association life. All board members are human and err.  Management does not always have the right answer. Even Association lawyers can get it wrong and give bad advice. These missteps and poor decisions of one board are often embraced by the next. Bad decisions become bad habits and an incorrect interpretation of a CC&R provision or ignorance of an important association law can continue for years.

But our advice to associations and their boards of directors is that it’s never too late to do the right thing.  This seems so simple, but so many boards and community managers are frozen with fear when they discover that years of board decisions and practice were not in compliance with a statute or the governing documents.

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There’s a new disease out there. This sickness ignores socio-economic status and geographic boundaries and seems to infect many HOA Board members and community managers alike. Your Association might already be infected.

This new sickness is market driven. As associations struggle financially to pay landscapers and save for big-ticket rainy day projects, Enforcement-Phobia is spreading. In addition to roots in the financial crisis, there are political indications of the phobia as well. Boards and managers are all too concerned about what owners in violation might think or do. Along with the financial pinch and the political push, there are also strong misperceptions that enforcing the express terms of a community’s governing documents is bad for community. And the cancer of non-compliance spreads…

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