Homeowners Associations - Homeowners Assn blues

Homeowners association has been in place here since 1927. Consists of lakefront owners and "inside"lot owners (not lakefront). Association has 9 different areas that are right of ways to the lake - rights to lake access in the deeds of al the inside lot owners - but the association has always been both lakefront owners and insde lot owners. Some peole want the association disbanded - but what happens to the right of ways and the insde lot owners rights to lake access? Some have said that they would let the assn go bankrupt and let the town have the right of ways. Since the only real expense is insurance for the ROWs - seems to me if the assn went bankrupt the onlyh impact is that we no longer have insurance (big potential liability). no taxes on the land at this point (not sure why - maight be that they all used to be fire lanse also - but I don't think that is still the case)

I guess the questiuons:
1) Can they just disband and take my lake rights away?
2) What happens if the assn goes bankrupt?

Too many questions. One of them being who owns the right of ways now? The HOA or is it easments on someones property? I don't think can just take away you beach rights bit I'm not a lawyer.

The best way I found to fight in court is file a court case and see what the defense lawyer files and pay attention to what laws and cases he mentions and take those numbers and go to the library and look them up or find them online and appeal. They know what they are doing, just use them to find out what section of the law books it is under...

This is why it is important to be involved in the HOA and to know the state laws that govern HOAs as well as the Bylaws of the HOA and who can and can not vote and the % of votes needed to disband. It is also important to know the impact upon homeowners if the HOA is disbanded. Because this is a state and HOA specific situation, it would be difficult to answer your question. You and your neighbors need to do some research and likely seek legal counsel.

This question requires advice from local lawyers.

I can tell you, because the issue has come up here in California regarding some condos.....If the HOA were to go bankrupt, or if the HOA dissolved due to no homeowners willing to serve on the board, then the Secretary of State of California becomes the governing body and would run the association. They would have a hired geek manage the complex, and could charge whatever fees were necessary to run the place. It would not be pretty.

This is all highly dependent on your governing documents ( CC&R's).

We are facing a situation here in my condo where there have been some forclosures and there will be more. Each time there is a foreclosure, the Association ends up writing off anywhere from a few thousand to several thousand dollars in uncollectible fees. When the home has no equty, and the owner is bankrupt, there is no money left.

We have absorbed this, and can absorb a few more. The folks that are left will suffer from lower reserves and higher fees. I don't really know what would happen if there were a massive amount of foreclosures on top of this.

Oftentimes common areas are owned by all the property owners in common, and often that transfer of title is made on the face of the plat map for the subdivision.

So I'd start by looking up the original plat map on file with the county recorder and look carefully for that kind of declaration.

In many areas there are no property taxes paid on such common areas --- property taxes are reflected in the valued of individual properties.

If the association doesn't buy liability insurance --- no problem. Anyone injured on the common areas can choose ANY PROPERTY OWNER to sue for damages. Let's see now --- who has the deep pockets?

As has been said, you need a lawyer. Preferably one with a specialty in HOAs. You may be surprised at what you learn.

When I was president of an HOA there was a lot of griping about enforcement, an equal amount about non-enforcement, and threats from both sides to sue the Association. The best couple of hundred dollars we ever spent was to have a lawyer review our covenants and advise the board what we could and couldn't do. As it turned out, lawsuits and changes in State law since the Association's inception in 1989 had rendered virtually all of our covenants unenforceable. The only thing the board still had any measure of control over was the roads and other common areas. Trust me, that news was not well received by either side. Fortunately, I moved away shortly thereafter.

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