Can My California HOA Foreclose on My Home for Unpaid Dues?
Overview California HOAs can foreclose on a home over unpaid assessments, and they can do it without ever setting foot in a courtroom. The Davis-Stirling Act lets an HOA record a lien against a homeowner’s property and then sell that property through a trustee, the...
Can You Win a California HOA Board Seat as a Write-In Candidate?
Overview I’ve received several questions recently from homeowners about write-in candidates in California HOA elections. One homeowner wrote to tell me that his HOA had just announced its election results, and that a woman who wrote her own name in took a board seat...
Can My California HOA Make Me Pay or Fix the Previous Owner’s Violations?
Overview Buying into a California HOA doesn’t make new homeowners responsible for the previous owner’s unpaid fines, but it can leave them responsible for the previous owner’s unfinished work. The Davis-Stirling Act splits the question by the kind of problem. Money...
Can My California HOA Stop Homeowners From Meeting Together in the Common Area?
Overview California homeowners can gather with their neighbors in the clubhouse, the recreation hall, or anywhere else in the common area to talk about what their HOAs are doing, and their HOA boards can’t stop them or charge them for the privilege. Civil Code 4515...
Can My California HOA Share My License Plate Data With the Police?
Overview Many California homeowners who discover an automated license plate reader (“ALPR”) at their community entrance assume that the cameras exist to catch package thieves and car burglars. What many homeowners don’t know is that the Flock cameras their HOAs...
What Can My California HOA Legally Spend Reserve Funds On?
Overview Reserve funds sit in a separate account for a reason. Homeowners pay into that account every month through their regular assessments (or through special assessments aimed at funding reserves), and the money accumulates over years to cover the expensive work...
Can My California HOA Start Enforcing a Rule It Ignored for Years?
Overview So many homeowners across California open violation notices for conduct their HOAs ignored for a decade. The paint color, the fence height, the boat in the driveway, the tree in the side yard. Half the neighborhood does the same thing, nobody received a...
Can My California HOA Spray Pesticides Near My Home?
Overview A cluster of rare childhood cancers in Ladera Ranch, a large master-planned community in South Orange County, has forced a question thousands of California HOA homeowners never thought to ask. Residents there suspect that years of pesticide and herbicide...
Can My California HOA Replace a Board Member Who Sold Their House?
Overview The Davis-Stirling Act requires board members to be members of their HOAs, and membership depends entirely on recorded ownership. Once escrow closes on the sale of a director’s property, that director is no longer a member of the HOA, and thus is no longer...
Who Do I Report My California HOA To When It Breaks the Law?
Overview Homeowners who discover that their HOAs broke the law frequently look for the state agency that they can complain to. Some look for a state office that licenses HOAs or a hotline that takes complaints, and others might look for the state regulator that audits...
Can I Serve on the Board of a California 55+ HOA If I’m Under 55?
Overview A trending issue in California HOA law involves senior citizens leaving their adult children or grandchildren title to properties inside senior citizen communities (e.g., a 55+ community). California’s senior citizen housing statutes let 55+ communities...
Can My California HOA Fine Me for Criticizing It on Social Media?
Overview Homeowners frustrated with their HOAs increasingly take their complaints online. Unfortunately, a steady stream of really ignorant and really bad advice has told many to shut up or pay the price. The latest example comes from an article that sought the...
Can My California HOA Suspend My Pool, Gym, and Other Privileges?
Overview Most homeowners picture HOA discipline in terms of monetary fines, which is understandable. Most discipline does take that form. But HOAs in California hold a second, less familiar, and far narrower, power to suspend members’ privileges as a penalty. Many...
Will California HOA Fee Increases Be Capped at 8%? Inside SB 1007
Overview As I’ve written and podcasted about on several occasions, under the Davis-Stirling Act, California HOAs can raise regular assessments up to 20% every year without requiring consent from the homeowners. A new law currently wending its way through the...
Why Is My California HOA Charging So Much for Documents When I Sell?
Overview California HOA members who are selling their homes almost always face a charge for the HOA-related disclosure documents the sale requires, and that charge often arrives as a single lump sum of several hundred to well over a thousand dollars. The seller has to...
Can My California HOA Make My Kid (or Me) Wear a Helmet?
Overview Parents and homeowners regularly ask whether their HOAs can force them, or their children, to wear a helmet while riding a bike, scooter, or skateboard within the common areas of their HOAs. The question usually surfaces when HOAs adopt helmet rules covering...
Can My California HOA Track My License Plate With Flock Cameras?
Overview Over the last several years, Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader (“ALPR” or “Flock camera”) cameras have spread from public streets into California HOA communities, and during this time period more and more HOAs across California have installed them...
Can My California HOA Force Me to Keep Landscaping That Violates Fire Code?
Overview If your home is in a California fire-risk area, you’ve probably been told to clear flammable material away from the house. The newest fire-safety rules go further than the old ones. They zero in on the first five feet right around your home, the strip fire...
Can My California HOA Ban Artificial Turf or Fake Grass?
Overview Plenty of California homeowners want to swap natural grass for artificial turf to help the environment, cut their water bills, end their mowing chores, and keep a green yard through every drought. Then their HOA denies the request because an HOA board member...
Can a California HOA Ban the American Flag? A San Diego Fight Goes National
Overview A San Diego County HOA has been threatening homeowners with fines for flying the American flag in front of their own homes, and those homeowners have refused to back down. Their fight has now drawn national coverage, days before the country marks its 250th...
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