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...
Can My California HOA Avoid Elections and Just Appoint Board Members?
Overview California law hands HOAs a quiet power that bad HOA boards have learned to weaponize. When a seat opens up, the board can usually fill it by appointment, with no vote of the members at all. That power exists for a sensible reason, which is to keep an HOA...
Can My California HOA Block My Power of Attorney From Voting?
Overview It’s close to axiomatic in California HOA law that only members may vote in HOA elections. Homeowner-side attorneys say it, HOA-side attorneys say it, and the Davis-Stirling Act says it. Yet a powerful exception cuts straight through that rule, and far too...
Can My California HOA Fine Me for a Brown or Dead Lawn?
Overview Summer water bills climb, local watering restrictions tighten, and more California homeowners let a thirsty lawn go brown or replace it with low-water landscaping. Then the violation letter shows up, demanding that the homeowner restore a green lawn or face a...
HOA Loss Assessment Coverage: Can Insurance Pay My Special Assessment?
Overview Your HOA announces a major special assessment. Perhaps there was a fire or another disaster, or perhaps there was some other major loss of the common areas. Regardless, every owner owes a large sum, and owes it soon. For many homeowners, that announcement...
Can I Force My HOA to Turn a Claim Over to Its Insurance?
Overview A homeowner with a claim against the HOA almost always wants the HOA to turn that claim over to its insurance carrier. And when an HOA refuses to do that, such homeowners frequently approach us to determine whether they can force that to happen. We’ve...
Can My HOA Charge Its Legal Fees to My Account?
Overview When a California homeowner opens an HOA account statement and finds that the HOA has charged its legal fees to that account, the threshold question is whether the HOA had any authority to put them there. After all, it should go without saying that an HOA...
Why So Many California Homeowners Hate Their HOA
Overview Based on the volume of comments I’ve received from our Reddit account and listeners to my podcast, HOA HELL, who bluntly write things like “Fuck HOAs,” “You’re stupid to buy into an HOA,” “Who would ever live in an HOA community,” and “HOAs should be banned,”...
Can My California HOA Refuse to Give Me the SB 326 Balcony Inspection Report?
Overview Effective January 1, 2026, the Legislature made it clear that California HOA members were entitled to receive a copy of the inspection reports mandated by SB 326, California’s “Balcony Law.” That entitlement reached a category of documents many bad HOAs would...
Why Do My California HOA Fees Keep Going Up?
Overview HOA fees (i.e., dues) move in two directions, and both can signal trouble. Some HOAs raise dues year after year, and homeowners want to know why and whether the increases are even legal. Other HOAs do the opposite, freezing dues for years to look like heroes,...
Can My California HOA Stop My Kids from Playing in the Common Areas?
Overview Bad HOA boards across California routinely tell parents that their kids can't play on the common area grass, can’t ride their bicycles anywhere in the common area, or tell residents that they can't gather a group for recreation in the community park. Many...
Can My California HOA Ban or Regulate E-Bikes and E-Scooters?
Overview E-bikes and e-scooters have exploded in popularity across California’s HOA communities. And with that explosion, the Legislature has passed a variety of laws, many of which are scattered across California’s Vehicle Code, governing how these devices, and the...
Can My California HOA Ban a Flag I’m Flying on My Property?
Overview A flag is one of the most personal statements a homeowner can make from their own property, and it’s also one of the displays HOAs frequently try to police. Maybe you’re flying a political flag, a pride flag, a sports team flag, a flag honoring a cause, or...
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