Departments

In a community where many members have teenage children, managers sometimes have problems with children spray painting and otherwise vandalizing buildings at night in the community. How can you stop the graffiti and vandalism? You might think that imposing a curfew and prohibiting children under a certain age—say, 16 years old—from being outside after a certain time—say, 10 p.m.—unless accompanied by an adult is a simple solution.

A recent meeting of the Rocky Mountain chapter of the Community Associations Institute (CAI) centered on issues arising from the passage of a 2012 Colorado referendum legalizing the smoking of marijuana and possession of as many as six marijuana plants. CAI addressed managers’ and associations’ fears about pot smoking in communities, including fielding complaints about the smell of marijuana.

Q: Your community just finished an extensive landscaping project to reseed lawns and replace plantings. To protect its investment, the community may adopt a rule prohibiting children from playing outside without violating fair housing law. True or false?

Ideally, community association members would occupy their own units, rather than lease them to tenants. That’s because associations often feel that renters won’t take good care of the units they’re renting and that they won’t follow community rules. This may seem like a generalization, but you can’t be too careful when it comes to protecting your community from problems. So is it allowable to limit the number of units at your community that can be leased at any one time? If so, how can you do this fairly?

Q: The community association I manage uses a separate maintenance company to plow, remove ice from, and salt the parking areas and common areas in the community during the winter. So far, we’ve had no complaints from members about slippery conditions. I try to inspect the work done by all of the contractors we use to maintain various parts of the community, but I can’t always do this every time work has been done.

Facts: A condo association on the island of St. Thomas was initially sponsored by a resort corporation. The declaration required the corporation to provide fresh water and wastewater treatment services to the association at a reasonable rate to be determined by several factors. The declaration also made all of the water facilities common property of the association.

Spring is here, but it’s not too early to plan ahead for beating the heat if the community you manage experiences hot weather during the summer months. Keeping units and common areas cool during scorching summer months is especially important in certain types of communities—for example, communities whose residents are over a certain age and whose health conditions can be aggravated by excessive heat.

A Fairfax, Va., homeowners association spent big bucks on a small problem—and bankrupted itself in the process. The 44-unit townhouse community shelled out almost $400,000 in legal fees to fight a four-year battle with two unit owners who in 2008 placed in their yard an election sign that was four inches taller than the association’s covenants allowed.

Facts: An association that owns and maintains the public areas within a gated community and provides services to the residents of that community sued a homeowner for dues and assessments. Following a nonjury trial, a court ruled in favor of the association. It ordered the owner to pay over $3,000 to the association. The owner appealed.

Decision: A New York appeals courtupheld the lower court’s decision.

Facts: Water leaks in the common area of a condominium building damaged an owner’s unit. The owner sued the association and the building’s developer. After a jury trial, the jury found that both the developer and the association were negligent and that their actions were the direct cause of the damage. The jury attributed 80 percent of “fault” to the developer and 20 percent to the association—that is, the developer would be responsible for paying 80 percent of the damages and the association would be responsible for paying 20 percent.