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Selective enforcement

My HOA has recently decided that company marked vehicles are not allowed in the community. Not in the driveways, not overnight. The CC&R verbiage is vague at best but implies 18 wheelers and commercial vehicles.
My question is, do I have any rights against this sporadic enforcement? I am an original owner and in 14 years, since the establishment of this neighborhood, this is the first year they have decided to “interpret” this CC&R to lump company vehicles with commercial vehicles.
Thank you for any input

3 Responses

  1. Dennis Legere

    Brittany;

    To answer your question appropriately it is most important to see the actual language of your CC&R’s and association rules. And to understand how you believe that selective enforcement is taking place.

    The association has a duty to enforce the CC&R’s fairly and uniformly across the community. The association is also free to change the way the enforce any provision of the CC&R’s as long as it is a conscious documented decision of the board, that is communicated to all members prior to enforcement of that changed interpretation and finally that they now enforce that new interpretation uniformly across the community.

    Because as association has not applied the commercial vehicle restriction in the past the same way that it is now does not make it selective. But if they decide to change the way they have applied this restriction in the past they must communicate that change to all homeowners directly before they can enforce that position. What happens mostly in these communities is the board is not involved in the change at all , either a new management company or a new community manager comes along and decides for themselves how to interpret the CC&R’s. This is totally inappropriate. Only the board has the authority to interpret or enforce the CC&R’s.

    My advice to you is contact the board directly or attend the next board meeting and ask the question directly. Has the board decided to change the way they address company marked vehicles parked in private driveways? And if so when and in what open meeting was that decided and recorded and how was it communicated to the community?

    Arizona does have laws (ARS: 33-1809) that prevent the HOA from restricting public service vehicles where the homeowner is required to respond to emergency calls outside of normal business hours. Do if your vehicle meets these qualification you are free to park your company vehicle no matter what the CC&R’s say.

    Hopefully this helps
    Dennis

  2. joyced

    We basically have the same thing where we live. Myself and another homeowner went to a meeting in September and brought up the fact that our CCR‘s state that there is no commercial vehicles to be parked here, after much discussion they said they would table it and vote on it at the next meeting, well for the month of October the meeting was canceled meanwhile the homeowners board and management company are trying to figure out what a commercial vehicle is. So until they decide what a commercial vehicle is we are getting more
    Commercial vehicles here. No one is made aware of any homeowners meetings, the only way we knew that October’s meeting was canceled was because the two of us showed up at Septembers meeting and received an email. We need a whole new board but what can you do with only two people that bother to show up at the meetings? Neither the board nor the management company enforce any rules.

    1. dennisl

      Joyced;

      I understand your frustration, but if it is of any solace you are not alone and your community is no different than most. Clearly the first issue to address is to continue to attend meeting and continue to ask friends and neighbors to also attend and provide your comments to the board on how they should go about using discretion in defining “commercial vehicles” based on what exactly they want to achieve for the community. There is a big difference between a normal car with a commercial decal on it and a 20 ton truck. State laws also protect public service vehicles that need to respond to emergencies. Somewhere in there is a line that will make sense for your community. Help your board find that line and everyone will be better off for it.

      Dennis

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