Comments or Questions

Christine;

The statute was enacted in 2016 to limit an HOA from preventing the placement of these safety aids. If you look at it simply as a safety reminder for the adult driver to use caution because a child is at play in the area. The driver has control of his/her vehicle a child may not have as much control over a bike or other toy and may swerve into the travel lane. While driving within any community caution is always the best perspective with or without safety cones. These are not major arteries or highways these are neighborhoods. The law places specific limits on the placement and removal of these safety reminders, to limit any unnecessary obstruction of the road.
My little 5 year old granddaughter always reminds me that sharing is caring. Sharing the roads within neighborhoods is caring about your neighborhood.

Dennis

Sorry Rosetta i do not know that information. That was an interesting case that proved that only homeowners can hold their board and management company accountable to transparency and fiscal responsibility. While this was an old case there are cases every year where board members or community manager embezzle money from the associations. When no-one is watching these things will and do happen.

Dennis

I was living at this address since 2004 and after 2-3 month hoa manger sent a letter to paint my house outside within 14 days I try to call let them know I just moved in and I cannot afford it to painted right away but yet they added the fine try to call without any luck then I decided to attend the meeting let them know my problem it was a surprise for them and the manager told me he will remedy my fine and remove but yet I still receive the fine them one after another even after I did paint my house it was another one for landscaping and always pay in time but yet there is two late fees the first as waiting to hear from them and I decided to pay the first one but never remove it and the manager change another one promised to take care of my charges but not all I did apply to remedy my problem after promised to remedy my charges was $135 changed to $350 and they said the board refuse to remove the charges and I asked before the final decision with adding charges no idea where it comes from and asked to receive a copy of the board decision they ignored my message but yet after I paid one fine for being late never show it plus one time I asked Nicely if I disagreed to pay the charges they told me we will have to kick you out and I keep receiving charges even after i did fix the problem same day I’m sure they are doing on purpose try to let me move because of my ethnicity so I’m asking your help to remove all charges please and I appreciate your assistance with this problem thank you

Ray,
If you we could put a he in place of a she, then we have the same frustration.
The scary art is that the HOA secretary has 100% control over a $250000 researve
I picked up the Arizona homeowners statutes and quote from the statute. It seems to scare the board.
Joe

Agree with CJ, you have to use your voice! No one else will help you if you don’t ask. Your community is your home, don’t let other dictate rules to you.

Nick;
Unfortunately the law provides for a minimum requirement, that any record can be viewed upon request, and the association cannot deny you access to those records. While access to community documents is the single largest complaint in any petition to the ADRE, it is a very simple task. You can request a copy of the records and the association cannot charge you more than $0.15/page.

Specifically to your question the statute does not require the association or it’s manager to do anything more than provide you access. It however does not prevent them from doing do if they desire.

What i have found is that if the association keeps the record electronically that they may simply find it easier to also provide you an electronic copy of that records, simply by asking. While they do not have to provide you that record electronically it is much easier than printing them out and then making a conference room available for you to view them and having someone sit with you while you do that. The better the relationship and the more reasonable the request the better the response will be by the association.

I actually had a manager testify at an administrative law judge hearing that she would have gladly simply sent the requested records electronically if she had been asked but instead got busy and did not have the records available within the 10 business days required by law. The judge did not buy the response because the manager could simply have provided the records electronically if she wanted too rather than failing to comply with the law.

Another trick I’ve used and have recommended to other is if the association wont just send you an electronic copy of the record, set up an appointment to view the record and take pictures of them on your phone for detailed review later.
I cannot tell you how many times homeowners have asked for records and had no idea how to review them when they got them. Do not expect the association or the management company to explain to you what the records say, especially financial records. Go to a record viewing with a plan and specific issues that you are looking for.

Effective review of records can be a science, that is best approached systematically. Do not ask for more than you can reasonable review in 45 minutes to an hour. Start at a high level and gradually work down to greater detail if the high level review indicates something unusual, with more specific and detailed types of records. If you start with detailed records you will be lost after the first five minutes and never be able to see the trees from the forest. That why I always suggest they you start high and look for smoke then zoom in closer to find the fire.

Hopefully this helped you and any other homeowner viewing this post.

Dennis

Dennis,

Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Perhaps if fines were higher, HOA’s it would lead to less rogue HOAs.

I have a question about A.R.S 33-1812, specifically A7 “Ballots, envelopes, and related materials, including sign-in sheets if used, shall be retained in electronic or paper format and made available for member inspection for at least one year after completion of the election.”

Instead of physically going to inspect the ballots, does this statute permit the HOA Secretary or Management company to send a homeowner a .PDF copy by email of the completed ballots at no charge or to copy the completed ballots for the homeowner at no more than $0.15 per page? Trying to memorize how 100 people voted in a previous election sitting in a chair at an office is a daunting task.

Basically everywhere in statute where the word “notwithstanding” means that that provision takes precedent over and supersede the referenced document. For example “notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in the community documents” means that the section of law following that statement takes precedent over and supersedes any contrary provision in the community document.
The opposite position would be “unless otherwise specified in the community document” with this language the community documents take precedent over the state statute provision.

I will add that under property servitude’s law any provision in the community documents that is contrary to state law must be removed from the governing documents, because a covenant that is illegal cannot remain as a restriction on the free use of the land. Each and every board is empowered to unilaterally change the governing documents even the CC&R’s without member involvement to comply with the law , yet I’ve never seen one do that.

Relative to the ADRE and ALJ dispute resolution process, if the petitioner prevails and wins his case the respondent must pay the petitioner the $500/issue that he paid to file the petition. I will note that it is $500 per issue with up to 4 issues per petition. So if the petitioner has 4 issues it will cost him $2,000 to file and then each issue is decided separately. If he prevails on all 4 issue he will be paid back the full $2,000.

Fines are rarely applied and for the most part have averaged about $500 per issue. Up until about a year ago my case against my association resulted in the largest fine ever placed on an association by an administrative law judge and that was $2,000. I will note that i had asked the judge to fine the association $500 for every time that they violated the law in the last year and that would have resulted in about $23,000 in fines. Last year one case was heard that resulted in a fine to the association of $5,000 and that still stands as the largest fine awarded for a HOA related case.

Hopefully this answers your questions. If not feel free to ask more.

Thanks
Dennis

Shelley
If I understand what you were saying that an individual ran for a board position was put on the ballot and after the individual was elected by the members the board determined that he was never qualified to be on the board because of his ownership status. Does he own the home in your community or is he the owner of record? I don’t understand what you mean by beneficiary deed. Did the original owner die and leave the home to this individual or this individual and other? If that is the case it would seam to me that he was the new owner

Quite frankly it is the responsibility of the board to determine the qualifications of any board candidate prior to the election. Once elected by law the only way to remove an elected board member is via petition from the members to do so. The bottom line is if they are elected by the members they can only be removed by the members. While most communities have qualification requirement for board members that test should be determined prior to placing that individuals name on the ballot. the only exception to this general expectation is if the candidate was a write in candidate that was not previously screened by the board. As I always state I’m not an attorney but if I was in the individual homeowners position I would challenge the action of the board by petition to ADRE as a violation of ARS 33-1813.

Dennis

This is exactly what happened in our last elections. The board came back post vote and deemed a member of my household ineligible to be elected because he’s on a beneficiary deed and they decided that wasn’t sufficient. Never mind that he’s been allowed to vote in prior meetings. It was a retroactive eligibility decision just keep someone off the board. Would anyone else consider this electoral malfeasance on the boards part?