David M. Peters Homeowners Association Law Blog on Lawyers.com

Three of the most critical functions with which we, as homeowners association (HOA) attorneys, help your association are the difficult and legally critical tasks of interpreting, amending, and revising the HOA documents that govern your homeowners association in California.  Peters & Freedman, L.L.P. lawyer David Peters discusses these tasks below.

Interpreting documents

Our HOA lawyers are often called on by homeowners associations to analyze and interpret various legal documents.  This type of analysis may be necessary when something unexpected happens, such as a sinkhole forming on the property or when property boundaries are being disputed.  Your HOA attorney should be able to review your rights and obligations based on the HOA’s governing documents and should offer legal and practical advice on resolving any problems.  We here at Peters & Freedman, L.L.P., provide such guidance.

Our HOA attorneys are also frequently called upon to review service company agreements.  Contracts can be heavily loaded with terms that put your community at a disadvantage if the service provider/vendor fails to deliver the promised services or fails to deliver them at the promised standard.  Our attorneys analyze and interpret questionable contract line items and propose amendments to protect your community's legal rights.

Amending HOA documents

There may never be a perfect set of HOA governing documents.  For this reason, it is a common procedure to modify an existing clause or add a new provision to your existing HOA governing documents, particularly to the covenants, conditions and restrictions (CC&Rs).  Reasons for changing your governing documents are numerous.  Some example situations that can often be resolved with amendments to your HOA document include—

• A major cultural shift among your members may introduce previously unforeseen regulation needs.  For example, many complaints arose in one community after the large grass area had become an impromptu soccer field for its residents, creating noise issues for neighboring units and damage to the lawn.  The original CC&Rs had not considered the need for regulations regarding soccer usage of the lawn.
• Because of the faltering economy, some communities are experiencing problems with their finances as foreclosed units are abandoned, resulting in high vacancy rates and low HOA fee income.  These economic shifts may require a community to adjust documents to handle abandoned units and to adjust monthly homeowners’ fees to meet current funding shortfalls.
• A larger community had a line item in their CC&Rs requiring pet owners to clean up after their dogs, but too many of the residences were ignoring the rule, resulting in potential health hazards to the community.  Amending the Declaration to remove this item and implementing a specific rule to include a specific per-violation fine successfully reduced the number of violators.

Revising HOA governing documents

Sometimes the original HOA documents were poorly formed or have become substantially outdated due to changes in the community population, cultural or economic shifts, or substantial changes in municipal, state, or federal regulations.  When your association's core documents are substantially unfit to serve their purposes, HOA law firms such as Peters & Freedman, L.L.P. are often called on by the board to completely revise or even replace the current HOA governing documents.  This is often the best way to address numerous problems and give your community a fresh start.

Southern California HOA law firm

If your homeowners association needs legal guidance with documents and other legal matters related to formation, management, or enforcement, we encourage you to speak with one of our skilled HOA lawyers at Peters & Freedman, L.L.P., such as attorney David Peters.