098 | Don’t Let ‘Nuisance’ Complaints Turn Into HOA Lawsuits - HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas

Episode Transcript
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Kevin Davis (00:00):
If they're saying that they're a nuisance, but

(00:02):
they're right, you gotta listento them. That's the key. Just
because they are nuisancedoesn't mean they're wrong. So
you got to understand right offthe bat that if they're right,
you got to say, I heard you.
Let's fix this, which is thehardest thing to do, the hardest
thing for humanity, for us ashumans, to do, is that we know
that person who doesn't obeythat rule that, you know, we
talked about business parking.

(00:23):
He's got parks and businessparking all the time, but at one
time, another person parks, he'sthe one. Say, get rid of him,
find him, tow him, you know, andwe want to ignore them. We're
going to have to understand thatnuisance person is doing. Say,
something is right. You gottaenforce it.

Announcer (00:42):
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Robert Nordlund (00:57):
Hi. I'm Robert nordlundo of association
reserves, and

I'm Kevin Davis of Kevin Davis Insurance Services,
and this is HOA Insights, wherewe promote common sense for

common areas.
Well, welcome to episode number98 where we're again speaking
with insurance expert andregular co host, Kevin Davis,
about the nuisance nightmare.
How to manage disruptions inyour association. We've spoken
about the rise in what we callincivility, and because of that,
nuisance, complaints are on therise in community associations

(01:27):
that could be from thepickleball noise and violating
pool hours to pet disputes. Itgoes the entire range. Well,
this episode explores whatconstitute a nuisance and how
associations can enforce rulesfairly and best practices for
resolving conflicts before theyescalate. We want you our
podcast audience to be wellinformed and to be well prepared

(01:51):
well. This is a follow up toepisode number 97 with regular
co host Julie admin on effectivestrategies to deal with
homeowner dissatisfaction,trying to minimize it or
preventing it from gaining afoothold or a toehold in your
association. If you missed thatepisode or any other prior
episode, take a moment aftertoday's program to listen from
our podcast website, Hoainsights.org, or watch on our

(02:15):
YouTube channel, but better yet,subscribe from any of the major
podcast platforms so you don'tmiss any future episodes. Well,
those of you watching on YouTubecan see the HOA insights mog I
have here. I think Kevin's gotone also, and you can get one
for yourself from our merchstore, which you can browse
through from our HOAinsights.org website, or the

(02:38):
link in our show notes, you'llfind we have some great items
there for sale and some greatfree stuff, like board member
zoom backgrounds. So go to themerch store, download a free
zoom background, background,take a moment look around and
find the mug you'd like, andemail me at podcast, at reserve
study.com with your name,shipping address, mug choice and

(03:01):
mentioning episode 98 muggiveaway. And if you're the 10th
person to email me, I'll shipthat mug out to you free of
charge. Well, we enjoy hearingfrom you responding to the
issues you're facing at yourassociation. So if you have a
hot topic, a crazy story, or aquestion you'd like us to
address. You can contact us at805-203-3130, or again. Email us

(03:27):
at podcast at reserve, study.comand one of those questions led
us to today's topic. It'sMelissa from New Jersey who
asked our homeowners are notacting very neighborly. They're
easily angered meeting minutes,being a couple days late, or
parents with small kids angrywith dog owners and vice versa.

(03:48):
Do you have any recommendationsfor helping people live in
community? So Kevin, what do wesay to Melissa? First

of all, Rob, I'm glad to be here, and I enjoy
doing these because for me, wehandle liability insurance, and
we're seeing a rash of thesekind of claims where people
don't know what to do. Thesepeople who live in community
associations are not doingthings they should be doing. You
have boards of directors who aretreating them there were
disrespectfully. Okay, so we'retalking about today is the

(04:18):
nuisance board members arelooking at certain people and
leaving them nuisances, because,guess what, they're not paying
their assessments, not payingour rules, they don't care about
their pets, all the things youjust said. And when you talk
about nuisance, and basically, anuisance is somebody who's
annoyed. You know, I'm annoyed.
I go to my communityassociation, I go into the
driveway and I see the fencehasn't been taken care of, the
trees haven't been trimmed. Youknow, things have been wiped

(04:41):
down. I mean, I'm just annoyed.
Now, the problem, though, isthat we have a group of people
who are annoyed, who haven'tpaid their assessments, who
don't obey the rules, and weignore them, and those of that
group we're talking about today,

you know, I just started thinking now the
people who are annoyed. In atwhat's going on in the
association, or what's not goingon in the association. To our
board member audience, it's hardrunning an association. There's
things to do everywhere youlook, and it makes it harder
when you have these people thatare bugging you. But I'm
thinking that as a board member,you're easily bugged also,

(05:18):
because you're under a lot ofstress, and so you're pushed
into this area where you startto feel more nuisances, and
maybe there are more nuisances.
And then does that get into acycle of vortex where it's bad
for everybody?

Yeah. And the problem, though, is that once
you label somebody a nuisance,you know, in other words, you
have people in there that arecriticized, but they pay their
assessments, they work, theyvolunteer, and so they get heard
a lot more, but we know thatthere's a group in that
association that doesn't payattention to the rules, doesn't
pay their assessments, but theycomplain all day long, and

(05:53):
they're the ones that get pushedaside, and when that lawsuit
comes in, okay, they're with theboard of shocked and surprised,
because now of a sudden there'sa judgment. Because that one
person who says, I'm annoyed andannoyance is legitimate, you've
ignored them. We live in a worldnow where a lot of us are
annoyed just in general. I mean,we don't like what's going I
mean, listen, it's Februaryright now. It's been the

(06:16):
longest. It's been a longFebruary. It's been a long we
have a lot of things to be welive in a world where everybody
is kind of just feeling way uphere. But what happens is, and
so we say a lot, boards havethat fiduciary duty. They have
to act responsibly. So justbecause you are a nuisance
doesn't mean you get a chance tosay, Guess what? When you pay

(06:38):
your dues on time, you payassessments on time and you obey
the rules, then I will listen toyou. You don't have that much.

As much as you may want to say that as soon as
you start cleaning up after yourdog, as soon as you start not
leaving your trash in the trashroom, but actually putting it
down the chute or whatever itis, you want to say, Hey, buddy,
it's a two way street as a boardmember, you can't say that.
You've got to be theresponsible, loving, caring,

(07:07):
communicating, even temperedboard member who's a leader and
boy, that's that's a tough ask,but that's the job that you
have. I think we

need to start with this what is a nuisance, because
once we understand what anuisance is, the board can
understand their fiduciary dutyto take care of it. Because
right now the board is saying,Listen, the guy's a nuisance,
and they walk away. Okay, wetalk about a nuisance is an
unreasonable interference by anindividual, unreasonable

(07:40):
interference by individual whojust happened to live in the
community association. They wantto use the Community
Association. They want to enjoythe community association, but
someone who's unreasonablyinterferes with that enjoyment.
It could be the pickleball courtwe talked about, or the dog
barking, or the dog not cleanedup out there. So it gets to a
point where, when it becomesunreasonable. So once it becomes

(08:01):
unreasonable, that's where thatboard gets the kind of play, you
know? It's the differencebetween being inconvenience
versus annoyed. That's the partfrom a board member's mentality,
you know. And again, I alwaysgot to preference these talks by
saying, I am not a lawyer, yeah,I'm talking out from person who
gets these kind of claims, andsaying, please, if you

(08:21):
understand, you have fiduciaryresponsibility to act in the
best interest Association anduse reasonable care, then
reasonable care means thatsomebody comes to you and say
something unreasonable, you haveto react to

it. So in addition to all the other skills
we've talked about with boardmembers, we need to suggest they
also need to have a little bitof a thick skin,

especially to this group. This is, this is specific
group of people that we'retalking about. You know, we've
done a lot of these talks about,you know, you have to have
communicate the things, thesepeople that we don't want to
talk to, because, again, as soonas you pay your assessments, so
you pay a path that your dogwill talk to you, doesn't work.
I'm

remembering when I was a board member my
unit number eight, my path tothe mailbox. And there'd be
times I wanted to, you know, Iwas home from work, and I time
to go get my mail, and I wouldto leave my front door to go to
the mailbox, and I'd see someoneout there. I was like, No, I'm
going back in because I didn'teven want to cross paths with
them, because I knew it wasgoing to run into a

(09:20):
conversation, and I didn't, Ijust didn't want to do that.
Well, you know,

that brings up a good point there, Robert, in the
sense that, you know, we'vetalked about, like public public
nuisances where I'm looking outand seeing things are not being
done. Now we have individualprivate nuisances where you
don't like the fact that youdon't want by me, because we
have a issue between you andmyself. So all of a sudden you
may not like the wind chimes Ihave on my front door because

(09:45):
they get up too early. Youannoyed by it. Now question is,
is that again, what does theboard does that do with the
board's responsibility? Youknow, if you go to that board
and say, Guess what? It I can'thandle anymore these wind.
Times, you know, driving mecrazy, you know. And you go to
the board, especially the boardlooks at me as the nuisance in

(10:06):
the association, you know.
Because I, you know, I probablyend it would be the nuisance and
association all of a sudden,that guy, again, leave it alone.
Doesn't mean the board has to dosomething or not. Because we
have to investigate. We have todo our job. And that's the thing
is, is that we can't say, Uh oh,he's the nuisance. So we gotta,
you know, Steve Malone and goaway, you know? And sometimes

(10:28):
the answer will be that, but wegot to look into it. We have to
investigate the key word isalways going to be, is that
person being unreasonable? Theunreasonableness, to me, is the
key factor in a lot of thesethings we're talking about.

Well, what you're saying here is that,
okay, they've gone beyondinconvenienced, and they're
getting into unreasonable, butstill, as a board member, you
have a job to do, and you saidthat just a moment ago, and that
job is to run the association,be even tempered, to be a
leader, to be, hopefully, aninspiring, good, communicating
leader. In our family, when ourkids were young, we talk about

(11:07):
they need to make like a duck,and in our family, that meant,
be like a duck and let the waterjust roll off your back. Don't
let those arrows that peopleshoot at you penetrate. I read
another thing somewhere. I wasreading it, and it said you
don't have to show up to everyfight you're invited to, and you
you can see it, you can see itcoming, and maybe you know about

(11:31):
it, but you need to be eventempered and let it not
penetrate and get into yourheart and soul. Because Kevin, I
think what we're going to talkabout here today is when it
starts to disrupt your actionsas a board member, when that
person pushes you out of yourcomfort zone, or you start
treating them differently, isn'tthat it? That's it. Okay,

yep, and that's it, because the easiest thing they
do is to go overboard on thatnuisance. So all of a sudden you
complain about me, or I complainabout you, because you're that
nice guy in an association andyou pay assessments on time.
You're well, like, all of asudden now you go to the board
and say, Kevin's wind chimes,and drive me crazy. I'm going to
pull him down. And that boardsays, You know what, the guy's

(12:11):
been a nuisance his entire life.
Take those things down. I'llback you up on those things.
You've labeled them. Yeah, yeah,yeah. And what happens is, it
makes a difference between youdoing that, versus you say, You
know what? Let's communicateproperly, you know, let's talk
to each other. Let's gettogether and say, maybe you can,
you know, the wind chimes arenoisy. Okay, maybe you get put
them on the other side of thebuilding. You know, maybe you

(12:32):
can change them. Sometimes, theanswer is, just talking to each
other, edit it as a board.
Sometimes, that's it. That's allyou need to do, you know? Just
okay, we we investigated. And,you know, it is noisy, but it's
not unreasonable, you know, andthat's the key word there, is
it, are they being reasonableand not being reasonable? Well,

(12:53):
he might be the nuisanceAssociation, but he does have a
right to be asleep every night,but the wind shines bone. Now
you may investigate and findout, guess what? The wind chimes
only blowing once, once a month,you know? I guess what? Now, the
person is not reasonable, youknow. So it's it's going to a
different level.

So it's a matter of keeping an even keel
and not letting your emotionsget the better of you, and
really looking at it as, howshould I address this and not
label the person as okay?
They're the nuisance so theydon't get the benefit of the
doubt. You still need to giveeveryone the benefit of the
doubt, but

thinking that community association, who gets
the benefit of the doubt, weknow a group is always get the
benefit of the doubt, the onesthat smile, the ones that the
duck, these are the ducks. Theyalways get benefited them
they're parking and visitorsparking, they go, Okay, excuse
me, can you move? Oh, sure, noproblem. Oh

yeah, I'm sorry I had a load of groceries in
this moment, and I'll have itdone. But what happened

with that nuisance Park in visitors parking?

Don't tempt me.
Kevin, yes,

exactly. I love having these conversations that
people never talk about. We'retalking about the nuisance. You
know, people say I love havingthe kind of conversation with
you, because we get a chance totalk about things nobody else
will ever talk about. We'retalking about that guy who is
just a nuisance, thatassociation, it was just a pain.
And anytime you see him, youwant to walk away from him. But
guess what? That one day when hesays that, you know what you're

(14:22):
you're late, and as we call youbeing late, you can't pass this.
You can't pass specialassessment. And you go, Listen,
we're going to do it anyway,because what do you know? You
paid assessment in a year. Sowe're behind. But that one guy
who says that, and then when hedoes, he files that one claim,
and all of a sudden, guess whenthat claim is filed, guess what
happens? The board is foundwrong because it was late, and

(14:44):
because it was late, theyweren't allowed to do it. Now,
if that board would havelistened to that unit owner,
difficulties of nuisance, andsaid, Listen, we need to talk,
because, you know, you are threedays late when passing that
assessment, and you don't havethe authority to do it, and we
have a choice. Let's say. Youknow what? You're right. Let's
talk about it. Maybe we can redoit, do it next month. Whatever
we say, he's a nuisance. He hadthe page assessments in three

(15:06):
months. Forget about him. Kevin,you

got me thinking of a couple more things you've
said so many times you want tolower the temperature. Yes,
lowering the temperature. Ithink the dial to lowering the
temperature is just talkingletting the pressure off. Hey,
having a civil conversation,looking them in the eye, giving
them time to let their pressureget released, and you talk about

(15:30):
it, and maybe at the end you cansay, and oh, by the way, how are
you doing on catching up withyour assessments? Because that's
something that honestly isirritating me. What you were
doing. Obviously what theassociation was doing was
irritating you. But you know,let's talk about this. Get this
out in the open. Oh, gee, I'msorry. You know your check is
coming in late, so as soon asyou get okay. Now I understand.

(15:53):
And can you turn a nuisance intoa not a friend? But can you
neutralize that? That's the

word neutralize.
You want to neutralize it so atthe end of the day, you don't
want to be sued. You don't wantsomebody come in and say, Guess
what? You breach your fiduciarydo. Because I was reasonable.
And you say I was unreasonable,that's the claim, right there. I
was reasonable. You said Iwasn't reasonable. I'm going to
sue you because that result, youhurt my feelings. You know, I
can't show my face anymore in acommunity and I'm suffering.

(16:21):
Yeah,

I went damages.
Okay, well, I like, that's whatyou want to avoid. Yeah, you
want, you want to avoid that.
Well, that's, that's a goodpoint here. So let's take a
quick break from thisconversation. It's time to hear
from one of our generoussponsors, after which we'll
follow up with this and be backwith more common sense for
common areas.

Hi, I'm Kevin Davis, the president of Kevin
Davis Insurance Services. Ourexperienced team of underwriters
will help you when you get thatdeclination. We provide the
voice of reason, someone whowill stand by you. Our
underwriters are bringing yearsof knowledge to our clients that
can't be automated by technologyor driven by price. As a proud
and wins company. We bring truevalue to your community

(17:04):
association clients. We are yourcommunity association insurance
experts.

Kevin, right before the break, we're talking
about the big point of doingwhat you need to do to not get
sued. So yes, we're talkingabout honestly annoying people,
people that are irritating youand people that are nuisances.
But how do you stay back andstay behind the line where
you're going to get sued?

And it's the thing we talked about this a few
minutes ago, in terms oflowering the temperature.
However, a nuisance is anuisance. A person will any
people that will file that claimbecause they look forward to it,
these people who don't obey therules, but a lot of know all the
rules, and that's where theproblem comes into play. When it
comes to you say, Yeah, but youdidn't do X, you know, and you

(17:50):
should do Y, and that's wherethe problem comes into play. So
as a board members, you got tounderstand one thing off the
easiest thing to do, are theyobeying the law? Okay? Are they
obeying the rules? Are theyobeying? If they're obeying, if
they're doing things they shouldbe doing, they're not violating
these things. Okay? Then, rightoff the bat, it puts in a

(18:11):
different bucket, but they'reviolating so in other words,
like we just talked about theincrease the assessments, if
they're three days late, eventhough he's a nuisance, you're
gonna have to agree. Okay? Soany violation of any state, Feds
or the governing documents, theycould be the biggest nuisance in
the world, okay? But it's, it'sthere. It's legitimate. You

(18:33):
cannot, you know, ignore themwhen they come to you and say,
Guess what? You know you'resaying, I'm reasonable, even
though the documents say thatyou have to, you know, notify
them in a tiny manner and tinyamount of me, 60 days you
haven't done it, yeah? So yougotta have your own house in
order. You have to, you gottahave your own house in order.
Yeah, if they're saying thatthey're a nuisance, but they're

(18:56):
right, you gotta listen to them.
That's the key. You just go.
They are nuisance. Doesn't meanthey're wrong. So you got to
understand, right off the batthat if they're right, you got
to say, I heard you. Let's fixthis. Which is the hardest thing
to do, the hardest thing forhumanity, for us as humans, to
do, is that we know that personwho doesn't obey that rule that,
you know we talked aboutbusiness parking, he's got parks

(19:18):
and business parking all thetime, but at one time another,
parks and parks, he's the one.
Say, get rid of him, find him,tow him, you know, and we want
to ignore them. We're going tohave to understand that if that
nuisance person is doing, saysomething is right, you got to
enforce it. Yeah,

that's a that's a hard ask, but we are here to
inspire. We're here to educateand encourage and for our board
members. Yes, look at it,communicate, lower the
temperature. And I think of wasAbraham Lincoln had his cabinet
of advisors that. It gave himregularly for the ideas, yes,

(20:02):
yes, yes, different ideas. Andso it was good for him to
consider different ideas andhone in on the truth. And Kevin,
the truth is a great place tobe, yes, and even if it's an
annoying person or a nuisanceperson, if they're pointing out
that the landscaper wasn't hereyesterday. And you know, he

(20:24):
skipped mowing the lawn in frontof my house. You know, you
think, Oh, gee, of all thepeople to miss mowing the lawn,
of it was unit number 13. Butthe truth is, the truth you need
to get on the phone and call thelandscaper and say, Hey, you
missed at least a couple ofhomes over on this road.

Yeah, we have this conversation, and it feels like
it's a hard conversation tohave, but it's real, because
what happens is, when you don'tdo it, you go down this path of
saying, he's a nuisance, ignorehim, and then when it gets to a
point in time where somethinglegitimate, all of a sudden,
that lawsuit comes in, and Iwould say, you're looking at,

(21:03):
you know, 1000s and 1000s ofdollars because he was actually
damaged. You know, he was actbecause he was called the
nuisance, and he was right now,the other part is, is that that
is easy to see if, if the rulesays what they say, and you have
to enforce it. So if thelandscaper missed that person's
area. You got to do your job.
Now the landscaper may say, youknow, look, I can't come back

(21:25):
now, but you did your job, youdocumented it, you investigated
and you have a defense. The keything what you want

to do is have a defense. And one more thing is
you probably want to call thatperson and say, or email that
person say, hey, we contactedthe landscaper. He is off to
another project. He will be backnext week, and will do your yard
first, yeah, or something like

that, yeah, that's the key. What you want to do is,
when you're dealing with thenuisance, just have a defense.
Just do the investigating,document it, you know,
communicate it, and then youkind of, you did your job.
Because certain things are notlike, let's go back to the wind
chimes. It's not against theassociation laws that wind
chimes out there, you know? Andwe've talked about, when do you
react? Well, you react when yousay, Okay, we investigated and

(22:08):
found out that, guess what?
Those wind chimes, we don't haveany wind they made no noise in
the past three weeks. So guesswhat? I don't see a problem with
that. We document it, so we comeback later and get sued because
the board failed to to handlethat wind chimes. You know, they
didn't do their due diligence.
Okay? We say, Yes, we did. Weinvestigated and we thoroughly

(22:29):
looked at it, and we said, Guesswhat it is? It's not
unreasonable. Yeah, it's a smallproblem. It's not serious. It's
not serious.

Is that what this is all boiling down to keep
your problems small. Don't letthem build up. Don't let

them build up communicate. It goes that wind
chimes can build up over time.
You know, if you don't, let'ssay you don't investigate. Let's
say you just say this, guys area nuisance. They're pain in the
butt. I don't care. And thenwhat happens is, now the wind
chimes become a problem. He goesdown and find out. Guess what?
Wind shots we have in ourassociation. There's a lot of
them. And then obviously theyget everybody together and start
everything gets bigger andbigger and bigger. If you take

(23:09):
again, we said, lower thetemperature, communicate
effectively, and then all of asudden you can eliminate a lot
of these things. Do a littleextra work. Again, all we want
to do, and my job here is to sayyou want to avoid being sued or
something that you have controlover,

so don't let the complaint or the person get
so bothered that they're goingto make a phone call to an
attorney and you got a majorproblem on your hands, so keep,
keep your problem small. Yep,

and he and you can't even you know, they could
pick the phone up and call theirattorney, but all you want to do
is have a defense by saying,Yes, we listened, we heard, we
investigated, and this is ourconclusion, you know. And now,
if you are sued, guess whathappened? Your lawyer say, Guess
what? You did your job. Becauseagain, no judge want to see
these things. No judge want tohear that you were two days
later in your assessments, oryou're five days late on your

this, this or that, or Yeah, elections,

nobody want to hear that kind of stuff. But what
happens is, if you thatnuisance, you're that person who
feels they've been hurt becauseyou ignore them or you call them
a nuisance, yeah, just call thema nuisance alone. Makes me feel
you know that I've beendisrespected, yeah?

Yeah. Another thing I am hearing from you is
this idea of categorizing them.
I think that's a dangerous thingin that you have people all
around the association. Some ofthem are literally going to be
your friends. Some of them arethe vast majority. You see their
faces. You see them. You knowthey have young kids, or
whatever it is, you see them.

(24:40):
You're aware of them, but theynever hit your radar. And then
you have the people that arelike, Oh no, I feel and correct
me here. I feel it's okay forthem to be Oh no, I don't like
you, but it's you don't want togo to the step where, oh no, I
shun you and I. I am not goingto listen to you and I'm going

(25:02):
to ignore you, because thoseseem like those are the people
that the problem is going to getbigger and bigger until it's
going to pop.

Let me add one more piece to it. You go one step
further and you label them assomebody different. Oh, that's
the difference. You know, again,when we call them a nuisance,
we're labeling something outsidethe norm. Once, you a news, once
you label that person nuisance,you're not like everybody else,
you're different, and they'llfeel different, and that's where
your lawsuit comes into play,because now I'm being

(25:28):
mistreated, you know, I've beenbullied. You know, it goes back
to, you know, I'm being bullied,I've been discriminated against.
You know, is

that almost the definition of the problem when
it gets to the point where theymove from, yeah, I don't like
him and her, and that's okay toI've labeled them. Is that
triggered?

I This is why I love talking to you, because at
the end of the day, that's whathappens, is, is that we're now
said we're treating themdifference by labeling them a
nuisance. We put them overthey're not like everybody else,
and that's when that nuisancegets to a point where they feel
they've been treated and that'swhen you all of a sudden, you
feel that, guess what, I'm beingbullied. I'm being discriminated

(26:11):
against, because all I did istell them to have an election in
60 days. They didn't listen tome, or to pass the assessments
in a timely manner. They didn'tlisten to me. And the reason why
they going after me right now isbecause I'm a protected class,
or even bullying me, evenharassing me, and that's where
it goes. And that you're right.
You know, that's the end of theday what we're talking about
here. You know, there's a groupof people in that association

(26:33):
who pays their assessments toobeys the rules that duck the
duck on the water and the ducksback, they stays, and it doesn't
bother anybody. But then there'sthe nuisance that we just don't
like. We ignore them, but oncewe label them a nuisance, they
are no longer part of thecommunity. They are outsiders.
And when you come outsiders,guess what happens now? Of a
sudden, they've been damagedbecause they've been one of the

(26:56):
others now, and today, we don'tlike the others. You know,
there's a group. We put peopleover there, and they don't like
to be other otherwise. If that'sthe word,

otherwise, I like that, yeah, be otherwise,
yeah. And I'm also hearing yousay, when we categorize them,
they can probably feel it, andthat's when they feel it, and
then the association is againstme, and I, I can see it, I can
feel it, and they're notresponding to me. They're not
treating me like a full fledgedmember of the association, and

(27:30):
my rights are damaged. And then,yeah, then you get a cascade of
bad things going on. And it goesback to

the one thing now, all of a sudden, and you were
late on the assessments by twodays, and then all of a sudden,
you ignore them. Now suddenly goto court and a judge says, Well,
you were late for two days andyou know you weren't. You know,
that's where the lawsuit comesin, and that's where you're hurt
and that's where you've beendamaged. That's when you start
talking about the 1000s and1000s of dollars of awards now

(27:58):
that comes in because, justbecause he's a nuisance. Doesn't
mean he's wrong, right,

right? Don't, don't label them. Well, Kevin,
I'm looking at the time here asalways. It's great talking with
you. I so many lights go off inmy brain. You connect the dots
on all these issues. You broughtme back many years to when I was
a board member at myassociation. Any closing
thoughts to add at this time?

You know, I think that. I think we kind of
mentioned it consistency. Yougot to be consistent in what
you're doing. You know, you'regonna have to document. You're
gonna have to investigate, ifyou do that at the end of the
day, you want to provide adefense for yourself when that
person who's a nuisance comesback to you and say, Guess what?
I've been otherwise. So we'vefound a new word. I don't know
it's the real word of that, butwe got to remember that from as

(28:45):
as a board members, you don'twant to otherwise anybody,
because that's where yourdamages come into play. That's
when a lawsuit, that's when myinsurance policy comes into
play. And I don't want myinsurance policy to come into
play at all.

Nope, nope. We want to be good neighbors and
tolerant to everyone in theassociation, it's a challenge,
but to our audience, we're goingto ask you to step up. Well, we
hope you learned some HOAinsights from our discussion
today that helps you bringcommon sense to your common
area. We look forward to havingyou join us for another great
episode next week.

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098 | Don’t Let ‘Nuisance’ Complaints Turn Into HOA Lawsuits

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}098 | Don’t Let ‘Nuisance’ Complaints Turn Into HOA Lawsuits