March 31, 2025 • 38 mins
Struggling with HOA rules? Learn how one board member handled parking chaos, dumpster drama, and real accountability.
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HOA rules are meant to protect the community, but what happens when no one follows them? In this HOA Board Heroes episode, board member Calvin shares how his HOA tackled parking abuse, dumpster dumping, and the tricky line between enforcement and empathy. Learn how strong leadership, documentation, and consistency can restore trust and order (even when state laws fall short).
Chapters from This Episode:
0:00 What Makes an HOA Board Hero?
01:58 Who Is Calvin, and How Did He Step Up for His Community?
06:30 How Should Boards Handle Parking Abuse, Trash Issues, and Rule-Breakers?
11:05 What Does Fair and Consistent Enforcement Really Look Like?
16:45 Why Is Documentation So Critical in HOA Decision-Making?
19:50 What Happens When Real Estate Agents Don’t Disclose HOA Rules?
23:40 Are State Laws Failing to Support HOAs Effectively?
27:15 How Can Boards Build Accountability Without Losing Their Cool?
32:30 What Are the Key Takeaways for HOA Board Success?
The views & opinions expressed in this program are those of the Hosts & Guests, intended to provide general education about the community association industry. The content is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or organization. Please seek advice from licensed professionals.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Calvin Ball (00:00):
Be patient and careful in how you communicate
(00:04):
things. If we don't know whatthe answer to a question is, we
we tell them, you know, we'revery upfront and say, hey, look,
we're not sure. We haven't runinto that issue before. Let's
let's look. Let's wait until thenext meeting. Give us some time
to either reach out to thelawyer if it's a legal question,
or let's go through the rules,and you know, rules and
(00:25):
regulations or bylaws for that,
Announcer (00:29):
a regular highlight of the HOA insights podcast is
our board heroes feature, wherewe dedicate one episode each
month to celebrate theremarkable efforts of HOA board
members. To us a board hero isone of the 2 million elected
volunteers who deserverecognition for excelling in a
role that often goes unnoticed.
Today, we're excited tospotlight one of these
exceptional board heroes andshare their inspiring story. If
you match our definition of aboard hero, or know someone who
(00:52):
does, please reach out to us.
Our contact details and those ofour sponsors are provided in the
show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:59):
Welcome back to Hoa insights, common sense for
common areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here to share
the story of another returningboard hero named Calvin Ball.
This is episode number 99 and ifyou missed meeting our other
board heroes, including Calvin'sprevious appearance in Episode
48 you can find them easily onour website, Hoa insights.org on
(01:22):
our YouTube channel, or bysubscribing to Hoa insights on
your favorite podcast platform.
Now let's reacquaint ourselveswith Calvin and hear a bit about
the story he'd like to share.
Hi,
Calvin Ball (01:34):
I'm Calvin. I've been a proud volunteer board
member for my HOA for about sixyears total. I've been the board
treasurer for about three years,and the Secretary for one year.
When I'm not immersed in boardresponsibilities, I'm adding to
my accounting credentialscurrently studying for the CPA.
(01:55):
You know, in addition tostudying for the CPA, I just
kind of hang out with my with mywonderful cat, Gigi. So some of
my experience on the board inthree words, it would probably
be transparency, planning andfocus my time in the community.
It's been, it's been quite awhile. Now been at six years,
(02:18):
and we've been trying to tryingto increase our ability to
communicate with the entirecommunity, so that they're aware
of what goes on, what theboard's responsibilities are,
what their responsibilities areas the unit owner, and how we
can both work together to buildmore of a relationship with the
community and, you know, keepProperty Values high and make
(02:41):
sure everything's wellmaintained. Well. Calvin
Robert Nordlund (02:43):
community is 168 unit condominium association
located in Maryland that's about30 years old and has an annual
budget of around $700,000 thelast time we spoke to Calvin, he
and the rest of the board wereintent on making sure that their
community lasted another 30years and emphasized the
(03:05):
importance of transparency andcommunications to their
homeowners. It's been about ayear since that conversation, so
we decided to follow up and askCalvin if he and the board had
made any changes to the waysthat they communicate to their
community. One of
Calvin Ball (03:19):
the things that we've actually implemented
within the past year is as we'repreparing our agenda for the
next meeting, we actually puttogether a list of kind of
reminders for the community ofthings that are in the rules and
regulations and or the bylaws,just to keep people informed of
what They've already signed upfor in purchasing their unit,
(03:42):
they need to follow these rulesand regulations and the bylaws
and and before each meeting, weactually put specific items that
we've noticed over the pastmonth since the last meeting
that residents haven't beenfollowing or unit owners haven't
been following, so that They canjust be reminded that, hey, this
is actually the proper way ofhandling this situation, or you
(04:06):
shouldn't be doing this. You youshould be doing it a different
way. Or, you know, the reverseside of that, you should be
doing this and you shouldn'tjust be sitting idle.
Robert Nordlund (04:15):
Maintaining a simple list of reminders to the
community is a great way to keephomeowners informed and involved
with the community, especiallyif like Calvin's board, keeping
track of that list and updatingit as needed at every board
meeting. However, remindersexist because there are habits
that either need to bereinforced in the community or
(04:36):
eliminated entirely. We decidedto ask Calvin if there was a
specific incident that promptedthis solution?
Calvin Ball (04:43):
Yeah, I mean, most of it has been general. The
biggest things that we've hadissues with are parking. A lot
of residents our buildings arereally unique. When people think
of condos, we actually haveseveral buildings. But. Our
buildings are very much smallerthan most condominiums. A lot of
(05:04):
a lot of people, when they thinkof a condominium, they think of
a high rise and there's aparking garage, and so there's
only one in and out. We're kindof more in a suburban
environment, so there's a lotmore road. There's a lot you can
pull up to each one of thesebuildings, and kind of just kind
of park there, but it stoke canblock, you know, half the road
(05:24):
we only have, you know, twolanes, one for each direction.
So a lot of people tend to pullup to the front of the building
and just kind of park there at,you know, regardless of, and
without any regard of how longthey're going to be there. So
we've, we've had people parkthere for an hour, two hours,
overnight, you know, and justleave the car just on, park
(05:44):
there with South keys in it,just off, no flashers. And we
have no idea whose vehicle itis. We don't know if it's a unit
owner or a visitor. And so thatthat's kind of been a concern
for us. And unfortunately, wehave plenty of parking. So it's
not like parking spaces are, youknow, at a premium. We have
(06:05):
several parking spots that areopen for people to use, but they
simply don't use them out ofpure laziness, or they just,
they're not aware that they canjust, they can park there, even
though it's clear that there'sparking spaces. And then the
second issue we've kind of runinto, that was a big issue is
our dumpsters. We have twodumpsters for the entire
community, and a lot of peoplejust kind of throw anything in
(06:29):
the dumpster. And kind of, likea lot of your commercial
dumpsters, there's usually afence around it and some walking
space. A lot of people feel thatthey can just leave things
outside of the dumpster, andthey can be rather large items,
like, you know, furniture, ifthey're remodeling, or a kitchen
I've seen, we've seen kitchencabinetry, mattresses, all sorts
(06:53):
of things that people just kindof leave outside of the
dumpster. And we actually haveto pay our trash removal service
to come back a second time for,and it's a separate charge every
time to remove these items. Andso we've committed we that was
part of an engine item. We toldpeople is, hey, this is an extra
expense that you're paying foryour dues and your future dues.
(07:15):
If you continue to put thingsoutside of the dumpster, it's,
you know, more trash expense forus. So it's it's been an
interesting journey tocommunicate that. And I guess
the third point I'd like to addis our community is a private
community, so we're within asmall city limits, and so a lot
of people think that we areentitled to city services, when,
(07:41):
in fact, when the community wascreated in the late 80s, early
90s, they actually took the cityto court to try to force them to
provide services to ourcommunity. But the city actually
won the case, because wedeclared ourselves a private
community, and when you declareyourself as a private community,
your private services are nolonger provided to you, so you
(08:04):
have to provide them as as acommunity. And so that's why,
through our assessments, we haveto pay for things like trash,
snow removal and othermaintenance items.
Robert Nordlund (08:17):
Hearing Calvin describe the inconsiderate
behavior of some of thehomeowners in his community was
disheartening, but it didvalidate something that Julie
Adam and and I have discussednumerous times on this program,
that some people are just plainnot well suited for Community
Association living well giventhat Calvin's community was
originally established as aprivate community, there
(08:39):
appeared to be a disconnectbetween what the homeowners felt
entitled to and what they werewilling to give back in turn. So
we next asked Calvin if he knewwhat the original motivation for
establishing themselves as aprivate community was.
Calvin Ball (08:54):
It's difficult to say if I if I had to make a good
guess, it's the community has ahistory of wanting to be very
private, not wanting to be inthe spotlight. And so they've
kind of, they kind of, I guess,they took it upon themselves
when it was created, or at leastthe people that put it together
(09:16):
decided we want to be a privatecommunity and not want to deal
with public services and nothave to rely on public services,
you know, to keep the communitymaintained. And they believed
that in the future, I guess, youknow, future unit owners would
want the same thing.
Unfortunately, as time has kindof evolved since the late 80s,
early 90s, a lot of people tendto not want to do things
(09:40):
themselves, so they they kind oflike to outsource. And
unfortunately, people have kindof felt like they they've been
in just by paying fees. Theythink that they're entitled to
quality service while notreceiving and they get
frustrated if they don't receivethat quality service. And.
Right? So it's just through thattransparency, as I talked about,
(10:01):
the three main points, beingtransparent, letting people know
that unfortunately, ourcommunity is not in the same
boat as other communities wherethey might be getting public
services. Unfortunately, we haveto pay for those services, and
sometimes the fees have not keptup with the price of those
services, and so if you expectservices to be high quality,
(10:23):
then the assessments will haveto match that. Transparency
Robert Nordlund (10:29):
was not only a common thread in our
conversation with Calvin, butlack of transparency is also a
common thread among complaintswe hear about community
associations in general. Wediscussed this with Carol
Lawrence in our last board heroepisode, homeowners new to
community associations oftenfeel like there isn't enough
communication from the board.
Many of our board heroes feellike it's the homeowners who
(10:50):
need to get involved and engagewith the association if they
want to stay in the loop. Weasked Calvin how he felt about
this dynamic, and if he feltthere was a way to maintain the
balance between these twoperspectives, kind
Calvin Ball (11:05):
of a balance. It's a two way street, because when,
when you go to purchase yourunit, you kind of have to do the
research as a home buyer to say,Hey, okay, this, this, this unit
isn't an HOA. What does thatentail? You know, when you
purchase a unit, you should beyou should have the, you know,
bylaws and rules and regulationsavailable to you so that you can
(11:28):
read through them and understandwhat you're kind of buying into.
One issue we've run into is thata lot of realtors actually are
not being very transparent withhome buyers, at least in at
least in our neighborhood, a lotof our unit owners, when they
buy a unit, you know, they comein and some of them don't even
know how much their fees are,who to pay um, and they're
(11:53):
oftentimes very confused, whichis kind of odd, because you
think the real estate agentwould tell them, and It's
actually illegal for the realestate agent to not, you know,
disclose that information, atleast in the state of Maryland,
they have to disclose certaininformation. So it's kind of
alarming, and we don't reallyhave much recourse for that
(12:13):
which, which is kind of wherethe board has to come in and
fill in the gaps where the realestate agent didn't. And that's
kind of where we have to informthis new unit in order. Hey,
this is how much your fee is.
This is who you have to pay. Andthese are the services that
you're getting. Do you have acopy of, you know, the bylaws,
rules and regulations, you know?
(12:34):
And if you have anydisagreements, you can come to
the meetings and discuss themwith us, or you can decide to
just, you know, sell the unitimmediately after buying it. If
you don't agree to the terms, ifyou're a unit owner and you
disagree with the terms, youstill have to pay the
assessments. It's not anoptional thing. That's kind of
(12:57):
some interesting I guess. Idon't know, for lack of a better
term, a threat that we've gottenfrom some people is, look, I'm
not getting the services I want,so I'm just going to withhold my
payments. And we tell people,well, if you withhold your
payments, we might slap interestin late fees on you. We can
legally do so. So it's, it'sreally interesting to try to
(13:19):
have that conversation, to letpeople know what they're really
getting into. Calvin's
Robert Nordlund (13:23):
recommendation of doing your due diligence as a
home buyer ties into anothergreat tidbit from our last board
hero episode, and in thatepisode number 95 Carol
mentioned that any prospectivehome buyer looking to purchase a
home in an associationgovernment community should do
their due diligence by readingtheir publicly available board
(13:44):
meeting minutes. Now, if thoseare unavailable, it says a lot
about the lack of transparencyfrom that community
Association's board. We nextasked Calvin if there was
anything else that the board canbe doing to improve their
transparency towards prospectivehomeowners. Yeah. I
Calvin Ball (14:01):
mean, I think that's kind of another avenue
for accountability in in condolaw and HOA law that could
happen at the state level,because obviously, there's not
many federal regulations onhomeowners associations. Most of
them are state. It's going tovary greatly by state. What's
required to be provided byboards and what's what's
required to be communicated byreal estate agents. I think that
(14:25):
the number one thing isaccountability. I think,
unfortunately, Hoa and condo lawcan be very comprehensive, but
if there's no enforcement behindit, then it's kind of, it kind
of just sits there and doesn'treally get a lot accomplished. I
know in the state of Maryland,we have a quite a comprehensive
HOA and condo law, which, totheir credit, is great from a
(14:49):
legislative standpoint. Butunfortunately, enforcement
mechanisms of it are very weak,and so the only, the only avenue
that is available is if someonereports you to the State of. Um,
and a lot of people don't, don'tthink that it's their obligation
to report you, even if theydisagree with you. So we've had
a lot of unit owners say, like,hey, we think you're doing
(15:11):
something that's against thelaw, or what, or whatnot.
Sometimes they don't evenunderstand what the law is,
which is really interesting whenthey tell you that you might be
breaking it. And sometimes youlook into it and turns out
you're not breaking any law.
People just kind of use it as athreat, because that's in the
condo laws real estate agents,you know, sharing that
information. So unless that unitowner decides to rat out, so to
(15:34):
speak, their real estate agent,we're not really, there's not
really gonna be any way toenforce it. You can report real
estate agents. You can reportboards for certain things, but a
lot of the times, the statedoesn't see it as a priority, or
they just decide not to enforceit. So it's really, I think
(15:55):
accountability at the statelevel, is kind of critical in
making a significant difference.
Robert Nordlund (16:06):
Accountability is another topic that Calvin had
a lot more to say about,especially as we circle back to
discuss how his associationtried to resolve the garbage
situation in their community.
But before we get to that, let'stake a quick break to hear from
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Robert Nordlund (16:55):
and we're back before the break, Calvin spoke
at length about the need foraccountability, not only at an
association level, but at thestate level also, we decided to
circle back and discuss thistopic more at the level of
individual accountability, withregards to the garbage
collection issue in hiscommunity, we asked Calvin if
(17:15):
most homeowners were receptiveto those assessment increases,
even Though those increases werethe result of the behavior of
only a few individuals in theircommunity?
Calvin Ball (17:26):
Yeah. So it's really interesting. It depends
on who you talk to. You know, alot of the pushback is coming
from people that are obviouslydoing the right thing, you know,
putting their trash in thedumpster, and we have no issues
with them. It's usually those,you know, the small percentage
of the community that's that'sabusing it, and unfortunately,
we have no way of enforcing it.
That's kind of what a lot ofhomeowners kind of bring up, you
(17:47):
know, they're saying, Well, whycan't we start enforcing this
and start giving them a reasonto use the dumpster properly so
that, you know, we can't, yeah,because it because even if we
say, hey, it's an extra chargeof the community, some of them
still think, well, it's going tobe cheaper for me to pay. You
know, we have 168 units. Theyfigure, okay, if I'm paying 168
(18:11):
of the community's budget, if wegot to pay an extra $100 for
this to be removed, I'm onlypaying less than $1 to get it
removed, because I'm they breakup the cost through the
community, whereas if they tookit to the dump themselves, it
would take extra time, extraeffort, to drive it. And then
the pay the, you know, paywhatever dumping fee. And so a
(18:32):
lot of people actually see itfinancially, a financial
incentive to throw it in thedumpster or put it in the area.
And then we pay the extra,unfortunately, as a community,
so they kind of take advantageof it. It's kind of a selfish
thing. And we tell people, Hey,if you see somebody doing it,
let us know who it is. Becauseif you know who it is, and we
(18:53):
can connect it to a unit owner,we can start enforcing it, and
kind of back to theaccountability and enforcement.
Sometimes regulations canactually be a hindrance and can
actually make it very difficultto enforce things. So in
Maryland, the condo law is verycomprehensive, and you have it
takes a lot of red tape just toget, just to send a, you know, a
(19:15):
violation, and actually send a afee to that unit owner for doing
so, if I read Maryland condo lawcorrectly, and I'm a legal
expert or anything, so I don'twant to make sure this advice
isn't, you know, 100% but Ibelieve my interpretation is
that you have to one send aviolation notice in snail mail,
(19:38):
they specify in the in the lawthat it needs to go through
regular mail. It cannot be justan electronic communication. So
we have to send a notice in thein the mail to tell them that
they violated this part of thebylaws, the rules and
regulations, things like that.
That is basically a. You know, afirst time Hey, kind of slap on
(20:03):
the wrist, like, Hey, don't dothis again. You know, kind of
thing, if they do it a secondtime, or if the activity
continues, then the board mustto, must to set, must set a
hearing they have to set anactual hearing date to meet in
person with that person withthat individual that's violating
something, and so the board getsto decide what that date is.
(20:28):
That's a second letter that hasto be mailed to the internet or
saying, hey, you've beenviolated you violated this once.
You've now violated it a secondtime. You must attend this
meeting. If you attend thismeeting, you can try to defend
yourself, you know, and then theboard votes at that meeting to
decide whether they can send aactual, you know, a fee or
(20:51):
violation in accordance withyour bylaws. And so the state
actually doesn't tell you, thestate of Maryland doesn't tell
you, like, what kind of B youwanted to assess. That's the
where your bylaws come in. Soour bylaws does have a fee
mechanism, but you still have tofollow what Maryland law says in
giving all this notice, that youhave to send that first letter
(21:13):
of notice, and then the secondviolation actually has to happen
within 12 months of the firstnotice. So say they violated
something, and then 18 monthsgoes by and they do it again.
You technically have to startover and send them the first
notice again. So as long assomebody can just delay it for
more than a year, they canactually avoid, you know, doing
(21:34):
hearings and and and all that.
So it takes a very attentiveboard to enforce these policies
in the state of Maryland, whichis kind of kind of a hindrance
for us to to prevent people fromabusing the situation. I can't
say
Robert Nordlund (21:51):
that. I'm envious of Calvin or any
association board member inMaryland for that matter,
because volunteer board membersshouldn't have to become
politicians in order for theirstate laws and association
bylaws to complement each other.
We asked Calvin if he and theboard would come up with any
immediate solutions for thisaccountability issue.
Calvin Ball (22:12):
The solutions to accountability is very difficult
to come by. You know one, oneoption that we've come up with
is security cameras. They'velooked at that in the past. I
actually propose, sent aproposal to the board to say,
Hey, should we reach out tovendors to get get a quote, to
(22:33):
see what would it take to get insome security cameras around the
community to to hold certainpeople accountable? Because at
some point, you know, thisbecomes unsustainable. We've
discussed it in the past. Andkind of similar to how the
community was declared a privatecommunity, a lot of people are
against these security cameras.
You know, they kind of, theykind of fear that, oh, well, Big
(22:55):
Brother's watching me, or theboard's watching me. We actually
did have we had a uniquesituation? We actually had a
camera in our clubhouse, not thenot any of the other buildings,
but just the clubhouse, becausethat is a purely shared
environment. So when we had onein there, before we actually the
board members had access to thelive feed, we rent out the
(23:19):
clubhouse. And one incidenthappened where someone rented a
club, rented the clubhouse. Wedon't really have any
restrictions on who you canbring to the clubhouse, as long
as you don't damage anything theclubhouse, you know, abuse
anything like that. You know,you can rent it to have a party
or some other gathering.
(23:40):
Unfortunately, we've had a boardmember in the past who no longer
lives here, but she was a verycontrolling board member, and so
she would actually tap into thefeed while people were renting
out the clubhouse for theseparties, parties that she
wasn't, you know, invited to.
And she then went around thecommunity after the the events,
and would say, Oh, do you knowso and so was, you know,
(24:04):
inviting this, this person, orthese people to the to the
clubhouse, and they were doingthis. And it's not like the
people at the the event weredoing anything illegal or doing
any damages. It was simply apersonal, like she had a
personal out, you know, AX thegrind against this person. I
guess she just didn't like whowas renting the clubhouse and
(24:27):
was and just wanted to like, youknow, try, try to start trouble.
And unfortunately, unit ownersfound out about this, and that's
why a lot of people now, we havesince removed the camera, and a
lot of people are very hesitantto put any camera up anywhere
now, because of this, you know,this abusive person in the past
(24:49):
where they just wanted to tapinto the feed and and kind of,
technically, I mean, technicallythe clubhouse is a public space.
I mean, it's not like she wasbreaking. Any laws, but it's
kind of, it's just that grayarea of trust where the
community doesn't have trust ina board now, because one person
decided that they wanted to tapinto, you know, this event feed.
(25:09):
So it's a very contentioustopic. I brought it up, but
unfortunately, with theviolations now, you know,
popping up in our community,it's kind of been something that
has crept up in people's mindsnow, saying, Hey, should we put
up security cameras now? Becausewe've had a couple instances
too, where people's cars werebroken into, or there's
(25:30):
suspicious activity at, youknow, a particular building, you
know, that we've run into, andwe there's nothing that we can
point to that's necessarilyillegal, but it's very
suspicious. So a lot of peoplekind of ask, How can we, how can
we keep an eye on this? And Itold him, unfortunately, it's
(25:51):
just gonna have to be, you'regonna have to be either an
eyewitness or we put in securitycameras. And that's kind of
where we're at right now. It'skind of at an impasse.
Surveillance
Robert Nordlund (26:02):
and the use of security cameras in community
associations is a polarizingtopic, and Calvin's Association
certainly isn't the only onethat stuck at an impasse. We
next asked for more detailsabout the parking issues that
Calvin mentioned earlier, inorder to see if his board had
come up with any novel solutionsto that problem, and here's what
(26:23):
Calvin told us.
Calvin Ball (26:24):
So with our parking situation, every unit has one
reserved parking space, and whenyou purchase that unit, this is
kind of another part with therealtor. The realtor should be
telling you, you know what yourparking space is. So all of the
spots that are reserved to aunit have a number to them, like
(26:45):
you, like you mentioned, thenumber doesn't exactly correlate
to the unit number, but at leastyou have a number that is
specific to your unit. Iactually have the list in in our
rules and regulations, where wewe know which parking spot is
assigned to with unit, and so alot of people aren't, you know,
(27:06):
in their unit, they're either,you know, they might be a
married couple or even a family,because a lot of our units vary
in size as well. So you know,it's not unheard of to have a
unit where there's more than onevehicle, and so we have at least
one reserve Spot, Spot, aparking space, and we have quite
a bit of overflow, um, so nextto the reserve, the reserve
(27:29):
spots are usually, like I said,we're in a suburban environment,
so we're kind of spread out andhave more space than a lot of
condominiums. Now the overflowparking is kind of scattered
that sometimes, some sometimes,depending on the building you
have, you might have some veryclose overflow parking. Some of
the overflow parking on somebuildings is quite is a decent
(27:50):
walk now. I mean, not, not crazybar, but if someone was having
any mobility issues, you knowit, it may not be suitable, but
you know, it's, it kind of iswhat it is based off the
geography. We didn't have quiteenough spaces for two reserve
spaces per unit. That's why weonly have one per unit. But
(28:11):
there's almost, I went aroundthe community, encountered them.
We have almost, I would say wehave, like, three quarters of
enough for units to have, youknow, a second parking space so
you know that that's plentyenough to take care of people
that you know, like I said, areeither married and have two
vehicles or have a family.
Unfortunately, people are kindof just like water. They take
(28:34):
the path of least resistance. Sothey a lot of people, like I
said, park in front of thebuilding, or they park in the
closest spot possible, whetherit's their their parking space,
or whether it's an overflowparking space. I know some
people that actually park in anoverflow space and not in their
actual reserve spot, and that'skind of an unfortunate thing
(28:57):
when you think about it, becausetechnically, no one is supposed
to be in their reserve spot butthem, and so if they decide to
take an overflow spot, that'sone less spot for a visitor or
someone else to take, you know,a vendor that's coming by to do
some work on a unit, you know,things like that. So we try to
remind people, again, like Imentioned before in our agenda,
that you should be parking inyour reserve spot, and if you
(29:21):
have an issue you know with yourspot, you know not being close
enough, or if you need ahandicap spot, then you can let
the board know, and we can doour best to accommodate that,
because legally, in manycircumstances, we do have to
comply with that if there's arequest sent in, but if You
don't send a request in for ahandicap spot and the board
(29:42):
simply doesn't know, thenyou're, you're not really going
to have a case as a unit owner.
A lot of people think that weshould just be we already know
what their personal situationis. Oh, well, can't you tell
that I can't walk? You know,unfortunately, you know, we're
not around to talk to everyevery person every day. Way to
understand what they're goingthrough. So if that's where kind
(30:04):
of the transparency part comesin, where unit or just have to
be transparent with us and say,hey, you need an accommodation,
you need to let us know. Becausewe can't just, we don't
automatically know when somebodyneeds an accommodation. And
sometimes you there's parts ofthe condo law where, you know,
unit owner is required tocontact the board, you know,
where we can't just do things aswe see fit. We need a reason to
(30:28):
do many of the things that wedo. So it's kind of, again, a
two way street on what peopleneed out of the parking
situation, and if they don'ttell us, then we kind of do the
best thing that that works forthe community,
Robert Nordlund (30:42):
Calvin and his board were smart to not make any
assumptions about when to givepreferable parking
accommodations to theirresidents, as Albert Einstein
once said, assumptions are madeand most assumptions are wrong.
So with that being said,enforcing parking rules in a
community can be a difficulttask. Some associations keep
(31:03):
detailed records of eachresident's vehicle, make model
and license plate, while othersexpect the residents to act like
adults and rely on the honorsystem. We asked Calvin if his
association fit into eithercategory for parking
Calvin Ball (31:18):
enforcement, we're still kind of like you said in
an honor system, we kind of liketo treat everybody as adults.
You know, I think we can all ifyou're responsible for driving a
vehicle, I think you should. Youshould be able to know where
what your parking spot is andwhere you need to park, and how
to handle it. We also remindpeople that, you know, even
(31:38):
though you're in a privatecommunity, when you're on our
road. It's still technically apublic road. Public driving
rules still apply. You know, youstill need your headlights on
when it's dark out or when it'sraining. You know, tires need to
be on pavement and not on grass.
There's just a lot of thingsthat are very simple that we
think are common sense. Butunfortunately to some people,
(32:00):
they're not. But yeah, back toenforcement. It's just kind of
expecting people to be adultsand drive rationally. And we,
unfortunately, we have come intoissue some some people have
brought it to our attention thatsome people like to speed, some
people like the park wherethey're not supposed to be
(32:22):
parking, or they park across thelines and they end up taking two
parking spaces, kind of back toour let it. You know, red tape
that we run into through thelegislature, Maryland is a very
difficult state to tow someone'svehicle. Um, it has to be a very
unique circumstance for you totow the vehicle. I actually
looked it up in Maryland law,and we cannot tow a vehicle, you
(32:46):
know, unless it's completelyblocking the roadway. You know,
there's very, like, I said, veryspecific reasons, and like,
there has to be a lot of notice.
Like, Maryland has a theme whereyou have to notify the person
(33:06):
before you can do things kind oflike the violations and the
board, you have to notifysomebody that they're parked
improperly. So but we actuallytalked with our lawyer and they
said, you know, if they say theyhave an expired registration and
we notify them, they could moveit to, like a different like, I
think, in our bylaws, if you ifwe know that your vehicle hasn't
(33:26):
moved in, like a week, then wecan start enforcing, you know,
violations. But Maryland lawsays, Well, you have to notify
them first, and then you have towait like 48 hours or so after
you notify them to see if theyactually move it. According to
our lawyer, you can give themnotice to move their vehicle.
And if they move it within 48hours, all they have to do is
(33:49):
move it to a different parkingspot. They don't have to, like,
move it out of the community oranything. They just have to move
it to a different parking spot.
And then you have to keep givingthem that 48 hour notice again.
So as long as they just move itto a different parking spot, you
can't you can't owe it, and sowe can only notify them that
their registration is going toexpire and that a police officer
could give them a ticket. Nowthe police officer has more
(34:12):
authority to tow your vehicle.
Now if you give them a ticketand then you ignore the ticket,
obviously you know something canhappen to your car, but we, as
an HOA, can't really, we can'treally tow vehicles in unless
it's a very dire situation.
Robert Nordlund (34:28):
From Calvin's answer, it appeared that the
state of Maryland's laws canpresent a huge obstacle to
enforcing the bylaws of acommunity association, putting
board members in a situationwhere they have to deliver the
news that there is not animmediate solution to the
problems plaguing theircommunity. We decided to close
out this interview by askingCalvin if he had any actionable
(34:49):
advice for board membersstruggling with enforcing
accountability in theircommunity. Yeah,
Calvin Ball (34:55):
the biggest takeaways I would have is be
patient. Um And and careful inhow you communicate things. You
know, the patience is key,because sometimes things drag
out way longer than than youwant them to. We currently have,
you know, bigger, big projects,actually, right now that were,
you know, big geographical, youknow, construction projects that
(35:20):
we're looking to do next, youknow, next year, in 2025 that
are going to take a lot ofmoney, take a lot of time,
planning and patience and justmaking sure they they get done
the right way, so that you don'trush through them, and just
being careful with how you sayand, you know, because, like I
(35:43):
said, a lot of people look intothe law. And sometimes people
want to, people want to, want toask the grind sometimes. And so
if you, if you say a particularthing as a board member, they
may take it to heart. And youknow, if you don't, if you don't
come through with, say, you makea promise, and you won't come
through with that promise. Somepeople may come back and say,
hey, well, you told me this. Youknow, we try to be careful in
(36:06):
how we give people informationabout what, again, our
responsibilities, theirresponsibilities, what the law
says, what are, what ourcommunity bylaws and rules and
regulations say, and we, if wedon't know what the answer to a
question is, we we tell them,you know, we're very upfront,
(36:27):
and say, hey, look, we're notsure we haven't run into that
issue before. Let's, let's look.
Let's wait until the nextmeeting. Give us some time to
either reach out to the lawyerif it's a legal question, or
let's go through the rules andrules and regulations or bylaws
for that. So it's just being beagain, being patient and careful
in how you act.
Robert Nordlund (36:50):
We want to publicly acknowledge Calvin for
performing a thankless job well,and compliment the entire board
of directors for taking theirresponsibility seriously to act
in the best interests of theirassociation. We hope you gain
some HOA insights from Calvinstory, and that it helps you
bring common sense to yourcommon area. Thank you for
joining us, and we look forwardto another great episode next
(37:13):
week. And remember, if you matchour definition of a bored hero,
or know someone who does, pleasereach out to us. Our contact
details are provided in the shownotes
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(38:10):
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Light you.
Be patient and careful in how you communicate
(00:04):
things. If we don't know whatthe answer to a question is, we
we tell them, you know, we'revery upfront and say, hey, look,
we're not sure. We haven't runinto that issue before. Let's
let's look. Let's wait until thenext meeting. Give us some time
to either reach out to thelawyer if it's a legal question,
or let's go through the rules,and you know, rules and
(00:25):
regulations or bylaws for that,
Announcer (00:29):
a regular highlight of the HOA insights podcast is
our board heroes feature, wherewe dedicate one episode each
month to celebrate theremarkable efforts of HOA board
members. To us a board hero isone of the 2 million elected
volunteers who deserverecognition for excelling in a
role that often goes unnoticed.
Today, we're excited tospotlight one of these
exceptional board heroes andshare their inspiring story. If
you match our definition of aboard hero, or know someone who
(00:52):
does, please reach out to us.
Our contact details and those ofour sponsors are provided in the
show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:59):
Welcome back to Hoa insights, common sense for
common areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here to share
the story of another returningboard hero named Calvin Ball.
This is episode number 99 and ifyou missed meeting our other
board heroes, including Calvin'sprevious appearance in Episode
48 you can find them easily onour website, Hoa insights.org on
(01:22):
our YouTube channel, or bysubscribing to Hoa insights on
your favorite podcast platform.
Now let's reacquaint ourselveswith Calvin and hear a bit about
the story he'd like to share.
Hi,
Calvin Ball (01:34):
I'm Calvin. I've been a proud volunteer board
member for my HOA for about sixyears total. I've been the board
treasurer for about three years,and the Secretary for one year.
When I'm not immersed in boardresponsibilities, I'm adding to
my accounting credentialscurrently studying for the CPA.
(01:55):
You know, in addition tostudying for the CPA, I just
kind of hang out with my with mywonderful cat, Gigi. So some of
my experience on the board inthree words, it would probably
be transparency, planning andfocus my time in the community.
It's been, it's been quite awhile. Now been at six years,
(02:18):
and we've been trying to tryingto increase our ability to
communicate with the entirecommunity, so that they're aware
of what goes on, what theboard's responsibilities are,
what their responsibilities areas the unit owner, and how we
can both work together to buildmore of a relationship with the
community and, you know, keepProperty Values high and make
(02:41):
sure everything's wellmaintained. Well. Calvin
Robert Nordlund (02:43):
community is 168 unit condominium association
located in Maryland that's about30 years old and has an annual
budget of around $700,000 thelast time we spoke to Calvin, he
and the rest of the board wereintent on making sure that their
community lasted another 30years and emphasized the
(03:05):
importance of transparency andcommunications to their
homeowners. It's been about ayear since that conversation, so
we decided to follow up and askCalvin if he and the board had
made any changes to the waysthat they communicate to their
community. One of
Calvin Ball (03:19):
the things that we've actually implemented
within the past year is as we'repreparing our agenda for the
next meeting, we actually puttogether a list of kind of
reminders for the community ofthings that are in the rules and
regulations and or the bylaws,just to keep people informed of
what They've already signed upfor in purchasing their unit,
(03:42):
they need to follow these rulesand regulations and the bylaws
and and before each meeting, weactually put specific items that
we've noticed over the pastmonth since the last meeting
that residents haven't beenfollowing or unit owners haven't
been following, so that They canjust be reminded that, hey, this
is actually the proper way ofhandling this situation, or you
(04:06):
shouldn't be doing this. You youshould be doing it a different
way. Or, you know, the reverseside of that, you should be
doing this and you shouldn'tjust be sitting idle.
Robert Nordlund (04:15):
Maintaining a simple list of reminders to the
community is a great way to keephomeowners informed and involved
with the community, especiallyif like Calvin's board, keeping
track of that list and updatingit as needed at every board
meeting. However, remindersexist because there are habits
that either need to bereinforced in the community or
(04:36):
eliminated entirely. We decidedto ask Calvin if there was a
specific incident that promptedthis solution?
Calvin Ball (04:43):
Yeah, I mean, most of it has been general. The
biggest things that we've hadissues with are parking. A lot
of residents our buildings arereally unique. When people think
of condos, we actually haveseveral buildings. But. Our
buildings are very much smallerthan most condominiums. A lot of
(05:04):
a lot of people, when they thinkof a condominium, they think of
a high rise and there's aparking garage, and so there's
only one in and out. We're kindof more in a suburban
environment, so there's a lotmore road. There's a lot you can
pull up to each one of thesebuildings, and kind of just kind
of park there, but it stoke canblock, you know, half the road
(05:24):
we only have, you know, twolanes, one for each direction.
So a lot of people tend to pullup to the front of the building
and just kind of park there at,you know, regardless of, and
without any regard of how longthey're going to be there. So
we've, we've had people parkthere for an hour, two hours,
overnight, you know, and justleave the car just on, park
(05:44):
there with South keys in it,just off, no flashers. And we
have no idea whose vehicle itis. We don't know if it's a unit
owner or a visitor. And so thatthat's kind of been a concern
for us. And unfortunately, wehave plenty of parking. So it's
not like parking spaces are, youknow, at a premium. We have
(06:05):
several parking spots that areopen for people to use, but they
simply don't use them out ofpure laziness, or they just,
they're not aware that they canjust, they can park there, even
though it's clear that there'sparking spaces. And then the
second issue we've kind of runinto, that was a big issue is
our dumpsters. We have twodumpsters for the entire
community, and a lot of peoplejust kind of throw anything in
(06:29):
the dumpster. And kind of, likea lot of your commercial
dumpsters, there's usually afence around it and some walking
space. A lot of people feel thatthey can just leave things
outside of the dumpster, andthey can be rather large items,
like, you know, furniture, ifthey're remodeling, or a kitchen
I've seen, we've seen kitchencabinetry, mattresses, all sorts
(06:53):
of things that people just kindof leave outside of the
dumpster. And we actually haveto pay our trash removal service
to come back a second time for,and it's a separate charge every
time to remove these items. Andso we've committed we that was
part of an engine item. We toldpeople is, hey, this is an extra
expense that you're paying foryour dues and your future dues.
(07:15):
If you continue to put thingsoutside of the dumpster, it's,
you know, more trash expense forus. So it's it's been an
interesting journey tocommunicate that. And I guess
the third point I'd like to addis our community is a private
community, so we're within asmall city limits, and so a lot
of people think that we areentitled to city services, when,
(07:41):
in fact, when the community wascreated in the late 80s, early
90s, they actually took the cityto court to try to force them to
provide services to ourcommunity. But the city actually
won the case, because wedeclared ourselves a private
community, and when you declareyourself as a private community,
your private services are nolonger provided to you, so you
(08:04):
have to provide them as as acommunity. And so that's why,
through our assessments, we haveto pay for things like trash,
snow removal and othermaintenance items.
Robert Nordlund (08:17):
Hearing Calvin describe the inconsiderate
behavior of some of thehomeowners in his community was
disheartening, but it didvalidate something that Julie
Adam and and I have discussednumerous times on this program,
that some people are just plainnot well suited for Community
Association living well giventhat Calvin's community was
originally established as aprivate community, there
(08:39):
appeared to be a disconnectbetween what the homeowners felt
entitled to and what they werewilling to give back in turn. So
we next asked Calvin if he knewwhat the original motivation for
establishing themselves as aprivate community was.
Calvin Ball (08:54):
It's difficult to say if I if I had to make a good
guess, it's the community has ahistory of wanting to be very
private, not wanting to be inthe spotlight. And so they've
kind of, they kind of, I guess,they took it upon themselves
when it was created, or at leastthe people that put it together
(09:16):
decided we want to be a privatecommunity and not want to deal
with public services and nothave to rely on public services,
you know, to keep the communitymaintained. And they believed
that in the future, I guess, youknow, future unit owners would
want the same thing.
Unfortunately, as time has kindof evolved since the late 80s,
early 90s, a lot of people tendto not want to do things
(09:40):
themselves, so they they kind oflike to outsource. And
unfortunately, people have kindof felt like they they've been
in just by paying fees. Theythink that they're entitled to
quality service while notreceiving and they get
frustrated if they don't receivethat quality service. And.
Right? So it's just through thattransparency, as I talked about,
(10:01):
the three main points, beingtransparent, letting people know
that unfortunately, ourcommunity is not in the same
boat as other communities wherethey might be getting public
services. Unfortunately, we haveto pay for those services, and
sometimes the fees have not keptup with the price of those
services, and so if you expectservices to be high quality,
(10:23):
then the assessments will haveto match that. Transparency
Robert Nordlund (10:29):
was not only a common thread in our
conversation with Calvin, butlack of transparency is also a
common thread among complaintswe hear about community
associations in general. Wediscussed this with Carol
Lawrence in our last board heroepisode, homeowners new to
community associations oftenfeel like there isn't enough
communication from the board.
Many of our board heroes feellike it's the homeowners who
(10:50):
need to get involved and engagewith the association if they
want to stay in the loop. Weasked Calvin how he felt about
this dynamic, and if he feltthere was a way to maintain the
balance between these twoperspectives, kind
Calvin Ball (11:05):
of a balance. It's a two way street, because when,
when you go to purchase yourunit, you kind of have to do the
research as a home buyer to say,Hey, okay, this, this, this unit
isn't an HOA. What does thatentail? You know, when you
purchase a unit, you should beyou should have the, you know,
bylaws and rules and regulationsavailable to you so that you can
(11:28):
read through them and understandwhat you're kind of buying into.
One issue we've run into is thata lot of realtors actually are
not being very transparent withhome buyers, at least in at
least in our neighborhood, a lotof our unit owners, when they
buy a unit, you know, they comein and some of them don't even
know how much their fees are,who to pay um, and they're
(11:53):
oftentimes very confused, whichis kind of odd, because you
think the real estate agentwould tell them, and It's
actually illegal for the realestate agent to not, you know,
disclose that information, atleast in the state of Maryland,
they have to disclose certaininformation. So it's kind of
alarming, and we don't reallyhave much recourse for that
(12:13):
which, which is kind of wherethe board has to come in and
fill in the gaps where the realestate agent didn't. And that's
kind of where we have to informthis new unit in order. Hey,
this is how much your fee is.
This is who you have to pay. Andthese are the services that
you're getting. Do you have acopy of, you know, the bylaws,
rules and regulations, you know?
(12:34):
And if you have anydisagreements, you can come to
the meetings and discuss themwith us, or you can decide to
just, you know, sell the unitimmediately after buying it. If
you don't agree to the terms, ifyou're a unit owner and you
disagree with the terms, youstill have to pay the
assessments. It's not anoptional thing. That's kind of
(12:57):
some interesting I guess. Idon't know, for lack of a better
term, a threat that we've gottenfrom some people is, look, I'm
not getting the services I want,so I'm just going to withhold my
payments. And we tell people,well, if you withhold your
payments, we might slap interestin late fees on you. We can
legally do so. So it's, it'sreally interesting to try to
(13:19):
have that conversation, to letpeople know what they're really
getting into. Calvin's
Robert Nordlund (13:23):
recommendation of doing your due diligence as a
home buyer ties into anothergreat tidbit from our last board
hero episode, and in thatepisode number 95 Carol
mentioned that any prospectivehome buyer looking to purchase a
home in an associationgovernment community should do
their due diligence by readingtheir publicly available board
(13:44):
meeting minutes. Now, if thoseare unavailable, it says a lot
about the lack of transparencyfrom that community
Association's board. We nextasked Calvin if there was
anything else that the board canbe doing to improve their
transparency towards prospectivehomeowners. Yeah. I
Calvin Ball (14:01):
mean, I think that's kind of another avenue
for accountability in in condolaw and HOA law that could
happen at the state level,because obviously, there's not
many federal regulations onhomeowners associations. Most of
them are state. It's going tovary greatly by state. What's
required to be provided byboards and what's what's
required to be communicated byreal estate agents. I think that
(14:25):
the number one thing isaccountability. I think,
unfortunately, Hoa and condo lawcan be very comprehensive, but
if there's no enforcement behindit, then it's kind of, it kind
of just sits there and doesn'treally get a lot accomplished. I
know in the state of Maryland,we have a quite a comprehensive
HOA and condo law, which, totheir credit, is great from a
(14:49):
legislative standpoint. Butunfortunately, enforcement
mechanisms of it are very weak,and so the only, the only avenue
that is available is if someonereports you to the State of. Um,
and a lot of people don't, don'tthink that it's their obligation
to report you, even if theydisagree with you. So we've had
a lot of unit owners say, like,hey, we think you're doing
(15:11):
something that's against thelaw, or what, or whatnot.
Sometimes they don't evenunderstand what the law is,
which is really interesting whenthey tell you that you might be
breaking it. And sometimes youlook into it and turns out
you're not breaking any law.
People just kind of use it as athreat, because that's in the
condo laws real estate agents,you know, sharing that
information. So unless that unitowner decides to rat out, so to
(15:34):
speak, their real estate agent,we're not really, there's not
really gonna be any way toenforce it. You can report real
estate agents. You can reportboards for certain things, but a
lot of the times, the statedoesn't see it as a priority, or
they just decide not to enforceit. So it's really, I think
(15:55):
accountability at the statelevel, is kind of critical in
making a significant difference.
Robert Nordlund (16:06):
Accountability is another topic that Calvin had
a lot more to say about,especially as we circle back to
discuss how his associationtried to resolve the garbage
situation in their community.
But before we get to that, let'stake a quick break to hear from
one of our generous sponsors,
Russell Munz (16:23):
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Robert Nordlund (16:55):
and we're back before the break, Calvin spoke
at length about the need foraccountability, not only at an
association level, but at thestate level also, we decided to
circle back and discuss thistopic more at the level of
individual accountability, withregards to the garbage
collection issue in hiscommunity, we asked Calvin if
(17:15):
most homeowners were receptiveto those assessment increases,
even Though those increases werethe result of the behavior of
only a few individuals in theircommunity?
Calvin Ball (17:26):
Yeah. So it's really interesting. It depends
on who you talk to. You know, alot of the pushback is coming
from people that are obviouslydoing the right thing, you know,
putting their trash in thedumpster, and we have no issues
with them. It's usually those,you know, the small percentage
of the community that's that'sabusing it, and unfortunately,
we have no way of enforcing it.
That's kind of what a lot ofhomeowners kind of bring up, you
(17:47):
know, they're saying, Well, whycan't we start enforcing this
and start giving them a reasonto use the dumpster properly so
that, you know, we can't, yeah,because it because even if we
say, hey, it's an extra chargeof the community, some of them
still think, well, it's going tobe cheaper for me to pay. You
know, we have 168 units. Theyfigure, okay, if I'm paying 168
(18:11):
of the community's budget, if wegot to pay an extra $100 for
this to be removed, I'm onlypaying less than $1 to get it
removed, because I'm they breakup the cost through the
community, whereas if they tookit to the dump themselves, it
would take extra time, extraeffort, to drive it. And then
the pay the, you know, paywhatever dumping fee. And so a
(18:32):
lot of people actually see itfinancially, a financial
incentive to throw it in thedumpster or put it in the area.
And then we pay the extra,unfortunately, as a community,
so they kind of take advantageof it. It's kind of a selfish
thing. And we tell people, Hey,if you see somebody doing it,
let us know who it is. Becauseif you know who it is, and we
(18:53):
can connect it to a unit owner,we can start enforcing it, and
kind of back to theaccountability and enforcement.
Sometimes regulations canactually be a hindrance and can
actually make it very difficultto enforce things. So in
Maryland, the condo law is verycomprehensive, and you have it
takes a lot of red tape just toget, just to send a, you know, a
(19:15):
violation, and actually send a afee to that unit owner for doing
so, if I read Maryland condo lawcorrectly, and I'm a legal
expert or anything, so I don'twant to make sure this advice
isn't, you know, 100% but Ibelieve my interpretation is
that you have to one send aviolation notice in snail mail,
(19:38):
they specify in the in the lawthat it needs to go through
regular mail. It cannot be justan electronic communication. So
we have to send a notice in thein the mail to tell them that
they violated this part of thebylaws, the rules and
regulations, things like that.
That is basically a. You know, afirst time Hey, kind of slap on
(20:03):
the wrist, like, Hey, don't dothis again. You know, kind of
thing, if they do it a secondtime, or if the activity
continues, then the board mustto, must to set, must set a
hearing they have to set anactual hearing date to meet in
person with that person withthat individual that's violating
something, and so the board getsto decide what that date is.
(20:28):
That's a second letter that hasto be mailed to the internet or
saying, hey, you've beenviolated you violated this once.
You've now violated it a secondtime. You must attend this
meeting. If you attend thismeeting, you can try to defend
yourself, you know, and then theboard votes at that meeting to
decide whether they can send aactual, you know, a fee or
(20:51):
violation in accordance withyour bylaws. And so the state
actually doesn't tell you, thestate of Maryland doesn't tell
you, like, what kind of B youwanted to assess. That's the
where your bylaws come in. Soour bylaws does have a fee
mechanism, but you still have tofollow what Maryland law says in
giving all this notice, that youhave to send that first letter
(21:13):
of notice, and then the secondviolation actually has to happen
within 12 months of the firstnotice. So say they violated
something, and then 18 monthsgoes by and they do it again.
You technically have to startover and send them the first
notice again. So as long assomebody can just delay it for
more than a year, they canactually avoid, you know, doing
(21:34):
hearings and and and all that.
So it takes a very attentiveboard to enforce these policies
in the state of Maryland, whichis kind of kind of a hindrance
for us to to prevent people fromabusing the situation. I can't
say
Robert Nordlund (21:51):
that. I'm envious of Calvin or any
association board member inMaryland for that matter,
because volunteer board membersshouldn't have to become
politicians in order for theirstate laws and association
bylaws to complement each other.
We asked Calvin if he and theboard would come up with any
immediate solutions for thisaccountability issue.
Calvin Ball (22:12):
The solutions to accountability is very difficult
to come by. You know one, oneoption that we've come up with
is security cameras. They'velooked at that in the past. I
actually propose, sent aproposal to the board to say,
Hey, should we reach out tovendors to get get a quote, to
(22:33):
see what would it take to get insome security cameras around the
community to to hold certainpeople accountable? Because at
some point, you know, thisbecomes unsustainable. We've
discussed it in the past. Andkind of similar to how the
community was declared a privatecommunity, a lot of people are
against these security cameras.
You know, they kind of, theykind of fear that, oh, well, Big
(22:55):
Brother's watching me, or theboard's watching me. We actually
did have we had a uniquesituation? We actually had a
camera in our clubhouse, not thenot any of the other buildings,
but just the clubhouse, becausethat is a purely shared
environment. So when we had onein there, before we actually the
board members had access to thelive feed, we rent out the
(23:19):
clubhouse. And one incidenthappened where someone rented a
club, rented the clubhouse. Wedon't really have any
restrictions on who you canbring to the clubhouse, as long
as you don't damage anything theclubhouse, you know, abuse
anything like that. You know,you can rent it to have a party
or some other gathering.
(23:40):
Unfortunately, we've had a boardmember in the past who no longer
lives here, but she was a verycontrolling board member, and so
she would actually tap into thefeed while people were renting
out the clubhouse for theseparties, parties that she
wasn't, you know, invited to.
And she then went around thecommunity after the the events,
and would say, Oh, do you knowso and so was, you know,
(24:04):
inviting this, this person, orthese people to the to the
clubhouse, and they were doingthis. And it's not like the
people at the the event weredoing anything illegal or doing
any damages. It was simply apersonal, like she had a
personal out, you know, AX thegrind against this person. I
guess she just didn't like whowas renting the clubhouse and
(24:27):
was and just wanted to like, youknow, try, try to start trouble.
And unfortunately, unit ownersfound out about this, and that's
why a lot of people now, we havesince removed the camera, and a
lot of people are very hesitantto put any camera up anywhere
now, because of this, you know,this abusive person in the past
(24:49):
where they just wanted to tapinto the feed and and kind of,
technically, I mean, technicallythe clubhouse is a public space.
I mean, it's not like she wasbreaking. Any laws, but it's
kind of, it's just that grayarea of trust where the
community doesn't have trust ina board now, because one person
decided that they wanted to tapinto, you know, this event feed.
(25:09):
So it's a very contentioustopic. I brought it up, but
unfortunately, with theviolations now, you know,
popping up in our community,it's kind of been something that
has crept up in people's mindsnow, saying, Hey, should we put
up security cameras now? Becausewe've had a couple instances
too, where people's cars werebroken into, or there's
(25:30):
suspicious activity at, youknow, a particular building, you
know, that we've run into, andwe there's nothing that we can
point to that's necessarilyillegal, but it's very
suspicious. So a lot of peoplekind of ask, How can we, how can
we keep an eye on this? And Itold him, unfortunately, it's
(25:51):
just gonna have to be, you'regonna have to be either an
eyewitness or we put in securitycameras. And that's kind of
where we're at right now. It'skind of at an impasse.
Surveillance
Robert Nordlund (26:02):
and the use of security cameras in community
associations is a polarizingtopic, and Calvin's Association
certainly isn't the only onethat stuck at an impasse. We
next asked for more detailsabout the parking issues that
Calvin mentioned earlier, inorder to see if his board had
come up with any novel solutionsto that problem, and here's what
(26:23):
Calvin told us.
Calvin Ball (26:24):
So with our parking situation, every unit has one
reserved parking space, and whenyou purchase that unit, this is
kind of another part with therealtor. The realtor should be
telling you, you know what yourparking space is. So all of the
spots that are reserved to aunit have a number to them, like
(26:45):
you, like you mentioned, thenumber doesn't exactly correlate
to the unit number, but at leastyou have a number that is
specific to your unit. Iactually have the list in in our
rules and regulations, where wewe know which parking spot is
assigned to with unit, and so alot of people aren't, you know,
(27:06):
in their unit, they're either,you know, they might be a
married couple or even a family,because a lot of our units vary
in size as well. So you know,it's not unheard of to have a
unit where there's more than onevehicle, and so we have at least
one reserve Spot, Spot, aparking space, and we have quite
a bit of overflow, um, so nextto the reserve, the reserve
(27:29):
spots are usually, like I said,we're in a suburban environment,
so we're kind of spread out andhave more space than a lot of
condominiums. Now the overflowparking is kind of scattered
that sometimes, some sometimes,depending on the building you
have, you might have some veryclose overflow parking. Some of
the overflow parking on somebuildings is quite is a decent
(27:50):
walk now. I mean, not, not crazybar, but if someone was having
any mobility issues, you knowit, it may not be suitable, but
you know, it's, it kind of iswhat it is based off the
geography. We didn't have quiteenough spaces for two reserve
spaces per unit. That's why weonly have one per unit. But
(28:11):
there's almost, I went aroundthe community, encountered them.
We have almost, I would say wehave, like, three quarters of
enough for units to have, youknow, a second parking space so
you know that that's plentyenough to take care of people
that you know, like I said, areeither married and have two
vehicles or have a family.
Unfortunately, people are kindof just like water. They take
(28:34):
the path of least resistance. Sothey a lot of people, like I
said, park in front of thebuilding, or they park in the
closest spot possible, whetherit's their their parking space,
or whether it's an overflowparking space. I know some
people that actually park in anoverflow space and not in their
actual reserve spot, and that'skind of an unfortunate thing
(28:57):
when you think about it, becausetechnically, no one is supposed
to be in their reserve spot butthem, and so if they decide to
take an overflow spot, that'sone less spot for a visitor or
someone else to take, you know,a vendor that's coming by to do
some work on a unit, you know,things like that. So we try to
remind people, again, like Imentioned before in our agenda,
that you should be parking inyour reserve spot, and if you
(29:21):
have an issue you know with yourspot, you know not being close
enough, or if you need ahandicap spot, then you can let
the board know, and we can doour best to accommodate that,
because legally, in manycircumstances, we do have to
comply with that if there's arequest sent in, but if You
don't send a request in for ahandicap spot and the board
(29:42):
simply doesn't know, thenyou're, you're not really going
to have a case as a unit owner.
A lot of people think that weshould just be we already know
what their personal situationis. Oh, well, can't you tell
that I can't walk? You know,unfortunately, you know, we're
not around to talk to everyevery person every day. Way to
understand what they're goingthrough. So if that's where kind
(30:04):
of the transparency part comesin, where unit or just have to
be transparent with us and say,hey, you need an accommodation,
you need to let us know. Becausewe can't just, we don't
automatically know when somebodyneeds an accommodation. And
sometimes you there's parts ofthe condo law where, you know,
unit owner is required tocontact the board, you know,
where we can't just do things aswe see fit. We need a reason to
(30:28):
do many of the things that wedo. So it's kind of, again, a
two way street on what peopleneed out of the parking
situation, and if they don'ttell us, then we kind of do the
best thing that that works forthe community,
Robert Nordlund (30:42):
Calvin and his board were smart to not make any
assumptions about when to givepreferable parking
accommodations to theirresidents, as Albert Einstein
once said, assumptions are madeand most assumptions are wrong.
So with that being said,enforcing parking rules in a
community can be a difficulttask. Some associations keep
(31:03):
detailed records of eachresident's vehicle, make model
and license plate, while othersexpect the residents to act like
adults and rely on the honorsystem. We asked Calvin if his
association fit into eithercategory for parking
Calvin Ball (31:18):
enforcement, we're still kind of like you said in
an honor system, we kind of liketo treat everybody as adults.
You know, I think we can all ifyou're responsible for driving a
vehicle, I think you should. Youshould be able to know where
what your parking spot is andwhere you need to park, and how
to handle it. We also remindpeople that, you know, even
(31:38):
though you're in a privatecommunity, when you're on our
road. It's still technically apublic road. Public driving
rules still apply. You know, youstill need your headlights on
when it's dark out or when it'sraining. You know, tires need to
be on pavement and not on grass.
There's just a lot of thingsthat are very simple that we
think are common sense. Butunfortunately to some people,
(32:00):
they're not. But yeah, back toenforcement. It's just kind of
expecting people to be adultsand drive rationally. And we,
unfortunately, we have come intoissue some some people have
brought it to our attention thatsome people like to speed, some
people like the park wherethey're not supposed to be
(32:22):
parking, or they park across thelines and they end up taking two
parking spaces, kind of back toour let it. You know, red tape
that we run into through thelegislature, Maryland is a very
difficult state to tow someone'svehicle. Um, it has to be a very
unique circumstance for you totow the vehicle. I actually
looked it up in Maryland law,and we cannot tow a vehicle, you
(32:46):
know, unless it's completelyblocking the roadway. You know,
there's very, like, I said, veryspecific reasons, and like,
there has to be a lot of notice.
Like, Maryland has a theme whereyou have to notify the person
(33:06):
before you can do things kind oflike the violations and the
board, you have to notifysomebody that they're parked
improperly. So but we actuallytalked with our lawyer and they
said, you know, if they say theyhave an expired registration and
we notify them, they could moveit to, like a different like, I
think, in our bylaws, if you ifwe know that your vehicle hasn't
(33:26):
moved in, like a week, then wecan start enforcing, you know,
violations. But Maryland lawsays, Well, you have to notify
them first, and then you have towait like 48 hours or so after
you notify them to see if theyactually move it. According to
our lawyer, you can give themnotice to move their vehicle.
And if they move it within 48hours, all they have to do is
(33:49):
move it to a different parkingspot. They don't have to, like,
move it out of the community oranything. They just have to move
it to a different parking spot.
And then you have to keep givingthem that 48 hour notice again.
So as long as they just move itto a different parking spot, you
can't you can't owe it, and sowe can only notify them that
their registration is going toexpire and that a police officer
could give them a ticket. Nowthe police officer has more
(34:12):
authority to tow your vehicle.
Now if you give them a ticketand then you ignore the ticket,
obviously you know something canhappen to your car, but we, as
an HOA, can't really, we can'treally tow vehicles in unless
it's a very dire situation.
Robert Nordlund (34:28):
From Calvin's answer, it appeared that the
state of Maryland's laws canpresent a huge obstacle to
enforcing the bylaws of acommunity association, putting
board members in a situationwhere they have to deliver the
news that there is not animmediate solution to the
problems plaguing theircommunity. We decided to close
out this interview by askingCalvin if he had any actionable
(34:49):
advice for board membersstruggling with enforcing
accountability in theircommunity. Yeah,
Calvin Ball (34:55):
the biggest takeaways I would have is be
patient. Um And and careful inhow you communicate things. You
know, the patience is key,because sometimes things drag
out way longer than than youwant them to. We currently have,
you know, bigger, big projects,actually, right now that were,
you know, big geographical, youknow, construction projects that
(35:20):
we're looking to do next, youknow, next year, in 2025 that
are going to take a lot ofmoney, take a lot of time,
planning and patience and justmaking sure they they get done
the right way, so that you don'trush through them, and just
being careful with how you sayand, you know, because, like I
(35:43):
said, a lot of people look intothe law. And sometimes people
want to, people want to, want toask the grind sometimes. And so
if you, if you say a particularthing as a board member, they
may take it to heart. And youknow, if you don't, if you don't
come through with, say, you makea promise, and you won't come
through with that promise. Somepeople may come back and say,
hey, well, you told me this. Youknow, we try to be careful in
(36:06):
how we give people informationabout what, again, our
responsibilities, theirresponsibilities, what the law
says, what are, what ourcommunity bylaws and rules and
regulations say, and we, if wedon't know what the answer to a
question is, we we tell them,you know, we're very upfront,
(36:27):
and say, hey, look, we're notsure we haven't run into that
issue before. Let's, let's look.
Let's wait until the nextmeeting. Give us some time to
either reach out to the lawyerif it's a legal question, or
let's go through the rules andrules and regulations or bylaws
for that. So it's just being beagain, being patient and careful
in how you act.
Robert Nordlund (36:50):
We want to publicly acknowledge Calvin for
performing a thankless job well,and compliment the entire board
of directors for taking theirresponsibility seriously to act
in the best interests of theirassociation. We hope you gain
some HOA insights from Calvinstory, and that it helps you
bring common sense to yourcommon area. Thank you for
joining us, and we look forwardto another great episode next
(37:13):
week. And remember, if you matchour definition of a bored hero,
or know someone who does, pleasereach out to us. Our contact
details are provided in the shownotes
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