April 21, 2025 • 34 mins
Unequal HOA rule enforcement in your community can lead to lawsuits, resentment, and lost trust. Here's how to avoid it and bring fairness back to your board!
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Unequal HOA rule enforcement can quietly destroy even the best community associations. Robert and Kevin break down how inconsistent application of HOA rules can erode trust, spark legal issues, and damage property values. Learn why some rules get enforced and others ignored, how personal bias sneaks into board decisions, and why a written enforcement policy is essential for fairness.
Chapters from This Episode:
00:00 What are the three main duties of every HOA board?
00:36 What HOA problem does this episode solve?
03:27 What causes most HOA lawsuits around rule enforcement?
07:08 Why do signs spark conflict and costly legal battles?
10:09 How do you balance fairness and personal opinion?
12:00 What happens when boards bend rules for their own benefit?
14:50 Should different HOA rules be treated differently?
17:30 What happens when a rule applies to someone you dislike?
19:54 What does fairness really mean when it comes to HOA governance?
21:45 Why every HOA board needs a written enforcement policy
23:15 How should you change outdated or unfair HOA rules?
26:53 Why personal bias can quietly destroy even good HOA board decisions
28:32 How do boards handle offensive or political signs fairly?
30:57 How can fairness and consistency save your HOA thousands?
32:26 What kind of board legacy do you want to leave?
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.
Kevin Davis (00:00):
When it comes to maintaining
(00:01):
association withclimate collecting
money, you're gonna have to beconsistent and you
have to be stable,because we talk
about money. Okay?
People get upset.
Announcer (00:10):
HOA Insights is brought
to you by fivecompanies that care
about board members,association, insights and
marketplace Association,reserves, community,
financials, Hoa invest and KevinDavis Insurance Services, you'll
find links to theirwebsites and social
media in the show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:26):
Hi.
I'm Robert Nordlundof association reserves, and I'm
Kevin Davis (00:29):
Kevin Davis of Kevin Davis
Insurance Services.
And this is HOAInsights, where we
promote common sense for common
Robert Nordlund (00:36):
areas.
Welcome to Episode102 where we're
again speaking withinsurance expert and
regular co host,Kevin Davis, to make
sure you have all the rightinformation at the
right time to makethe right decisions
for the future ofyour association.
Every week, we wantyour association to
benefit from thestories, insights
and answers we'reable to share here.
(00:57):
This helps you ourpodcast audience, to
be well informed andto be well prepared
for the challengesthat you address
every time you thinkabout leading your
association forward.
Well, last week'sepisode number 101,
featured a greatinterview with Steve
Horvath as younoticed a passionate
advocate for boardmember transparency
(01:17):
and accountability.
If you missed thatepisode or any other
prior episode, takea moment after
today's program tolisten from our
podcast website, Hoainsights.org or
watch on our YouTubechannel, but better
yet, subscribe fromany of the major
podcast platforms soyou don't miss any
future episodes, andthose of you
(01:37):
watching on YouTube.
Can see the HOAinsights mug that I
have here. I don'twant to tip it too
much. Got mine also,Kevin has one too.
Yes, you can get oneof these from our
merch store, whichyou can browse
through from our HOAinsights.org
website, or the linkin our show notes,
you'll find we havesome great free
stuff there, likeboard member zoom
(01:59):
backgrounds, andsome specialty items
for sale, like themugs that we're
showing. Go to the merch store,download a free zoom
background, take amoment, look around,
find the mug you'dlike and email me at
podcast@reservestudy.comwith your name,
shipping address, mug choice,mentioning episode
102, mug giveaway,and if you're the
(02:22):
10th person to emailme, I'll ship that mug to you.
Actually, my staffwill ship that mug
to you free of charge. Well, weenjoy hearing from
you responding tothe issues you're facing at your
association. So ifyou have a hot topic, a crazy
story, or a questionyou'd like us to
address. You canalways contact us at
805-203-3130, or email us atpodcast@reservestudy.com
(02:49):
now today's episode comes from aquestion submitted
by Jim from Denver,Colorado, who stated, I'm
confused. I knowwe're supposed to enforce rules
consistently, butsome just don't matter. Plus, we
don't want to spend all our timeenforcing rules.
Where's the happy medium? Andfortunately, Kevin,
(03:11):
this is in yourwheelhouse. So where
do we start on this one? All
Kevin Davis (03:15):
right, this is definitely
in our wheelhouse,because we, as you
know, for years,we've been talking
is, all we do is protect boardmembers from liability, and the
number one area thatI hate spending claims on and
defending are whenyou have unequal
enforcement of thedocuments. And this,
and this is theproblem that most
people believe in communityassociations, that
(03:37):
the rules thatoutline in documents
are suggestions.
This is how weshould behave, but
we have a choice.
Okay, okay, so wegot to start from
that point. Rightoff the bat, they
believe there arerules or suggestions
that they have a choice. You
Robert Nordlund (03:53):
know, what's I'm thinking
now? I'm distracted.
Uh, wasn't that aCaptain Sparrow line
in one of the Pirates of theCaribbean movies. I
think he said, Yeah,that's a problem. I
think they're morejust guidelines.
Kevin Davis (04:08):
Yeah, guidelines, exactly,
and that's But that's it, andthat's what it all
boils down to. Andthis is the problem,
when you have guidelines and wehave suggestions, and this would
always leads to, isthat, how do you
decide which onesare right or wrong?
This is the key.
It's three reasonswhy I decided right
or wrong me as the presidentAssociation. Number
one is based onignorance, okay, I
(04:29):
didn't know. Youknow, nobody told me
the rules were thatway. Number two,
arrogance. You knowwhat? It's okay to
do it. You knowthey're not gonna
bother you anyway, or plan onstupidity. What?
Well, you mean, Ican't do that, and
so that's why therules are there.
Walk
Robert Nordlund (04:48):
me through this,
because you want tohave, we have a lot
of people living inin a condominium in
a small, physicalspace. Okay? So
there's going to betension even. In a big plan
development. Hoa,they may not, you
may not be tighttogether, but you're
all sharing the economies of theassociation. We work
(05:11):
together for the road, the guardhouse, the clubhouse, and you
are together incommunity. So you
need, you need rulesto say, this is what
we're all about, andthis is okay, and
this is not okay,the boundaries, the
guardrails. So yousaid three things,
ignorance of rules.
I understand thatarrogance where,
yeah, they don'tapply to me. Ooh,
(05:32):
I'm new. I'm newhere. I'm on the
board. I have thebiggest house, I
have the best view.
They don't apply tome. And stoke number
three, stupidity.
Kevin Davis (05:43):
Stupidity is the worst one,
because that meansthey know the rules.
They were ignorant in the rules.
Sometimes they theyconflict, but, but
what happens is thatthey end up doing
something. They pushtheir chest out, you
know what? I finallytowed that car away,
that's been parking and visitorsparking, and as soon
they pull that carin there, boom. I
told it away. Icalled a tow truck
up. I told him I wastired of doing him.
Did you get propernotification? Well,
(06:04):
I told him to stopdoing him. Well, you
know, you got togive notification.
Yep, I got tired of giving anotification. I was
Robert Nordlund (06:11):
thinking about arrogance on
the side of the rulebreaker, but no,
you're talking aboutarrogance on the
side or the Mercer board. This
Kevin Davis (06:21):
is this? Okay? I get
rules or suggestionsand guidelines.
Okay? I'm the president ofassociation. Okay?
Now there are fiveareas that I've notified that we
that they break therules all the time.
Okay? There arepets, parking, pool,
and I mean pool, Imean all amenities, not just the
Robert Nordlund (06:41):
pool, but but noise, yeah, I like your
alliteration. Noise,
Kevin Davis (06:46):
okay.
And signs those,those like the five
ones that we you go,Oh my god, I can't
believe because theylook at the rules as
suggestions. End upcosting me 10,$15,000 to defend
it. And that's theproblem. Okay?
Robert Nordlund (07:00):
Now I understand some.
Well, let's go backa few months. We had
an election, and Iunderstand some
people are adamant for Biden andadamant for Trump
and their neighbors.
They share offense,and it's one thing
to say I'm reallyfor change, or I'm
really for the currentadministration,
whatever you I getthat. I don't mind
(07:20):
someone, you know,having an opinion,
but wow, for it tocost $10,000 because
you get into a spatabout a sign, but think about
Kevin Davis (07:31):
it.
Okay, three different things,okay, ignorance.
Wow, they have signsout. Am I should I
say anything? Do Ileave it alone? What
rule is there forme? For I'm a board
president. I don'tknow what to do with
the signs out there.
You're right. Yougot two signs, yeah,
one on this. I don'tknow what to do. So that's plain
ignorance, because you don't doanything. Doing nothing is a
decision. Okay? Nowyou go to arrogance,
(07:52):
right? I like thisguy, not the other
guy. I'm pulling upall the other guys
things becausethey're in violation
because of the sizethese guys are their
size, illegal. Theother guys have
banners. They fitthe requirements of
the banner. Okay, stupidity, you
Robert Nordlund (08:09):
got me rubbing my head
here. I'm thinkingnow of boards who
say, Okay, what?
What are the colors?
Let's say they'reTrump. People is
Trump? Oh, Trump isred, right? Yeah,
okay. And so they'resaying red signs are
okay. Let's make arule that red signs
are okay. You can'tbe doing that.
You've got to bethis is fairly part of
Kevin Davis (08:26):
it, stupidity. Part of
it is, say thisstupidity. They say
that those are signsand the others are
banners. Okay, theblue signs had to be
banners. Look atthey craft a little
bit differently, andthe stick is a
little bit higher. Imean, again,
ignorance is just, Idon't know what to
do. You know, thosesigns are there, and
I don't know what todo. Arrogance.
(08:47):
Again, arrogance,the same thing. I
love these guyssign. They can put
them out, but I'mgoing to pull up everyone as the
president of theassociation. I'm
pulling up all thesigns I don't like.
And they got stupidity, whereeverybody could be.
I'm in charge finesto, you know, to the
other color guyssometimes. So in
other words, it's like, I can'tbelieve you did
something like that.
Is the stupiditypart, and these are
the ones that costyou $10,000 because
(09:09):
at the end of theday, you're not
asking for damages.
You're saying, willyou please judge
tell them how idiotand competent they
are for doing what they
Robert Nordlund (09:18):
did.
Kevin, I think I'mstill stuck in
trying to create anordered community where we have
neighbors. Youtalked about signs,
and now I'm thinkingabout the guy who's
a lifetime marineand he served in so
many places heserved. What do you
say, honorably,vigilantly, and he
wants his MarineCorps. What color is
(09:41):
that flag? I thinkit's red. He wants
his Marine Corpsflag out. But you
have, like, no flagspolicy or rule,
yeah, where do youwhere do you bend
and you want to say,Geez Louise, if we
didn't have Marineslike Fred, we wouldn't have this
country. Is that arule? Problem, or is
that an enforcement this
Kevin Davis (10:01):
is what this is. Go back to
the beginning, and you asked thequestion, Why? Why
you have the rulesanyway? Okay? And
we're talking aboutstability in your association,
consistency. But thekey thing is that
you want to feel this fairnessthroughout the association, and
that's the key. Thekey is that if you
were a board the directors ofCommunity Association, and you
(10:23):
have a group ofrules, okay? The key
is that you want togive the illusion
that you're beingfair. So you want to force them
uniformly, consistent,consistently, okay?
And so you can saythat this, here's a
guy here, that we want to make adifference between
this person's signas persons would he
accomplish? Theproblem is, once you
(10:43):
start doing it now,so you put a one out
there that you don'tlike, what the neighbors don't
like, then whathappens? Then, all
of a sudden, there's a degree ofunfairness about
him. And that's thekey is, do you create an
unfairness? Andthat's what we talk
about communityassociations, are
you being fair? Andwhen you go to court
(11:05):
and you start defending yourselfon the rules, the
question is, well,is it a reasonable rule? Is it
reasonable? Is itreasonable to say,
shut this down? Isit reasonable to
say, this guy's okayto put his symbol
outside, but it'snot okay to put a
another symbol. Andwe have, we see a lot during the
holiday season,okay, right? You put
Christmas treelights up, but then
(11:26):
somebody else mightput up a Jewish sign
up, but then you putanother sign up, and
then one, you know,and then all of a
sudden you go, okay, yeah, makedecisions. Where do
you draw the line?
And again, we'll talk aboutsomething, how to
get around that atthe end of this thing. But right
now, I really want to define theproblem. And the problem is that
they're not guidelines. They'rethere for a reason.
(11:48):
They're there tocreate structure for
your community association. Webring consistency and stability,
because that way, ifyou want to buy a place in my
community association, you'regonna look around
and go, Okay, youknow the rules are
enforced. Even Idon't like them.
They enforce uniformly. Nowhere's where the big
problem comes intoplay, Robert, we
didn't talk about this from thefinancial side. Now,
(12:12):
what happens if therules are not enforced uniformly
on the financialside, when it comes
to assessments, when it comes toreserves, you know,
when it comes tolate fees, when it comes to non
payments, that'swhere you're getting
your big problemthere. You know, we
talk about thingslike, you know,
parking and pets andthose things are kind of silly
things. I call them,you know, I say as
(12:33):
from a stupiditypoint of view. You
know, I'm tired ofkids getting the
pool between twoo'clock and 12 to two, and I'm
working, they can'tgo in the pool
anymore at 12 to twobecause I'm working
here to make toomuch noise. I'm the
president. Don't youagree with Robert?
Because you're thevice president,
you're working fromhome. Yeah, the pool
and obviously wepass the law, not
law office. Can be a12 to two Monday through Friday,
(12:55):
because we workwell, you can't do
that. Yes, that'sthis. Well, again,
is that stupidity?
Is it ignorance?
Sometimes it couldbe a combination of
both. The problem isthat the rules are
there for a reasonto stop you from making bad
decisions, stop youfrom all of a sudden
reacting. And Iguess that's one of
the reasons too,Robert, is that you
(13:15):
know when you have arule and you're
seeing something asa president, as a
board member, youdon't like, we react
to it. First thingwe do, we react. I
can't believe theydoing that. You
know, we got to dosomething about
them, and we don'tdo it uniformly
because we like weall have that person
in association thatwe don't like, okay?
But the ones we dolike, Aha, we give
them that littlepass. And that's
(13:37):
where the problem comes into
Robert Nordlund (13:39):
play.
One of the thingsyou said, hit a nerve, and I
realized I am muchmore prejudiced than
I thought I was. Istarted going down
the things that I'veseen, the things
that irritate me.
And yeah, there arethings that, when
push comes to shove,that are going to
irritate anybody.
And the question is,and you, you said
(14:01):
it. You want to haverules that bring consistency and
stability. We'vetalked in the past
about civility, theabsence of civility,
or the decline incivility. How we
want to bring peace?
We want to bring,yeah, we want to
bring safety and security to ourcommunity to our community
association, makethem inviting and
(14:23):
not have them be just a littleboiling teapot of
tempers over here onthe side, I want to
go somewhere thatyou started to talk
about. You talkedabout the rules,
pets, parking, pooland amenities, noise
and signs, and youstarted to say they're different
from the ones thatare fundamental to
the association. Andhelp me with that.
(14:43):
When I think aboutfundamental to the
association, you need to incomestream. So there needs to be the
assessments are dueon the first they're
late by the 10th, orwhatever. The thing is at your
association, isthere a completely
different set ofrules? If they are
financial, or if they're in thebylaws or the
(15:04):
governing documents,which ones are
simple, malleable,changeable, editable
rules, and whichones you really have
to stand on. You
Kevin Davis (15:15):
know how I say that the Board Member
responsibility, have threeresponsibility, force the rules,
maintain the association right,and financial
collect assessments.
Those are three bigthings you have to
do. Okay? Now, wherethey had the problem
is with ruleenforcement. Because
their problem ofrule enforcement is
they they want to benice people. They
want to be light ifthey don't do anything that they
(15:37):
would give the hardmessage. So rule
enforcement is easyto say, well, it's
not that big, animportant rule. So
if that's the onethat they don't,
they kind of likeit's such a, yes,
it's a guideline.
Now we talk aboutmaintenance and we
talk about financialthose are things you
gotta obey. Becausethose are things is
the life blood ofthe association.
When it comes to maintainingassociation with
(15:59):
climate, collectingmoney, you're gonna have to be
consistent, and youhave to be stable,
because when youtalk about money,
okay, people getupset, like, for
example, one of thebig issues to talk
about late fees. I didn't pay myassessments on time.
Okay, when do youcharge late fees?
Okay? Well, you cansay that, you know,
say five days later,or 10 days later,
one day later. Do you give greatspirits? You don't
give great spirits.
(16:20):
You know, thequestion is, is that
what? How do youperform? How do you
make that decisions?
Well, they probablywritten down what
decisions are. Butover time, what happened to that
board is that theysay, Okay, we gotta,
we'll be strict now,because we need the
money immediately,we're gonna start
charging a finewithin 24 hours they
haven't paid it.
Now, what happens tothat rule is it? Is
it? Can they enforceit? Is it important?
(16:41):
Well, those are kindof rules that are
more important thanOkay, did you have a
pet policy? Did youhave a parking
policy? Did you havea policy about, you
know, the signs andeverything at the
end of the day, thebig ones when it
comes to maintenanceand when it comes to
financial issues,I've been paid for
six months now. Whatdo you do board, how
do you enforce it?
(17:02):
What do you do? Andit's come to part by
the ignorance part.
Wow, we don't knowwhat to do. He hasn't paid
assessments of sixmonths. What do we
do? Ignorance is abig problem when it
comes to enforcingyours consistently
and uniformly. Italways goes back to
that situation whereyou know, the last
board didn't do it.
So why should we start doing it?
Robert Nordlund (17:23):
And do we want to be the
bad? Do we want tobe known as the bad
guys? It would bethe bad you get the
the minefield of,okay, on the first
of the month, we'regoing to start enforcing the no
parking in the firezone in the fire lane rule. And
wouldn't you know,it happens to be the
person who's alwaysdisruptive at the
(17:43):
board meetings, whois the first one to
do that, and you think, oh geez,Louise, it's going
to look like we'regoing to we're being
harsh on thatperson, when indeed
it's only because he's the firstperson after the
first of the month
Kevin Davis (17:56):
to and then what happened?
You don't enforce itthat first day, and
everybody sees youand enforce it. Then
what happens? Thenyou're losing all
your authority.
Okay, you lose andthat's what happens
when you have therules, especially
the two major ones, when the topmaintenance and
financial, if youdon't enforce those
things uniformly,consistently, what
happens is, is thatthey start to diminish, and then
all of a sudden, youhave an association.
(18:17):
When you're goingwhat happened to our
association? Whatused to be, well
run. It used to bevibrant. It used to
be worth a lot moremoney than it was,
than it is now.
Wham, to the value of our condo.
Robert Nordlund (18:27):
Kevin, yeah, your world may
be more in theoffice. My world is
generally more goingto properties. And when I go to
Properties, I sizethem up in the first
five minutes, and Ican tell which
associations are theWild West. You can
often see it in thebalconies Southern
California. I seesurfboards, I see towels, I see
different things inWindows. And all of
(18:49):
a sudden I realizethis association
doesn't care. Let'sgo further down this
path. I want to figure outsolutions. Yeah, I
guess solutions. AndI have many more
questions, but I want to get thesolutions. But it's
time to take a breakto hear from one of our generous
sponsors, afterwhich we'll be back
with more commonsense for common areas tired
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Robert Nordlund (19:44):
and we're back. Well,
everyone listeninghere doesn't know
that Kevin and Ispent a lot of time
in the break talkingabout where we could
go with this,because we're still
trying to figurethis out. But I want
to get to solutions.
Kevin, you introduced the ideaof some things are
warmth. Importantthan others, just
the finances of theassociation. And I
know there's someassociations that
(20:06):
have rules of howmany pets you can
have. Does threegoldfish in a fish
bowl count as pets?
And don't want to godown that path and
fight that battle,but how do we get to
the point of havingsolutions where you
are helping theassociation, and you
said it earlier, howdo how do we help
our board memberaudience listening
(20:26):
to this, bring consistency,stability and maximize property
values to theircommunity? Again,
Kevin Davis (20:34):
we divide up into the
three areas. Okay.
Number one, enforcing of therules. To me, enforcement of the
rules is about fairness. Are webeing fair to people
who live there? Dothey have a feeling
that life is beingfair? Okay? If they
have that feelinglife being fair,
then you're doing apretty good job of
enforcing the rulesconsistently.
Ukrainian stabilityin that association.
(20:56):
So that's the mostimportant thing the other two
definitely. We talkabout maintenance.
You talk aboutfinancial situations
you want to have, Iwould say, enforce
those things to thehill. I mean, you're
going to have to,because once you
deviate from eitherone of those, property values
diminish. And yousaid that early walk
into an association.
You know, rightafter that, if that
association ismaintained or not,
(21:16):
if I take a stepback and start using
rules that guidelinesuggestions. I'm going to make
suggestions and thatare not going to be
in the best interestassociation. So you
can start diminishyou see diminishing
returns. So if I'mthe board president,
might have one jobto enforce the rules
uniformly and consistently. Sothat's the key thing
for me. Now we'regoing to talk about
(21:39):
solutions. And tome, the number one
solution is you haveto have a well
written enforcement policy. And
Robert Nordlund (21:49):
that sounds like something that goes
from year to year,board to board, and
it gives Julie hastalked about, like a
mission statement.
We are happy valleyvillas. We are known
for this. Here's ourlogo. Here are our
colors and whateverit is. And this the
enforcement policyis the same kind of
(22:10):
thing where it just guides theassociation forward.
And hey, just theway we do things here, yep.
Kevin Davis (22:15):
And you can change it as
time goes on, youknow, now suddenly
you have, you livein a post COVID
world. You can say,Listen, you know, from 12 to two
o'clock we're goingto close everything,
and we'll close everything, andbecause people are
working, and now itmay not go over
well, but instead ofsaying from 12 to no
children, we can say12 to two nobody. We
want to close wethink that's a great
(22:36):
idea. I get theseare rules that the
the board and thepeople who live
there can agree uponthat, you know, or
go back to the petsyou know, well, we
don't, we don'tthink you're gonna
have pets, but a petis okay. A pet is
less than 25 pounds,okay, and less than
25 pounds or 10pounds, whatever it
(22:56):
is. And the keything is to enforce those rules
consistently without exceptions.
Robert Nordlund (23:03):
My My pen is just about
smoking with all thenotes I'm taking here. Okay, I
understand that. Andokay, let's go.
Let's talk aboutrules. I have seen
when we get packagesof governing documents from
Association, sometimes they giveus the rules, and I
see some rules thatare good and some
that look like theyare 2030, years old.
And I don't like the2030 years old. And
(23:25):
just one thing thatwe've done is appreciate that
sometimes we seethat our policy has
been that the checkmust be received by
and we can't usethat word anymore,
because half of ourpeople, half of the
people paying us are paying uselectronically. So just
technologically, youneed to update your
(23:45):
rules. And like yousaid, with more people at home,
maybe you need tosay the rules during
the week for thepool are different
from the rules onthe weekend. And
maybe you have apreamble to your
rules that give kindof a mission or a
feel that talk aboutwe we try to be peaceful here,
therefore we ask twohours after sunset
(24:08):
that you keep thenoise down at the
pool. So maybe it'snot a rule, it's a
guideline. Butyou've told people
what we're whatwe're about here.
Kevin Davis (24:15):
I think you nailed it right
there. When you'resaying, again, we're
talking about theenforcement of those
five little things,pets, parking, pool,
noise, those things,they could be more
guidelines, and instead of beingabsolutes, because
if you have moreguidelines, then
it's a degree offairness, as opposed
to just saying, no,no, no, no, no, but
(24:35):
you don't have tomake it so that it
makes sense in thelong Run, those are
the rules that hasto make sense and be
done without bias.
Because you gave meYou said something
earlier, is that,where's those rules?
There are biases.
What if you have arule that's 2030,
years old that saysno kids in the pool
without supervision,or something like
that, no kids in thepool? Well, you can't do that
(24:56):
anywhere. FairHousing Act says you
can't discriminateagainst children.
You. Uh, but you mayhave that in your
documents and neverupdated it, and you
may not know, because of theignorance part of
it, you may not knowthat they changed
the rule. You havedocuments out there
in an, you know, inthe 50s and 60s that
I've seen over timethat still have discriminating,
discriminating wording in thosedocuments. So you
can update, you gotto look and see,
(25:17):
wait a minute. Wecan no longer apply
these rules. Theydon't apply anymore,
because they're not fair,
Robert Nordlund (25:24):
right?
And so you get tothe you need to
appreciate, let'snot ignore, let's
edit and update.
Okay? Because thethe word check,
maybe you need tochange that to be
payment, and all ofthese different
words, because youwant to aim for
equal enforcement,and you can't have
(25:44):
one set of rules onthe side that you
just have all chosento ignore. But let me take you a
different path. Wehad a board hero
guest on the show afew weeks ago, and
he was talking abouttheir focus is to
try to focus. I forget what hisnumbers were, 90% on
business, 10% onenforcement, or 95
(26:05):
and five. You don'twant as a board to be known for
enforcement, but youdo want to be a
board who guides thecommunity forward
consistently andfairly. Can you give
us some help on that? Wow,
Kevin Davis (26:16):
90% on business. Well, if
you 90% on business,then business is
about enforcing therule. Again, you
have three jobs.
That's a good point.
Enforce the rules isnumber one, not number one means
this is one of them.
Maintain the association, andagain, if you are doing your job
properly, guess, guess what?
Enforcing the rules is not justenforceable flat
it's forcing themanagement of it,
(26:37):
the maintenance, themaking sure that you
have a maintenancecontract, make sure you have a
maintenance policythat you are looking
at, and say yourreserve study. You
have reserve study.
Are you ignoring it,you know, okay? Or
are you, you know?
Are you pickingpieces out and go,
Okay, I care aboutthe rules, but I
don't care about,you know, painting.
I care about a, butI care about B.
(26:58):
Yeah, you know, it'ssome people care
about certain thingsother than other and
what happens is youpick and you choose
which ones, whichones you feel are
the ones you shouldpay attention to.
And whenever you dothat, you end up
getting yourself introuble, because we
all have thesebiases inside of us
that says, you know,this is more important to me,
because my house gonna be valuedmore. We had a
situation years agowith a self facing porches were
(27:20):
destroyed because ofthe sun, and all of
a sudden we wantedto put new porches
in everywhere. Well,the people on the
other side said, myporch is okay. We
don't want to spendmoney on the porches
right. Now, most ofus who were on the
board that time wehad those porches,
and so our selfinterest, okay? Now
it wasn't wrong,okay, but it was. We
were a littlebiased, but we have
(27:41):
to understand thateven though we have
these rules there,there's a degree of
biasness to them.
And once we Okay,once we understand
that, it goes back.
Are we still being fair? Well,
Robert Nordlund (27:54):
I'm sensitive to that,
because that's myworld where we're
talking about thefront doors that get
hit by the sun andget deteriorated.
And yeah, we in thatkind of case, the
fairness is noteveryone gets their front door
refinished in thefifth year. The
fairness is we needto keep the doors to
a high standard. Andso the south facing
ones we need to resurface everyother year. The
(28:15):
north facing ones wecan resurface every
fourth year. It is,what are we trying
to accomplish, butmaking sure that you
are enforcing theright things? Hey,
during the break, wetalked about a
situation where youallow signs or banners, and then
all of a sudden youget into a situation
where there is something that isvery, I want to say,
(28:39):
inflammatory,something that is no
longer good. It'snice to put up Happy
Valentines, simpleit's up for a couple
weeks, or someholiday decorations,
a wreath on your front door, orwhatever it is. It's
something thatbuilds community and
just puts a smile onyour face. But what
about when it getsto political attacks
or Israel and HamasGaza, you know, where all of a
(29:04):
sudden you realizethis is getting out
of hand. How do youas a board member even begin to
address do we? Do wemake a new rule?
There's no signs totry to minimize to
bring peace. Wheredo you go with that?
Kevin Davis (29:19):
Yeah, and that's a good
question, becausethis is that one area where
ignorance, you go,Okay, I don't, we
don't know what todo. Because there
are situations, evenif you have just
political signs, youcould put a nasty
political sign overprofanity on it, you
know, I write thisfree speech. I could
put it say anythingI want to. Now, there's fantasy
living signs outthere that you put
out there, you know,you normally put out
(29:40):
there. Okay? We
Robert Nordlund (29:41):
come home after being away and we see
these signs out hereand think, what has
happened to my association. This
Kevin Davis (29:47):
is suggestion, and it's number one
suggestion we alwayshave, is to use a
professional gocontact a lawyer and
say we don't knowwhat to do, help us,
and then follow thelawyer's advice. The
problem. We have alot of times when
board members go tothe lawyers, the
lawyers will say, this is thesolution. And guess
what the boardmembers do, we don't
like that solution.
We're going to pullthe signs up anyway.
(30:08):
But that's ultimately theproblem is that the
lawyer will give youadvice that at the
end of the day, whenyou're walking past
that sign and somebody's yellingat you, as a board
president, said,Listen, we took an
advisement. Thelawyer said that we
do not have theright to do X, Y and
Z, or we do have theright to do X, Y and
Z, whatever. Thelawyer says, you can
walk around throughthat and feel better
(30:29):
about it, as opposedto you deciding that
I don't like thesigns, I'm pulling them up.
Robert Nordlund (30:33):
Yeah, I think that's a
very good point thatyou will get to a point right
actually, to ouraudience, I hope you
don't get to a pointwhere you got such a
big problem, youhave no idea what to
do. We want toencourage you to be
fair. And Kevin, yousaid it, sometimes
you can just feel that there isfairness at the
association. There'sunfairness. We want
(30:54):
you to be fair. Wewant you to be
reasonable. We wantyou to promote civility and
community. But if itgets out of hand, contact your
professional and getsome wise counsel, because
Kevin Davis (31:06):
at the end of the day, what
what this is allabout to me, and the
reason i i reallylove this topic is
because it's gonnasave you 1015, 20,
$30,000 just no defense costs inhere. It's just that
you want that judge.
You know what thatjudge says? That Board President
acted improperly, unfairly. Hediscriminated against me, he
bullied me, to harass me becausethat he made that rule up that
(31:28):
benefited him. Hedidn't have the
knowledge what he did was reallystupid. Judge said
last thing. When Ihear a judge said,
you right, you know,President did
something really waskind of stupid.
Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (31:42):
let's Hey, we don't have a
list of who ourpodcast audience is,
but every once in awhile, there's, there's an
association thatmakes the news for all the wrong
reasons. I hope it'snot one of our
podcast listeners.
So our podcast listeners, we'regoing to arm you
with the tools forsuccess. We want you
to be known forfairness, civility,
(32:03):
and knowing at theright time to go to
professionals for help. Kevin,fascinating. I we
may need to do moreon this, this topic,
but it's alwaysgreat talking with
you. Any closingthoughts to wrap it
up at this time.
Kevin Davis (32:18):
You know, it's funny,
are we look at ourpodcasts, they're
the same. Is thatwhat we want to do
is, please don'treact to everything
around you. Look attake a step back, lower the
temperature, and go,Okay, what's the
best way for us tohandle it? And if it
gets out of control,use a professional.
Don't make a decision yourself.
Use a professional.
They'll let you knowwhat to do. Follow
(32:39):
those documents.
Follow those ruleshere, there for a
reason. They're notsuggestions, they're
not guidelines,they're there for a
reason, and just dothe best job you can do. Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (32:49):
well, Kevin, you allowed
me to take a deepbreath and slow down, and you do
that for me. I hopethat you've done for
all our listenershere today. Well, we
hope you learnedsome HOA insights
from our discussionthat helps you bring
common sense to yourcommon areas. Thank
you for joining ustoday. We look
forward to bringingmany more episodes
to you, week afterweek after week.
We'll be here, andit'll be great to
(33:10):
have you join us ona regular basis.
Spread the word.
Thanks.
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Robert Nordlund (00:26):
Hi.
I'm Robert Nordlundof association reserves, and I'm
Kevin Davis (00:29):
Kevin Davis of Kevin Davis
Insurance Services.
And this is HOAInsights, where we
promote common sense for common
Robert Nordlund (00:36):
areas.
Welcome to Episode102 where we're
again speaking withinsurance expert and
regular co host,Kevin Davis, to make
sure you have all the rightinformation at the
right time to makethe right decisions
for the future ofyour association.
Every week, we wantyour association to
benefit from thestories, insights
and answers we'reable to share here.
(00:57):
This helps you ourpodcast audience, to
be well informed andto be well prepared
for the challengesthat you address
every time you thinkabout leading your
association forward.
Well, last week'sepisode number 101,
featured a greatinterview with Steve
Horvath as younoticed a passionate
advocate for boardmember transparency
(01:17):
and accountability.
If you missed thatepisode or any other
prior episode, takea moment after
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(01:37):
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Can see the HOAinsights mug that I
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(02:22):
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address. You canalways contact us at
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(02:49):
now today's episode comes from aquestion submitted
by Jim from Denver,Colorado, who stated, I'm
confused. I knowwe're supposed to enforce rules
consistently, butsome just don't matter. Plus, we
don't want to spend all our timeenforcing rules.
Where's the happy medium? Andfortunately, Kevin,
(03:11):
this is in yourwheelhouse. So where
do we start on this one? All
Kevin Davis (03:15):
right, this is definitely
in our wheelhouse,because we, as you
know, for years,we've been talking
is, all we do is protect boardmembers from liability, and the
number one area thatI hate spending claims on and
defending are whenyou have unequal
enforcement of thedocuments. And this,
and this is theproblem that most
people believe in communityassociations, that
(03:37):
the rules thatoutline in documents
are suggestions.
This is how weshould behave, but
we have a choice.
Okay, okay, so wegot to start from
that point. Rightoff the bat, they
believe there arerules or suggestions
that they have a choice. You
Robert Nordlund (03:53):
know, what's I'm thinking
now? I'm distracted.
Uh, wasn't that aCaptain Sparrow line
in one of the Pirates of theCaribbean movies. I
think he said, Yeah,that's a problem. I
think they're morejust guidelines.
Kevin Davis (04:08):
Yeah, guidelines, exactly,
and that's But that's it, andthat's what it all
boils down to. Andthis is the problem,
when you have guidelines and wehave suggestions, and this would
always leads to, isthat, how do you
decide which onesare right or wrong?
This is the key.
It's three reasonswhy I decided right
or wrong me as the presidentAssociation. Number
one is based onignorance, okay, I
(04:29):
didn't know. Youknow, nobody told me
the rules were thatway. Number two,
arrogance. You knowwhat? It's okay to
do it. You knowthey're not gonna
bother you anyway, or plan onstupidity. What?
Well, you mean, Ican't do that, and
so that's why therules are there.
Walk
Robert Nordlund (04:48):
me through this,
because you want tohave, we have a lot
of people living inin a condominium in
a small, physicalspace. Okay? So
there's going to betension even. In a big plan
development. Hoa,they may not, you
may not be tighttogether, but you're
all sharing the economies of theassociation. We work
(05:11):
together for the road, the guardhouse, the clubhouse, and you
are together incommunity. So you
need, you need rulesto say, this is what
we're all about, andthis is okay, and
this is not okay,the boundaries, the
guardrails. So yousaid three things,
ignorance of rules.
I understand thatarrogance where,
yeah, they don'tapply to me. Ooh,
(05:32):
I'm new. I'm newhere. I'm on the
board. I have thebiggest house, I
have the best view.
They don't apply tome. And stoke number
three, stupidity.
Kevin Davis (05:43):
Stupidity is the worst one,
because that meansthey know the rules.
They were ignorant in the rules.
Sometimes they theyconflict, but, but
what happens is thatthey end up doing
something. They pushtheir chest out, you
know what? I finallytowed that car away,
that's been parking and visitorsparking, and as soon
they pull that carin there, boom. I
told it away. Icalled a tow truck
up. I told him I wastired of doing him.
Did you get propernotification? Well,
(06:04):
I told him to stopdoing him. Well, you
know, you got togive notification.
Yep, I got tired of giving anotification. I was
Robert Nordlund (06:11):
thinking about arrogance on
the side of the rulebreaker, but no,
you're talking aboutarrogance on the
side or the Mercer board. This
Kevin Davis (06:21):
is this? Okay? I get
rules or suggestionsand guidelines.
Okay? I'm the president ofassociation. Okay?
Now there are fiveareas that I've notified that we
that they break therules all the time.
Okay? There arepets, parking, pool,
and I mean pool, Imean all amenities, not just the
Robert Nordlund (06:41):
pool, but but noise, yeah, I like your
alliteration. Noise,
Kevin Davis (06:46):
okay.
And signs those,those like the five
ones that we you go,Oh my god, I can't
believe because theylook at the rules as
suggestions. End upcosting me 10,$15,000 to defend
it. And that's theproblem. Okay?
Robert Nordlund (07:00):
Now I understand some.
Well, let's go backa few months. We had
an election, and Iunderstand some
people are adamant for Biden andadamant for Trump
and their neighbors.
They share offense,and it's one thing
to say I'm reallyfor change, or I'm
really for the currentadministration,
whatever you I getthat. I don't mind
(07:20):
someone, you know,having an opinion,
but wow, for it tocost $10,000 because
you get into a spatabout a sign, but think about
Kevin Davis (07:31):
it.
Okay, three different things,okay, ignorance.
Wow, they have signsout. Am I should I
say anything? Do Ileave it alone? What
rule is there forme? For I'm a board
president. I don'tknow what to do with
the signs out there.
You're right. Yougot two signs, yeah,
one on this. I don'tknow what to do. So that's plain
ignorance, because you don't doanything. Doing nothing is a
decision. Okay? Nowyou go to arrogance,
(07:52):
right? I like thisguy, not the other
guy. I'm pulling upall the other guys
things becausethey're in violation
because of the sizethese guys are their
size, illegal. Theother guys have
banners. They fitthe requirements of
the banner. Okay, stupidity, you
Robert Nordlund (08:09):
got me rubbing my head
here. I'm thinkingnow of boards who
say, Okay, what?
What are the colors?
Let's say they'reTrump. People is
Trump? Oh, Trump isred, right? Yeah,
okay. And so they'resaying red signs are
okay. Let's make arule that red signs
are okay. You can'tbe doing that.
You've got to bethis is fairly part of
Kevin Davis (08:26):
it, stupidity. Part of
it is, say thisstupidity. They say
that those are signsand the others are
banners. Okay, theblue signs had to be
banners. Look atthey craft a little
bit differently, andthe stick is a
little bit higher. Imean, again,
ignorance is just, Idon't know what to
do. You know, thosesigns are there, and
I don't know what todo. Arrogance.
(08:47):
Again, arrogance,the same thing. I
love these guyssign. They can put
them out, but I'mgoing to pull up everyone as the
president of theassociation. I'm
pulling up all thesigns I don't like.
And they got stupidity, whereeverybody could be.
I'm in charge finesto, you know, to the
other color guyssometimes. So in
other words, it's like, I can'tbelieve you did
something like that.
Is the stupiditypart, and these are
the ones that costyou $10,000 because
(09:09):
at the end of theday, you're not
asking for damages.
You're saying, willyou please judge
tell them how idiotand competent they
are for doing what they
Robert Nordlund (09:18):
did.
Kevin, I think I'mstill stuck in
trying to create anordered community where we have
neighbors. Youtalked about signs,
and now I'm thinkingabout the guy who's
a lifetime marineand he served in so
many places heserved. What do you
say, honorably,vigilantly, and he
wants his MarineCorps. What color is
(09:41):
that flag? I thinkit's red. He wants
his Marine Corpsflag out. But you
have, like, no flagspolicy or rule,
yeah, where do youwhere do you bend
and you want to say,Geez Louise, if we
didn't have Marineslike Fred, we wouldn't have this
country. Is that arule? Problem, or is
that an enforcement this
Kevin Davis (10:01):
is what this is. Go back to
the beginning, and you asked thequestion, Why? Why
you have the rulesanyway? Okay? And
we're talking aboutstability in your association,
consistency. But thekey thing is that
you want to feel this fairnessthroughout the association, and
that's the key. Thekey is that if you
were a board the directors ofCommunity Association, and you
(10:23):
have a group ofrules, okay? The key
is that you want togive the illusion
that you're beingfair. So you want to force them
uniformly, consistent,consistently, okay?
And so you can saythat this, here's a
guy here, that we want to make adifference between
this person's signas persons would he
accomplish? Theproblem is, once you
(10:43):
start doing it now,so you put a one out
there that you don'tlike, what the neighbors don't
like, then whathappens? Then, all
of a sudden, there's a degree ofunfairness about
him. And that's thekey is, do you create an
unfairness? Andthat's what we talk
about communityassociations, are
you being fair? Andwhen you go to court
(11:05):
and you start defending yourselfon the rules, the
question is, well,is it a reasonable rule? Is it
reasonable? Is itreasonable to say,
shut this down? Isit reasonable to
say, this guy's okayto put his symbol
outside, but it'snot okay to put a
another symbol. Andwe have, we see a lot during the
holiday season,okay, right? You put
Christmas treelights up, but then
(11:26):
somebody else mightput up a Jewish sign
up, but then you putanother sign up, and
then one, you know,and then all of a
sudden you go, okay, yeah, makedecisions. Where do
you draw the line?
And again, we'll talk aboutsomething, how to
get around that atthe end of this thing. But right
now, I really want to define theproblem. And the problem is that
they're not guidelines. They'rethere for a reason.
(11:48):
They're there tocreate structure for
your community association. Webring consistency and stability,
because that way, ifyou want to buy a place in my
community association, you'regonna look around
and go, Okay, youknow the rules are
enforced. Even Idon't like them.
They enforce uniformly. Nowhere's where the big
problem comes intoplay, Robert, we
didn't talk about this from thefinancial side. Now,
(12:12):
what happens if therules are not enforced uniformly
on the financialside, when it comes
to assessments, when it comes toreserves, you know,
when it comes tolate fees, when it comes to non
payments, that'swhere you're getting
your big problemthere. You know, we
talk about thingslike, you know,
parking and pets andthose things are kind of silly
things. I call them,you know, I say as
(12:33):
from a stupiditypoint of view. You
know, I'm tired ofkids getting the
pool between twoo'clock and 12 to two, and I'm
working, they can'tgo in the pool
anymore at 12 to twobecause I'm working
here to make toomuch noise. I'm the
president. Don't youagree with Robert?
Because you're thevice president,
you're working fromhome. Yeah, the pool
and obviously wepass the law, not
law office. Can be a12 to two Monday through Friday,
(12:55):
because we workwell, you can't do
that. Yes, that'sthis. Well, again,
is that stupidity?
Is it ignorance?
Sometimes it couldbe a combination of
both. The problem isthat the rules are
there for a reasonto stop you from making bad
decisions, stop youfrom all of a sudden
reacting. And Iguess that's one of
the reasons too,Robert, is that you
(13:15):
know when you have arule and you're
seeing something asa president, as a
board member, youdon't like, we react
to it. First thingwe do, we react. I
can't believe theydoing that. You
know, we got to dosomething about
them, and we don'tdo it uniformly
because we like weall have that person
in association thatwe don't like, okay?
But the ones we dolike, Aha, we give
them that littlepass. And that's
(13:37):
where the problem comes into
Robert Nordlund (13:39):
play.
One of the thingsyou said, hit a nerve, and I
realized I am muchmore prejudiced than
I thought I was. Istarted going down
the things that I'veseen, the things
that irritate me.
And yeah, there arethings that, when
push comes to shove,that are going to
irritate anybody.
And the question is,and you, you said
(14:01):
it. You want to haverules that bring consistency and
stability. We'vetalked in the past
about civility, theabsence of civility,
or the decline incivility. How we
want to bring peace?
We want to bring,yeah, we want to
bring safety and security to ourcommunity to our community
association, makethem inviting and
(14:23):
not have them be just a littleboiling teapot of
tempers over here onthe side, I want to
go somewhere thatyou started to talk
about. You talkedabout the rules,
pets, parking, pooland amenities, noise
and signs, and youstarted to say they're different
from the ones thatare fundamental to
the association. Andhelp me with that.
(14:43):
When I think aboutfundamental to the
association, you need to incomestream. So there needs to be the
assessments are dueon the first they're
late by the 10th, orwhatever. The thing is at your
association, isthere a completely
different set ofrules? If they are
financial, or if they're in thebylaws or the
(15:04):
governing documents,which ones are
simple, malleable,changeable, editable
rules, and whichones you really have
to stand on. You
Kevin Davis (15:15):
know how I say that the Board Member
responsibility, have threeresponsibility, force the rules,
maintain the association right,and financial
collect assessments.
Those are three bigthings you have to
do. Okay? Now, wherethey had the problem
is with ruleenforcement. Because
their problem ofrule enforcement is
they they want to benice people. They
want to be light ifthey don't do anything that they
(15:37):
would give the hardmessage. So rule
enforcement is easyto say, well, it's
not that big, animportant rule. So
if that's the onethat they don't,
they kind of likeit's such a, yes,
it's a guideline.
Now we talk aboutmaintenance and we
talk about financialthose are things you
gotta obey. Becausethose are things is
the life blood ofthe association.
When it comes to maintainingassociation with
(15:59):
climate, collectingmoney, you're gonna have to be
consistent, and youhave to be stable,
because when youtalk about money,
okay, people getupset, like, for
example, one of thebig issues to talk
about late fees. I didn't pay myassessments on time.
Okay, when do youcharge late fees?
Okay? Well, you cansay that, you know,
say five days later,or 10 days later,
one day later. Do you give greatspirits? You don't
give great spirits.
(16:20):
You know, thequestion is, is that
what? How do youperform? How do you
make that decisions?
Well, they probablywritten down what
decisions are. Butover time, what happened to that
board is that theysay, Okay, we gotta,
we'll be strict now,because we need the
money immediately,we're gonna start
charging a finewithin 24 hours they
haven't paid it.
Now, what happens tothat rule is it? Is
it? Can they enforceit? Is it important?
(16:41):
Well, those are kindof rules that are
more important thanOkay, did you have a
pet policy? Did youhave a parking
policy? Did you havea policy about, you
know, the signs andeverything at the
end of the day, thebig ones when it
comes to maintenanceand when it comes to
financial issues,I've been paid for
six months now. Whatdo you do board, how
do you enforce it?
(17:02):
What do you do? Andit's come to part by
the ignorance part.
Wow, we don't knowwhat to do. He hasn't paid
assessments of sixmonths. What do we
do? Ignorance is abig problem when it
comes to enforcingyours consistently
and uniformly. Italways goes back to
that situation whereyou know, the last
board didn't do it.
So why should we start doing it?
Robert Nordlund (17:23):
And do we want to be the
bad? Do we want tobe known as the bad
guys? It would bethe bad you get the
the minefield of,okay, on the first
of the month, we'regoing to start enforcing the no
parking in the firezone in the fire lane rule. And
wouldn't you know,it happens to be the
person who's alwaysdisruptive at the
(17:43):
board meetings, whois the first one to
do that, and you think, oh geez,Louise, it's going
to look like we'regoing to we're being
harsh on thatperson, when indeed
it's only because he's the firstperson after the
first of the month
Kevin Davis (17:56):
to and then what happened?
You don't enforce itthat first day, and
everybody sees youand enforce it. Then
what happens? Thenyou're losing all
your authority.
Okay, you lose andthat's what happens
when you have therules, especially
the two major ones, when the topmaintenance and
financial, if youdon't enforce those
things uniformly,consistently, what
happens is, is thatthey start to diminish, and then
all of a sudden, youhave an association.
(18:17):
When you're goingwhat happened to our
association? Whatused to be, well
run. It used to bevibrant. It used to
be worth a lot moremoney than it was,
than it is now.
Wham, to the value of our condo.
Robert Nordlund (18:27):
Kevin, yeah, your world may
be more in theoffice. My world is
generally more goingto properties. And when I go to
Properties, I sizethem up in the first
five minutes, and Ican tell which
associations are theWild West. You can
often see it in thebalconies Southern
California. I seesurfboards, I see towels, I see
different things inWindows. And all of
(18:49):
a sudden I realizethis association
doesn't care. Let'sgo further down this
path. I want to figure outsolutions. Yeah, I
guess solutions. AndI have many more
questions, but I want to get thesolutions. But it's
time to take a breakto hear from one of our generous
sponsors, afterwhich we'll be back
with more commonsense for common areas tired
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Robert Nordlund (19:44):
and we're back. Well,
everyone listeninghere doesn't know
that Kevin and Ispent a lot of time
in the break talkingabout where we could
go with this,because we're still
trying to figurethis out. But I want
to get to solutions.
Kevin, you introduced the ideaof some things are
warmth. Importantthan others, just
the finances of theassociation. And I
know there's someassociations that
(20:06):
have rules of howmany pets you can
have. Does threegoldfish in a fish
bowl count as pets?
And don't want to godown that path and
fight that battle,but how do we get to
the point of havingsolutions where you
are helping theassociation, and you
said it earlier, howdo how do we help
our board memberaudience listening
(20:26):
to this, bring consistency,stability and maximize property
values to theircommunity? Again,
Kevin Davis (20:34):
we divide up into the
three areas. Okay.
Number one, enforcing of therules. To me, enforcement of the
rules is about fairness. Are webeing fair to people
who live there? Dothey have a feeling
that life is beingfair? Okay? If they
have that feelinglife being fair,
then you're doing apretty good job of
enforcing the rulesconsistently.
Ukrainian stabilityin that association.
(20:56):
So that's the mostimportant thing the other two
definitely. We talkabout maintenance.
You talk aboutfinancial situations
you want to have, Iwould say, enforce
those things to thehill. I mean, you're
going to have to,because once you
deviate from eitherone of those, property values
diminish. And yousaid that early walk
into an association.
You know, rightafter that, if that
association ismaintained or not,
(21:16):
if I take a stepback and start using
rules that guidelinesuggestions. I'm going to make
suggestions and thatare not going to be
in the best interestassociation. So you
can start diminishyou see diminishing
returns. So if I'mthe board president,
might have one jobto enforce the rules
uniformly and consistently. Sothat's the key thing
for me. Now we'regoing to talk about
(21:39):
solutions. And tome, the number one
solution is you haveto have a well
written enforcement policy. And
Robert Nordlund (21:49):
that sounds like something that goes
from year to year,board to board, and
it gives Julie hastalked about, like a
mission statement.
We are happy valleyvillas. We are known
for this. Here's ourlogo. Here are our
colors and whateverit is. And this the
enforcement policyis the same kind of
(22:10):
thing where it just guides theassociation forward.
And hey, just theway we do things here, yep.
Kevin Davis (22:15):
And you can change it as
time goes on, youknow, now suddenly
you have, you livein a post COVID
world. You can say,Listen, you know, from 12 to two
o'clock we're goingto close everything,
and we'll close everything, andbecause people are
working, and now itmay not go over
well, but instead ofsaying from 12 to no
children, we can say12 to two nobody. We
want to close wethink that's a great
(22:36):
idea. I get theseare rules that the
the board and thepeople who live
there can agree uponthat, you know, or
go back to the petsyou know, well, we
don't, we don'tthink you're gonna
have pets, but a petis okay. A pet is
less than 25 pounds,okay, and less than
25 pounds or 10pounds, whatever it
(22:56):
is. And the keything is to enforce those rules
consistently without exceptions.
Robert Nordlund (23:03):
My My pen is just about
smoking with all thenotes I'm taking here. Okay, I
understand that. Andokay, let's go.
Let's talk aboutrules. I have seen
when we get packagesof governing documents from
Association, sometimes they giveus the rules, and I
see some rules thatare good and some
that look like theyare 2030, years old.
And I don't like the2030 years old. And
(23:25):
just one thing thatwe've done is appreciate that
sometimes we seethat our policy has
been that the checkmust be received by
and we can't usethat word anymore,
because half of ourpeople, half of the
people paying us are paying uselectronically. So just
technologically, youneed to update your
(23:45):
rules. And like yousaid, with more people at home,
maybe you need tosay the rules during
the week for thepool are different
from the rules onthe weekend. And
maybe you have apreamble to your
rules that give kindof a mission or a
feel that talk aboutwe we try to be peaceful here,
therefore we ask twohours after sunset
(24:08):
that you keep thenoise down at the
pool. So maybe it'snot a rule, it's a
guideline. Butyou've told people
what we're whatwe're about here.
Kevin Davis (24:15):
I think you nailed it right
there. When you'resaying, again, we're
talking about theenforcement of those
five little things,pets, parking, pool,
noise, those things,they could be more
guidelines, and instead of beingabsolutes, because
if you have moreguidelines, then
it's a degree offairness, as opposed
to just saying, no,no, no, no, no, but
(24:35):
you don't have tomake it so that it
makes sense in thelong Run, those are
the rules that hasto make sense and be
done without bias.
Because you gave meYou said something
earlier, is that,where's those rules?
There are biases.
What if you have arule that's 2030,
years old that saysno kids in the pool
without supervision,or something like
that, no kids in thepool? Well, you can't do that
(24:56):
anywhere. FairHousing Act says you
can't discriminateagainst children.
You. Uh, but you mayhave that in your
documents and neverupdated it, and you
may not know, because of theignorance part of
it, you may not knowthat they changed
the rule. You havedocuments out there
in an, you know, inthe 50s and 60s that
I've seen over timethat still have discriminating,
discriminating wording in thosedocuments. So you
can update, you gotto look and see,
(25:17):
wait a minute. Wecan no longer apply
these rules. Theydon't apply anymore,
because they're not fair,
Robert Nordlund (25:24):
right?
And so you get tothe you need to
appreciate, let'snot ignore, let's
edit and update.
Okay? Because thethe word check,
maybe you need tochange that to be
payment, and all ofthese different
words, because youwant to aim for
equal enforcement,and you can't have
(25:44):
one set of rules onthe side that you
just have all chosento ignore. But let me take you a
different path. Wehad a board hero
guest on the show afew weeks ago, and
he was talking abouttheir focus is to
try to focus. I forget what hisnumbers were, 90% on
business, 10% onenforcement, or 95
(26:05):
and five. You don'twant as a board to be known for
enforcement, but youdo want to be a
board who guides thecommunity forward
consistently andfairly. Can you give
us some help on that? Wow,
Kevin Davis (26:16):
90% on business. Well, if
you 90% on business,then business is
about enforcing therule. Again, you
have three jobs.
That's a good point.
Enforce the rules isnumber one, not number one means
this is one of them.
Maintain the association, andagain, if you are doing your job
properly, guess, guess what?
Enforcing the rules is not justenforceable flat
it's forcing themanagement of it,
(26:37):
the maintenance, themaking sure that you
have a maintenancecontract, make sure you have a
maintenance policythat you are looking
at, and say yourreserve study. You
have reserve study.
Are you ignoring it,you know, okay? Or
are you, you know?
Are you pickingpieces out and go,
Okay, I care aboutthe rules, but I
don't care about,you know, painting.
I care about a, butI care about B.
(26:58):
Yeah, you know, it'ssome people care
about certain thingsother than other and
what happens is youpick and you choose
which ones, whichones you feel are
the ones you shouldpay attention to.
And whenever you dothat, you end up
getting yourself introuble, because we
all have thesebiases inside of us
that says, you know,this is more important to me,
because my house gonna be valuedmore. We had a
situation years agowith a self facing porches were
(27:20):
destroyed because ofthe sun, and all of
a sudden we wantedto put new porches
in everywhere. Well,the people on the
other side said, myporch is okay. We
don't want to spendmoney on the porches
right. Now, most ofus who were on the
board that time wehad those porches,
and so our selfinterest, okay? Now
it wasn't wrong,okay, but it was. We
were a littlebiased, but we have
(27:41):
to understand thateven though we have
these rules there,there's a degree of
biasness to them.
And once we Okay,once we understand
that, it goes back.
Are we still being fair? Well,
Robert Nordlund (27:54):
I'm sensitive to that,
because that's myworld where we're
talking about thefront doors that get
hit by the sun andget deteriorated.
And yeah, we in thatkind of case, the
fairness is noteveryone gets their front door
refinished in thefifth year. The
fairness is we needto keep the doors to
a high standard. Andso the south facing
ones we need to resurface everyother year. The
(28:15):
north facing ones wecan resurface every
fourth year. It is,what are we trying
to accomplish, butmaking sure that you
are enforcing theright things? Hey,
during the break, wetalked about a
situation where youallow signs or banners, and then
all of a sudden youget into a situation
where there is something that isvery, I want to say,
(28:39):
inflammatory,something that is no
longer good. It'snice to put up Happy
Valentines, simpleit's up for a couple
weeks, or someholiday decorations,
a wreath on your front door, orwhatever it is. It's
something thatbuilds community and
just puts a smile onyour face. But what
about when it getsto political attacks
or Israel and HamasGaza, you know, where all of a
(29:04):
sudden you realizethis is getting out
of hand. How do youas a board member even begin to
address do we? Do wemake a new rule?
There's no signs totry to minimize to
bring peace. Wheredo you go with that?
Kevin Davis (29:19):
Yeah, and that's a good
question, becausethis is that one area where
ignorance, you go,Okay, I don't, we
don't know what todo. Because there
are situations, evenif you have just
political signs, youcould put a nasty
political sign overprofanity on it, you
know, I write thisfree speech. I could
put it say anythingI want to. Now, there's fantasy
living signs outthere that you put
out there, you know,you normally put out
(29:40):
there. Okay? We
Robert Nordlund (29:41):
come home after being away and we see
these signs out hereand think, what has
happened to my association. This
Kevin Davis (29:47):
is suggestion, and it's number one
suggestion we alwayshave, is to use a
professional gocontact a lawyer and
say we don't knowwhat to do, help us,
and then follow thelawyer's advice. The
problem. We have alot of times when
board members go tothe lawyers, the
lawyers will say, this is thesolution. And guess
what the boardmembers do, we don't
like that solution.
We're going to pullthe signs up anyway.
(30:08):
But that's ultimately theproblem is that the
lawyer will give youadvice that at the
end of the day, whenyou're walking past
that sign and somebody's yellingat you, as a board
president, said,Listen, we took an
advisement. Thelawyer said that we
do not have theright to do X, Y and
Z, or we do have theright to do X, Y and
Z, whatever. Thelawyer says, you can
walk around throughthat and feel better
(30:29):
about it, as opposedto you deciding that
I don't like thesigns, I'm pulling them up.
Robert Nordlund (30:33):
Yeah, I think that's a
very good point thatyou will get to a point right
actually, to ouraudience, I hope you
don't get to a pointwhere you got such a
big problem, youhave no idea what to
do. We want toencourage you to be
fair. And Kevin, yousaid it, sometimes
you can just feel that there isfairness at the
association. There'sunfairness. We want
(30:54):
you to be fair. Wewant you to be
reasonable. We wantyou to promote civility and
community. But if itgets out of hand, contact your
professional and getsome wise counsel, because
Kevin Davis (31:06):
at the end of the day, what
what this is allabout to me, and the
reason i i reallylove this topic is
because it's gonnasave you 1015, 20,
$30,000 just no defense costs inhere. It's just that
you want that judge.
You know what thatjudge says? That Board President
acted improperly, unfairly. Hediscriminated against me, he
bullied me, to harass me becausethat he made that rule up that
(31:28):
benefited him. Hedidn't have the
knowledge what he did was reallystupid. Judge said
last thing. When Ihear a judge said,
you right, you know,President did
something really waskind of stupid.
Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (31:42):
let's Hey, we don't have a
list of who ourpodcast audience is,
but every once in awhile, there's, there's an
association thatmakes the news for all the wrong
reasons. I hope it'snot one of our
podcast listeners.
So our podcast listeners, we'regoing to arm you
with the tools forsuccess. We want you
to be known forfairness, civility,
(32:03):
and knowing at theright time to go to
professionals for help. Kevin,fascinating. I we
may need to do moreon this, this topic,
but it's alwaysgreat talking with
you. Any closingthoughts to wrap it
up at this time.
Kevin Davis (32:18):
You know, it's funny,
are we look at ourpodcasts, they're
the same. Is thatwhat we want to do
is, please don'treact to everything
around you. Look attake a step back, lower the
temperature, and go,Okay, what's the
best way for us tohandle it? And if it
gets out of control,use a professional.
Don't make a decision yourself.
Use a professional.
They'll let you knowwhat to do. Follow
(32:39):
those documents.
Follow those ruleshere, there for a
reason. They're notsuggestions, they're
not guidelines,they're there for a
reason, and just dothe best job you can do. Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (32:49):
well, Kevin, you allowed
me to take a deepbreath and slow down, and you do
that for me. I hopethat you've done for
all our listenershere today. Well, we
hope you learnedsome HOA insights
from our discussionthat helps you bring
common sense to yourcommon areas. Thank
you for joining ustoday. We look
forward to bringingmany more episodes
to you, week afterweek after week.
We'll be here, andit'll be great to
(33:10):
have you join us ona regular basis.
Spread the word.
Thanks.
Announcer (33:18):
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(34:01):
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