Posted on 03/27/2024 5:32:33 AM PDT by Twotone
BEAVERTON, Ore. — A group of Beaverton homeowners, facing thousands of dollars in fines from their neighborhood's HOA board, tried to remove their board president from his position — only for the board to change the neighborhood's bylaws the very next day, making it "essentially impossible" to be removed from power.
An attorney representing the HOA board told KGW that the homeowners' actions don't represent the entire community, as some people have been pleased with the 'clean-up' of the neighborhood, but the conflict highlights the delicate balance of power between neighborhoods and the associations that run them.
Homeowners associations, or HOAs, are mandatory neighborhood organizations that collect dues from homeowners to pay for things like landscaping and general maintenance. They set their own rules and punishment for violations, collecting dues and issuing fines — not too dissimilar from a local government agency.
However, as a private entity, HOAs lack the same level of accountability and oversight — which some residents are quickly finding out.
About 33 families live within the Cooper Mountain Estates HOA in Beaverton, south of Aloha, including Sam Sheikh and his wife, who have owned their suburban neighborhood home since 2008. They recently began renting it out to a retired military member and his family. Credit: Stephen Wozny (KGW) An aerial shot of homes in a Beaverton neighborhood that's partly governed by the Cooper Mountain Estates HOA.
For 15 years, Sheikh said they had no problems with the neighborhood’s HOA, then last year, new neighbors took charge of the 3-person HOA board.
"Right now, we're looking at $10,150 (in fines), last time I checked, and it’s continuing to go up," he said.
It started in the garage. Sheikh’s tenant liked to do woodworking there.
In September, the HOA board sent Sheikh multiple violations and fines — up to $1,350 dollars a week — saying the tenant was operating a woodworking business, that he couldn’t fit two cars in the garage, and that woodworking was proof of "habitation" in the garage — all HOA violations.
"We said, 'This is not habitation; this is occasional. This is a wood-working hobby. We don't believe that we're in any violation,'" Sheikh said.
Sheikh said he was also fined for a dead patch of grass, which they had covered with stone pavers after checking with the prior board.
And then, the HOA board issued fines for who was living in the neighborhood.
KGW talked with multiple families who were penalized for having older family members, like parents-in-law, living with them. The HOA board fined families $300 per week for using their homes as "multi-family dwellings."
“The board asked for specifics — names, cars, license plates, all personal details from every person in there, and you can imagine it was kind of humiliating, but we didn't want to get fined," Sheikh said.
Some residents told KGW they moved out of the neighborhood because of these fines and other board decisions. Others asked for their interviews not to be shown on camera because they’re trying to get their fines reduced or removed and are worried about retaliation.
For Sheikh, the violations seemed petty and personal.
"We felt targeted, as other families have felt as well, and certainly, the tenant felt targeted," he said. "I felt that everything we did wouldn't be satisfactory, and this was proved true."
On October 17, a group of frustrated homeowners sent the HOA board a letter requesting a special meeting. They said they wanted to vote to remove board’s president, and per the HOA bylaws, they represented more than 25% of the outstanding vote needed to do so.
The very next day, board president Martin Anderson called a special meeting of his own.
According to board meeting minutes from October 18, Anderson and one other board member voted to change the bylaws, adopting an amendment that would "change the percentage of owners who could call a special meeting of the owners to 50%" and "change the percentage of owners necessary to establish a quorum at meetings of the owners to 90%."
Per the minutes, Anderson then rejected the homeowners' request for a special meeting for not complying with the prior bylaws.
Sheikh told KGW this was because the homeowners had not physically signed the document calling for a special meeting, and by the time they could rectify that, the new bylaws were in place, making recall "essentially impossible."
"When homeowners found out that the thresholds had been changed without notice to us, we were all shocked," he said.
In early March, KGW talked with HOA president Martin Anderson on the phone, requesting an interview so he could explain his perspective. Anderson explained that the new board wanted to crack down on late dues and costs, such as paying too much for landscaping, and that he felt the neighborhood had gone downhill in recent years.
However, Anderson did not agree to an on-camera interview that day, and since then has not responded to KGW's messages.
A letter from the Cooper Mountain Estates HOA Board of Directors to homeowners from September 17 detailed some of the board's thinking: The board had fired the previous management company, adopted new enforcement and fine standards, started investigating its community maintenance obligations, and requested homeowners to pay any late dues and send photos of violations around the neighborhood to the board.
Chris Tingey, an attorney representing the Cooper Mountain Estates HOA Board, did talk with KGW about a week after this article was initially published. Tingey said the neighborhood's rules were designed by the developer years ago and that there is community support for the board's actions.
"The story at Cooper Mountain told one side of the story, it didn't tell the other side of all the people that wanted to clean up the condition of the property," Tingey said. "They have narrow roads, for example, and so the parking issue is we need to get cars off the streets and we need to get them in garages and in driveways so that it's safe and habitable ... covenants create these responsibilities, they create these restrictions to allow property values to maintain and go up."
In November, a few weeks after the change to the bylaws, Sam Sheikh received two more fines, saying his tenant was "observed from the street performing work on their truck" — a violation of "dismantling or assembling motor vehicles" in an area that's not "screened from view."
The other violation said "the garage is being used for performing repairs on an automobile (which involves habitation of the garage by a person while the repairs are being performed.)"
“It's endless trying to chase these things, exhausting," Sheikh said. "It has really affected the quality of our lives."
After this round of violations, Sheikh’s tenants decided to move out, writing in a message that was later shared with the board: "The harassment of the HOA has made us feel very uncomfortable and has forced us to look for a new place to live ... these claims are outrageous, and the discrimination is appalling."
Sheikh said it was clear to him there's a lack of oversight for HOAs.
"Boy, this just screams of abuse, right? Or it suggests that this entire system in the wrong hands, with the wrong people serving these positions for the wrong reason, could damage a community," Sheikh said.
HOAs are largely unregulated, and as private organizations, the government sees any disputes as private matters.
Kevin Harker, an attorney with Harker Lepore who specializes in HOA law, said most HOA board members are volunteers trying their best to help their community.
"The way I view the directors' role is to preserve property values and preserve the aesthetics of the community," Harker said.
When there is conflict between board members and homeowners, Harker explained, government agencies don’t have the legal authority to get involved. Ultimately, a civil lawsuit is the last recourse.
"If the government had to get involved in enforcing these, that’s all they would do," he said. "Our firm alone deals with dispute after dispute, and frankly, when you can’t resolve it, ultimately, a judge does. Litigation is expensive though; it’s emotional and it can hold up sales in the community."
Both Washington County and the City of Beaverton declined on-camera interviews to explain why government agencies would not be able to intervene or provide oversight in matters such as this one, barring a significant risk to public safety.
Harker recommends that homeowners pay close attention to their HOA's codes and regulations, volunteer on the board and track board finances, and do anything possible to resolve disputes amicably.
"When you choose to move into one of these, you're giving up some rights and agreeing to do some things," Harker said. "If you've got to go through litigation with your neighbor, you'll never be civil or friends again, so if there's a way to resolve it through mediation, I'm a huge advocate of that."
Helen Leek, a realtor with 36 years of experience who has been president of her neighborhood's HOA, told KGW after the initial airing of this story that she had never read HOA bylaws that gave so much power to board members at the expense of homeowners.
"Their bylaws were just so rigid and gave homeowners very little latitude to do anything about the board of directors," she said. "Deeply weighted to dictatorial as opposed to community grassroots."
Leek added that she believes the Cooper Mountain case is not representative of most HOAs, which she believes can be very positive for a neighborhood if run well with community involvement.
"A home is one of the biggest investments someone is going to make, you want to guard that and you want to keep the community looking good and the yards in good shape and broken-down vehicles not parked on the street, that's what an HOA does for you," Leek said.
Across the country, it’s increasingly common that new homeowners will buy an HOA-governed property.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 84% of new, single-family homes sold in 2022 belonged to HOAs.
Sheikh said he feels that his situation is a warning sign.
"We simply don't know who to turn to other than going to a lawyer to help us defend ourselves," he said. "I thought we were a community, and now, it's become us versus them."
I have only once lived within an HOA run neighborhood amd never will again.
They fined us when we did not ask the HOA “architectual review comittee” before we painted the house with a color we did not consult them about.
Then, although our property backed up against a many acre sight that was a preserve owned by the Audubon Society, we were not allowed to put up a chain link fence across the back property line (we wanted so we could enjoy the nature preserve behind us) and were forced to build the one and only kind of fence allowed - a six foot high woood stake fence).
Then they fined us again when we had two palm trees moved from locations no more than three feet from the front of the house (put there by the previous owners). We were fined because we did not ask if we could move the trees to where we did. Apparently the same board never objected to the stupid siting of those trees so close to the house in the first place, which we knew would in time would be a danger to the house in a hurricane, or even just a very bad storm.
Personally I do not believe in personal property covenants where a prior owner gets to dictate conditions about the property to the new owner. I see the legal permission of that as another form of “taking” with the government involvment one of agreeing to the taking by private means.
When I was shopping for a house, I told the realtor to get a map of the city and mark the streets that didn’t have an HOA; I had looked up the city code and found that it was sufficient to keep the neighborhoods looking nice.
I bought in a subdivision without an HOA, which was right next to a subdivision that did have an HOA.
Everyone keeps their yards neat and there aren’t any old cars etc laying around.
There was only one person that let the grass grow, and the neighbors helped out with the mowing. Eventually she moved away and the new owners keep the yard up.
This So wrong on so many different levels...
” But an HOA board itself is an elected group of owner/volunteers whose mandate is to enforce a contract of by-laws that every owner signs at the time of settlement.”
The HOA is an entity to itself. It is made up of the owners of the association and retrieves money from the owners to maintin their property. But to be able to afford its business it uses the money given to it to pay the property management to do the work they are contracted to do on many occassions. And the HOA agrement is a contract within itself and require money to operate. So the entity by itself, is a contractual agreement.
In some state, like in mine, Washington, there are laws that maintain the parameters of an HOA. An HOA does not have to hire a property management company and can maintain its committments to itself. But those committments, like grass cutting and pruning, building repair (defined), painting, and the payment of a gross receipts tax (business and occupation tax) can be their responsibility to the owners and are hired to accomplish things like this. That makes them a business entity.
In the HOA I was in before I bought private, we even were responsible for the street and drain repairs and were not on the county maintenance schedule. That money has to come from somewhere if a property management compny is not under hire and the board is held responsible for the execution of it.
Maybe the term fired is not quite what it sounds like. Maybe disband after contractual committment would be closer to the action. So unless there is an escape clause in the HOA contract, it goes term depending on how it is written. Then it’s a free for all and it goes into encheatment law. Then it’s messy.
wy69
that was 32 yrs ago....
“Quietly and late at night.”
Exactly what I was thinking. A little ‘Come to Jesus’ moment.
This, all by itself is reason these things need to be destroyed. I would never/b> sign an HOA document.
They are essentially unconscionable contracts.If I had boatloads of money I would attempt to buy a house in one of these neighborhoods, cash in hand, and them take the seller AND HOA to court if they refused to sell to me because I refused to join their group. This is forced association and it is blatantly unconstitutional if the state will force you to associate with Nazis in order to complete a purchase.
Absolutely not when you are forced to sign away your rights in order to complete a real estate transaction.
From the article: The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 84% of new, single-family homes sold in 2022 belonged to HOAs.
Can we also put covenants on our property to make sure the home never gets sold to blacks or jews?
I wish you the best of luck (and eternal vigilance) keeping it that way. You're one middle-aged hypenated blonde with a wedge hair-do away from tyranny.
The bigger concern for me is that there is a sizable cohort of owners who want to disband the HOA entirely. That would be a bad idea that has nothing to do with enforcing rules and regulations. The proof of it is that the contingent of homeowners leading this effort are morons who moved in 10+ years after the subdivision was built and didn’t even know they bought a home in an HOA.
Heed my warning ... or not ... as you see fit.
Karen is out there ...
Lurking ...
Drinking cheap chardonnay ...
Looking for an opportunity to pounce.
Eternal vigilance.
My neighborhood is armed to the teeth, and I live in a town with no police department. “Karen” won’t last long here.
Buying a home and then refusing to accept an HOA is like buying a home and demanding that you want to be in a different zip code.
no one is “forced”. If you don’t want to buy in a deed restricted community then go buy somewhere else. It is a choice.
“The most common characteristics were the number of cars parked all over the streets and on front lawns, along with campers, utility trailers and work trucks parked all over the streets.”
Why does that bother you?
“Until the neighbor drops a mobile home in the street opposite you.”
Why would that bother you?
2. Oversized vehicles parked on the street block my view when I’m trying to back out of my driveway.
3. My home is worth 40% more than an identical home in the subdivision up the road with no HOA — because most homebuyers prefer to live in a neighborhood that doesn’t look like a ghetto. Imagine that.
I imagine these HOA entities do vary from one state to another. Ours in our county is mandated at point of sale—wa can’t fire it. I imagine if someone had the energy to corral all 250 adults, a quorum could be raised to boot out a board member or the whole board; but I wouldn’t hold my breath on that. The board meetings usually turn out about five people who have specific complaints.
Ain’t no HOA out here on the farm in central Kansas. I mow my grass when I want to.
It gets in the way of my drag strip.
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