Colorado’s General Assembly is taking a hard look at homeowners associations again.
Starting in 2005, lawmakers began trying to reform HOAs after more and more complaints about abuses by HOA boards surfaced.
Colorado Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora
Leading the charge then and now is state Sen. Morgan Carroll, an Aurora Democrat, who co-sponsored the 2005 Homeowners Bill of Rights which made sweeping changes to how the state’s estimated 12,000 HOAs operate.
The law, and subsequent amendments, addressed common HOA abuses such as secret meetings, hidden financial documents, mishandling of money, selective enforcement of covenants and hidden meeting minutes.
Now, Carroll and a fellow Aurora Democrat, Rep. Su Ryden, are trying again to give homeowners help in their battles with HOA boards.
Colorado Rep. Su Ryden, D-Aurora
They have co-sponsored House Bill 1278, which is working its way through the legislature.
Originally, it would have created an HOA Ombudsman office, similar to a concept pioneered in 1997 by Nevada and subsequently copied by Florida, New Jersey and other states.
The idea was to give folks a place to get their conflicts resolved through mediation instead of automatically forcing people to sue in civil court.
Nevada is able to resolve half its complaints without going to court. I wrote about its office in January.
Here’s a link to my January column about the HOA ombudsman in Nevada.
And follow this link to my blog related to that column.
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The problem with CCIOA (the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act) is that there isn’t any enforcement mechanism. For example, HOA’s are required to have established a Mediation Policy uner the Governance Guidelines of CCIOA. To date, there are countless hundres of HOA’s that have failed to do so. Mostly because of the ineffective management they are receiving from their property managers.
So what happens if an HOA fails to follow CCIOA? To date, NOTHING!! There should be civil penalties incorporated into CCIOA to insure that HOA Board of Director’s and their manageing agents fully comply with the laws.
Lot Owners should have a process whereby they can feel that they will be treated fairly and equitably. Under most of the current HOA covenants, the Board of Director’s is the mediating body. Funny. Does one really expct that an HOA Board of Directors could actually mediate a dispute between themselves and a Lot Owner? Especially since the Board of Directors is an interested party to the action and therefore biased.
Lot Owners should not have to pay legal fees, their own money, and pay the legal fees of the Board of Directors. As such, CCIOA needs to be amended to include a Prevailing Party clause so that Lot Owners who prevail can be assured their legal fees will be reimbursed to them.
Forbes Park Land Owners Association, is not transparent. They try to make you knuckle under their decisions although they know they are wrong. They (fire, which is voluntary) all of the members of a committee if they make a decision and the board does not like it. This group of people need to be removed from the board.