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Our HOA Board is threatening to close down our community swimming pool. They are also attempting to create new rules regarding fines as well. There are not stipulations, clauses or guidelines in the HOA By-laws or covenants. Can the Board do this? How can homeowners stop these things from happening?
No wording of fines or closures of amenities of any sort in CC&Rs. The Board has recently signed up with a CAI attorney out of state from where our HOA is located. Can a Board just make up rules as they go along without a majority vote from the homeowners. This Board appears to be giving off the perception of strongarming homeowners.
But subdivisions that don't have HOAs aren't going to have a community pool. If you want the pool, you have to deal with the HOA, and if you don't care about the pool, you wouldn't complain that it was shut down.
If there is nothing about amenities or fines in the CCRs, there should at least be a section about amending the CCRs. That is where to look. Whatever that says is what they can do. If it doesn't have a section on that, they are very bad CCRs and I would consult an attorney about whether you are even obligated to continue paying dues.
Why are they threatening to close down the pool? If it is because of lack of funds, that could be because too many people are late paying their dues, which could explain why they are talking about fines as well. For that, you have your neighbors to blame, not the HOA board members. The only short term option is to raise dues for those of you who are paying. They probably can lien the properties that haven't paid, but that doesn't get money for the short term, and if the house forecloses, the HOA probably loses out anyway.
Finally, have you ever attended an HOA meeting? That is where these things usually are discussed. If you didn't go to the last one, and it was decided there, you have no one to blame but yourself. If this year's hasn't happened yet (a date range should be specified in the CCRs), GO TO IT, find out the reasoning and be part of the solution, or at the very least, make your opinion heard.
But subdivisions that don't have HOAs aren't going to have a community pool. If you want the pool, you have to deal with the HOA, and if you don't care about the pool, you wouldn't complain that it was shut down.
There are community pools available to some neighborhoods that do not have HOA's. Yes, you have to share them with other people, but you do when you live in an HOA, too.
Has your HOA offered any reason for closing the pool?
Has the board tried to raise funds for any needed maintenance?
Have there been any refusals of raises in dues or of an assessment?
If the membership is not providing adequate funding to the HOA, then closing the pool may be one way for them to create a workable budget.
I had two rental condos in a complex that was cash-starved. When the board could not convene a quorum of owners as required in the bylaws for a vote for two consecutive years to allow an assessment or large increase in dues, they had to close the pool.
That beat the heck out of the Association going bankrupt.
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