About Us
This site is dedicated to helping the individual condominium and home owners that are part of the homeowners association.
Belonging to the homeowners association gives you some advantages, but when you sign that agreement, beware that under the California law you are at the mercy of your Association Board!
Some of you may be familiar with the Davis-Sterling Act. The purpose of the Davis-Stirling Act that was approved by the California legislature in 1989 was to consolidate various sections of Civil Law related to Common Interest Developments (CID), mostly condominium associations. It reduced the amount of confusion and disagreements in interpretation of the law and gave more protection to the associations’ boards.
However, in California, a state that welcomes diversity, condemns racism, and defends individual freedom, there is no single piece of legislation or an administrative body that protects individual condominium owners’ rights.
Unlike California, some other states in US do have organizations designed to assist individual owners. In California, the Davis-Stirling Act regulates certain processes of interacting between the Board and individual owners; however, in reality there is no way for an individual owner to enforce the rules when facing a hostile board, or to protect him/herself against the board when the board acts wrongfully.
We have spoken to many individual owners in Southern California that have had problems with their boards. These owners felt absolutely unprotected while board members enjoyed complete liability protection from insurance paid by all owners.
Even though paragraph 1365.7 (a3) of Davis-Stirling Act implies that if it can be proven that a board member acted wrongfully and intentionally (“willful”), he/she may be sued in a court of law, in reality the implementation of this rule is not practical. The Small Claims courts are not designed to resolve the majority of disagreements that often arise between the boards and individual owners. Arbitration, suggested by Davis-Stirling Act, can be easily sabotaged by a board if the board members do not want to resolve a problem peacefully.
Therefore, the only way to put pressure on the board when they are wrong is to file a lawsuit in a Civil Court. Such process is very lengthy and costly. Most individual owners can not afford this. In addition, many judges consider the board as a corporation, they see it as a “sacred cow” that is untouchable, while individual owners are often perceived as those attempting to “milk” the cow.
And some existing websites that bear the name “Home Owners Associations” or similar, in actuality are created to help the boards or the management companies, not the individuals.
I personally was a board member in several homeowners associations (HOA) in Illinois (Chicago) and in California (Orange County). In general, I had a positive experience. But unfortunately, a couple of years ago, while not on the Board, I as an individual owner, was dragged into a confrontation with another owner, who in order to overpower me, ran for the Board seat, became its president and started to bully me and my wife.
So, I learned first hand about the flaws in the California legislation and that part of our judicial system which is delegated to handle disputes between an individual owner and a board. I learned that some owners run for a board seat just to achieve personal gains, sometimes financial too, and not to serve the interests of the association. And I decided that somebody should start a site that will become a channel for communication between individual owners belonging to various associations, and provide directions in resolving disputes between an owner and a board.
We will refer you to appropriate attorneys, if required. We will give a jump start in handling minor disagreements by means of a Small Claims Court. And individual owners will share experience with each other. Hopefully, later, we as a group will come up with good ideas about necessary changes in the State legislation, and try to implement them.