One of the primary purposes of any HOA is to manage, maintain and repair the common areas throughout the HOA's development. This naturally requires the HOA to contract with third-party vendors to furnish goods or services to the HOA (e.g., landscaping, construction, remediation, painting, plumbing, etc.). We are constantly surprised at how some Board members and management professionals fail to recognize how the HOA's use of improperly vetted vendors can result in potentially significant legal and financial implications for the HOA, among other problems. Therefore, the need to properly vet vendors--and their contracts--is critical before the Board executes any vendor's contract on behalf of the HOA. 

We have previously drafted a library article that provides some guidance as to how a HOA's Board and Managing agent can protect the interests of the HOA and its members. We have also recently drafted a blog post that touches on some of the information contained in that article, and sets forth some recommended procedures which should be utilized before any vendor begins work at the HOA's development. To read that blog post, click the "Read More" link below. 

We have previously blogged about the Federal Housing Administration's (FHA) revisions to its condominium approval guidelines. Recently, the Community Associations Institute (CAI) announced that progress was made towards reasonable reforms to the FHA approval process. On February 2, 2016, the US House of Representatives passed H.R. 3700 the "Housing Opportunity through Modernization Act of 2015" (Act).

The bill is now referred to the Senate for its review and approval. If passed, the Act would:

• Streamline the recertification process; 
• Allow the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to grant commercial or nonresidential space requirement exemptions; and 
• Reduce the minimum owner occupancy requirement from 50% to 35%. 

Civil Code Section 4925 grants to each HOA member the right to attend HOA board meetings (except for executive session meetings). Section 4925 also grants members with rights to speak at board meetings and to address the board during open forum. However, these rights are explicitly granted to the HOA's "members" (the owners of lots or units within the HOA's development), not to a member's agent or attorney. The California Court of Appeal addressed this issue in the 2013 case of SB Liberty, LLC v. Isla Verde Assn. Inc., where it affirmed a HOA's ability to prohibit a member's attorney from attending a board meeting on the member's behalf.

However, Assembly Bill 1720 ("AB 1720") was recently proposed by the California Legislature in order to change this structure by amending parts of Section 4925. If signed into law, AB 1720 will add new subpart (c) to Section 4925 to require a board to permit an attorney who represents a member to attend any board meeting that the member is permitted to attend, regardless of whether the member attends.

If signed into law, this bill could be problematic for HOAs by placing boards in a position of having their meetings observed or disrupted by the attorney of a member who is, or is likely to become, involved in a dispute with the HOA...

Answered - Regardless of how you feel about sober living homes, it is certainly a hot issue that numerous communities are dealing with--particularly coastal communities. HOA CC&Rs often contain provisions that prohibit the non-residential use of properties or the use of properties for anything other than "single family" residential purposes. However, the California Legislature has, through the Health & Safety Code, mandated that a sober living home (an "alcohol or drug abuse recovery or treatment facility") which services six (6) or fewer persons to be deemed "a residential use of property and a use of property by a single family, notwithstanding any disclaimers to the contrary." (H&S Code § 11834.25.) This was done in order to immunize sober living homes from City, County and HOA restrictions (i.e., CC&Rs restrictions) on the use of properties for non-residential purposes. The Legislature has even declared it to be the public policy of California to "encourage" the development of sober living homes.