Experienced Legal Support For Common Area Disputes

If you live in an HOA-managed community, there are common areas that the HOA is responsible for maintaining. You might not even be allowed to provide any supportive care for these areas per the covenants of your HOA. These areas might be play areas for children, parks or green spaces, or areas that provide services like the mailbox locations inside the community. Sidewalks, parking areas, and other spaces that might be used by the public are also considered common areas under HOA guidelines in the state of Florida.

When your neighborhood HOA group is not taking care of these common areas, you and the other residents in your neighborhood might be exposed to risks related to the condition of these spaces. People could be injured, or the area might just be unsightly. It can be hard to know what to do to address this neglect on the part of the HOA, particularly if they are not responsive to your requests for resolution of the issue.

Working with a skilled legal team can make it much easier to address concerns that your HOA is not willing to attend to. Contacting the team at Lopez Law Group can make it possible to get the support that you need to make your HOA take care of its responsibilities for your common neighborhood areas.

What Are the Requirements for HOAs With Regard To Common Areas?

HOA communities have a covenant structure that is put in place to guide the actions of residents and the HOA itself. This covenant document will indicate all of the common areas in the community, and it will detail what the HOA’s responsibilities are for these areas. This might be hiring a maintenance company to provide regular care for lawns and other kinds of planted areas, or it could be managing annual inspections for locations that serve a multi-purpose function.

There are many different kinds of services that the HOA is required to provide for these areas, and the dues that homeowners pay to the HOA organization are intended to cover these costs, at least in part. Common spaces are very expensive to maintain, and homeowners would not be likely to be able to afford to handle this need without the support of the HOA and its funding. 

What Can I Do if my HOA is not Maintaining Common Areas?

There are always guidelines within the HOA covenants that outline how residents need to go about making a motion to have the HOA care for common areas as described in the covenants. There will almost always be a stepped process that is outlined, which might begin with requiring that the HOA discuss the issue at a meeting and then taking a vote from the members of the community to make changes that are needed to provide the upkeep necessary to improve the situation related to common area neglect.

Homeowners will usually be required to progress through all of the steps for the redress of the issue that are laid out in the covenants before they can sue the HOA or take legal action against the HOA entity to enforce the covenants. However, if the neglect of the common areas has resulted in significant harm, or there has been a situation that has caused a public safety issue, that might be another matter and could necessitate that a lawyer gets involved right away.

Remember as well that you might want to secure a lawyer to help guide you through the process of seeking a solution to the problems that are going on in your community related to common area maintenance. While you might be able to pursue all of the steps that need to be taken to notify the HOA of the compliance issue, it can be much more effective to have a skilled legal team working on your side during this part of the process as well. The lawyer who has been monitoring the progression of your demands of the HOA will be up to speed if there is a need to take legal action against the HOA due to a lack of response, and they will have drafted all of the letters and outreach that has been done to communicate with the HOA. This can make it much more efficient for homeowners to seek solutions to a lack of common area care through legal action, and having a legal team working on your requests can ensure that you do not miss any of the essential steps that must be taken before you can sue your HOA.

Are HOA Covenants Legally Binding?

HOA covenant documents are actually considered to be legally binding. This means that the HOA and the community members have to act within the confines of its rules, or they are breaking the law. If you believe that there are issues with the care that is being provided to the common areas in your neighborhood, you should not write off these issues as something that cannot be attended to by you as a member of the community.

Your HOA board is required to take care of your neighborhood with the dues that you have submitted to them each year, and you can enforce that these kinds of care are given to the neighborhood you live in. This is especially true when it comes to issues of safety, especially since homeowners are not usually allowed to make any changes to common areas without the permission of the HOA board. This means that resolving a safety concern on your own in a common area can actually be a breach of your HOA contract. You will want to be sure that you are acting in compliance with the HOA covenants, even if the HOA itself is not.

These kinds of common spaces are usually required to be managed by the HOA and anyone it hires, and you need to make sure that you do not start providing services for these areas since you might be breaking the law related to your community. Seeking legal support and advice can make all the difference when you are dealing with an HOA common area problem, and you should be sure that you do not try to remedy the situation in a way that is not outlined and provided for in the HOA covenants.

Working With a Skilled Legal Team Matters

If you are having issues with the maintenance of your HOA common areas, you need to seek the support of a skilled legal team. You are typically not allowed to make any changes to these areas on your own as a resident of the community, and you need to be sure that you are using the right process to report the issue to the HOA before you try to take legal action against the HOA itself.

Working with the team at Lopez Law Group will make it much easier to manage your HOA common area disputes. We have years of experience in HOA-related cases, and we can help provide you with the support that you need to get the common areas back to the safe and attractive state that you pay for when you pay your HOA dues.

More on HOA Law:

SKILLED LAWYERS FOR FAILURE TO REPAIR AND FAILURE TO MAINTAIN HOA CASES

HOA HARASSMENT DISPUTE ATTORNEY

SKILLED LEGAL SUPPORT FOR VIOLATIONS OF THE ASSOCIATION’S COVENANTS

LEGAL REPRESENTATION FOR SELECTIVE ENFORCEMENT AND UNEQUAL TREATMENT BY AN HOA