*Unpublished Opinion We recently blogged about the importance of the the plain language of an association’s Declaration when following pre-litigation requirements to a construction defect claim. On March 18, 2019, the California Court of Appeal ruled that trial courts should not deny a homeowner of his right to submit a case…
It is well settled that an association’s CC&Rs (“Declaration”) establishes and controls, among other things, a board’s authority to govern an association provided that the CC&Rs do not conflict with California law and regulations (i.e., Davis-Stirling Act). In such cases, the plain language of the CC&Rs control. (Franklin v. Marie…
*New Case Law A Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation (or “SLAPP”) is a lawsuit brought to prevent or punish someone for exercising their First Amendment right to speak about public issues or to petition the government. In response to this abuse of the court system, California enacted Code of Civil…
*New Case Law The Davis-Stirling Act promotes the nonjudicial resolution of disputes between homeowners associations (“HOAs”) and their members in various respects. One example is found contained in Civil Code Sections 5930 et. seq. which, in sum, require that the disputing parties to endeavor to resolve the dispute through Alternative…
*New Legislation Provisions of the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act (Civ. Code §§ 4000 – 6150) currently require homeowners associations (“HOAs”) to “provide a fair, reasonable, and expeditious procedure for resolving a dispute” between a HOA and its members. Civ. Code §§ 5900, 5905. This procedure is commonly referred to…
Our “Annual Legislative & Case Law Update” newsletter for the year 2014 is now available in our library! The Legislative & Case Law Update provides an overview of the new legislation and case law impacting California Homeowners Associations (“HOAs”) as we head into 2014. The new legislation includes, among other…
*New Case Law The California Civil Code requires community associations (“HOAs”) to levy regular and special assessments as necessary to perform the HOA’s obligations under its governing documents. However, when a homeowner fails to pay those assessments, HOAs are often left with no alternative other than to pursue the owner…
*Asked & Answered Asked – My HOA previously sent out an ADR request to a homeowner which was accepted shortly thereafter. The HOA has been attempting to schedule the ADR by providing the homeowner with numerous dates and times that worked for the HOA. However, the homeowner has rejected all…
*New Case Law In our recent blog post entitled “Are Attorney’s Fees for ADR Recoverable?” we touched briefly on the recently decided case of Grossman v. Park Fort Washington Association (2012) 212 Cal. App. 4th 1128 (“Grossman”). In response to requests for more information on this issue from our clients…
*Asked & Answered Asked – Are our HOA’s attorney’s fees recoverable when we participate in ADR with a homeowner? Answered – Maybe. Civil Code §1354(c) states that “in an action to enforce the governing documents, the prevailing party shall be awarded reasonable attorney’s fees and costs.” Alternative Dispute Resolution (“ADR”)…