Recent Articles

Is it considered a conflict of interest if a board member is also an HOA employee? Our board is voting on matters which would affect the job duties of the board member/employee. Would this be considered a conflict of interest? The director acts as property manager.

Last week’s column recapped five bills proposing to help HOAs. This week addresses the other side of the coin, as four legislative proposals are pending, which would not help California’s 50,000+ HOAs.

In typical years the Legislature considers a handful of bills concerning HOAs, but 2021 is an unusually heavy year. There are at least 20 bills pending that reference or directly affect common interest developments. Many are technical, but a handful of bills propose to make significant changes (some good, and some bad) to California associations. This column addresses five bills in which their current form would help HOAs, and next week’s will cover some unhelpful proposals.

The Open Meeting Act (Civil Code Sections 4900-4955) is the HOA version of California’s “Brown Act,” requiring openness in governance meetings. However, the Brown Act (Government Code 54950-54963) generally applies to public agencies, commissions or private corporations created by a public agency. Since HOAs are private associations, the Brown Act does not apply to them, but the Open Meeting Act does apply.

Regarding your recent article, does the section 4741 approval of rental caps as low as 25% of the HOA mean an HOA such as ours can disallow rentals above that percentage? We are a small community with surging rentals, creating automobile congestion on our streets.

Renters must be approved by the board and nobody with a criminal record shall be approved.