To sue HOA for selective enforcement, you must get a clear video/picture of when the scenario of selective enforcement happened in your HOA, saving the exact date and time when it happened. If it has to do with fees, ensure to have the necessary receipts available and meet a lawyer for legal advice.
Things must arise in an HOA where there are different people living together in one community. There must be challenges, issues, disagreements, and problems emanating from one place or the other. These are things that cannot be naturally avoided.
When they happen, there are things that can be done or steps that should be taken to ensure that they are well handled without breaching any part or tenets of the law, either the federal laws, state laws, or the HOA rules.
This article will emphasize more on how to sue HOA for selective enforcement, the article will educate and enlighten you on what to do, how to do it, the right people to meet, and the best procedures you can follow to gain victory at last.
What are Selective Enforcement Rules in an HOA?
Selective enforcement of rules has to do with a situation when an HOA decides to be selective in enforcing certain rules or laws against a particular person or be selective on a particular group of persons in an HOA on any issues that have to do with regulations.
Just as the name sounds, it is selective, meaning that there are lots of biases on this kind of law and its enforcement on whoever or the group of persons that are seen as the victims here.
These so-called selective enforcement rules do not apply to the community at large, it is based on either hatred, biases, or way of punishing a small group of individuals or a particular homeowner either because the entire HOA sees the person(s) as a threat or any other motive behind such.
How Do You Prove Selective Enforcement?
Selective enforcement rules are inevitable in almost all HOA’s, this is to say that you must be alert to know when such is targeted either at you, your friends, or if you observe that your friend has fallen victim of such in the HOA where he or she lives.
There are certain ways to prove that such has occurred where you live.
Unequal and arbitrary enforcement of restrictions is a typical example of selective enforcement. The ways to prove selective enforcements include and are not limited to the following:
- Ensure you take either pictures or video recordings of the incident. This is very important as it would be a good form of proof for you and a good reference in the future anywhere the case is taken to
- Ensure that you have proper documentation of both the time and date when such rule was enforced either against you or against any small group you belong to in that HOA
- Ensure you get board meeting minutes that show the lack of other enforcements
These are some of the basic ways that would help you prove if a rule falls into the category of selective enforcement or not.
Is Selective Enforcement Legal?
Selective enforcement is a bridge against the constitutional rights of a person or a group of persons in any place. The constitution does not discriminate against anyone despite what you believe in because everyone has the fundamental rights of expression, religion, speech, and other things backed up by law.
Selective enforcement is not legal because the constitution is against it. if the constitution does not support such action then it is said to be illegal when it is been enforced and it can be taken up legally by the party or parties involved in the law court and the law would do justice to defend whosever is right and punish whosoever is wrong in such case.
How Does HOA Fight Selective Enforcement?
To fight selective enforcement by an HOA, it is very important to, first of all, educate every member of the HOA both old and new on their rules and regulations.
This can be done by sending out the documents to everyone in the neighborhood and also finding a way to send out compliance charts to every single homeowner in the HOA.
To effectively fight selective enforcement by an HOA, the following principles should be adopted:
- Write down any form of violations and any related actions that have to do with selective enforcement in the HOA
- Ensure that your HOA carry out orientations regularly for both new homeowners and new board members in your HOA
- Ensure that you avoid any form of expectations in your HOA
- Ensure that your HOA is in partnership with a legal practitioner or group of legal practitioners
- Ensure to get a well-experienced HOA company to work with your HOA.
These are some of the ways an HOA can use to enable them to fight against anything that has to do with selective enforcement of rules in its environment at any point in time.
How to Sue HOA for Selective Enforcement
Here are ways to sue HOA for selective enforcement:
- Take a clear quality video and picture when the scenario of selective enforcement happened in your HOA. This is very important as it would stand out on its own as a good witness for you during the court proceedings. The videos and pictures must be clear as to avoid any form of confusion
- Make sure that you put down in black and white the exact dates and time when such selective enforcement was carried out, the jury must ask you for this
- If it has to do with fees, you must have your receipt handy as a victim of such an act, you must also ensure you get a receipt from another person that is not a victim of such events.
- Get aboard minutes of your HOA on past issues of selective enforcement and how they were treated or handled
- Ensure to have information that has to do with recent fines or enforcement decisions that are related to selective enforcement in your HOA.
- Meeting the lawyer in charge of HOA issues or lawyers that are good with HOA-related issues is another way to sue your HOA for selective enforcement. The lawyer will give you legal advice on what to do.
All these are the simple ways and steps to carefully follow when suing your HOA against any form of selective enforcement.
Final Thoughts
If you or anyone you know is a victim of selective enforcements in your HOA, then no need to panic. Just follow the steps and advice mentioned in this article and every other thing would be history to you. Even though homeowners winning lawsuits against HOA is rare, as long as you have enough evidence, if you take the matter legally, you will win.
