Compliance and Enforcement Strategies

By: Ryan D. Poole, Esq. – Smith Knowles, PC 

​Community associations are typically obligated to ensure compliance with the governing documents and to take the lawful, reasonable, and necessary steps for enforcement.  Steps can include courtesy notices, formal notices and possibly even a lawsuit.  Determining the best steps to achieve a compliant community starts with assessing what is happening and whether it is a violation – and this starts with the existing governing documents and credible information about the suspected violation.  Next, the desired outcome should be determined based on a variety of factors – legal mandate, process, time, expense, logistics, alternatives, etc. – and a thoughtful, balanced approach tends to be best.  The process may often be as simple as providing some courtesy information and education to the community; and specifically to a non-compliant homeowner, perhaps in the form of a written courtesy-notice.  Unfortunately, a non-compliant homeowner is not always responsive or reasonable, and the process may then necessarily get longer and more complicated (and more expensive).

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