Homeowners and HOA Headaches

PHOENIX - How much do you pay your HOA each month? Do you even know who's on your HOA board? Some of the most frequent complaints we get are from people with headaches over HOAs.

HOAs and homeowners sometimes have a hard time living in harmony.

Ryan Karvel says someone towed her painter's van less than an hour after he showed up.

"I know this is a good neighborhood, so I was kind of shocked and worried maybe it was stolen," says Karvel. She contacted her HOA, and it turns out, they towed it.

She found out the narrow private streets in her neighborhood are fire lanes, even though the curbs are not painted red. That's right -- the entire community is one big fire lane.

"I don't see any signs anywhere along here."

The city requires the community to post fire lane signs at the neighborhood's main entrances.

"I don't know. Maybe it's because I'm nearsighted but I can't read the fine print on this sign from my car when I'm driving."

Karvel went through the entire 55-page CC&R. She searched for the words "fire lane" and didn't find them -- but she found a clause which appears to indicate parking on curbs is allowed in some cases.

"'The preceding sentence shall not preclude occasional overflow parking in a street right-of-way for guests or other reasonable purposes provided that no inconvenience is imposed on the owners or occupants of other lots,'" she reads aloud.

Brown Community Management told us over the phone that smaller signs posted on Karvel's street explain the curbs are fire lanes. We saw signs about visitor parking spaces, but no signs on her street mentioning fire lanes.

The HOA did not return several follow-up phone calls, but told me on the phone earlier it is simply enforcing city laws and homeowners, if confused, can always ask questions.

Karvel paid for the painter's tow and is out $165. She says it is a safety issue that they don't mark the fire lanes better.

State Representative Nancy Barto describes HOAs as quasi-governments with deep pockets, lots of authority and little oversight. She tried to pass a bill to clarify who owns public streets: cities or HOAs.

"A lot of HOAs are run very well. This is not about most HOAs. This is about many HOAs," says Barto.
"It becomes very evident that there's not enough oversight whenever there's a dispute, because homeowners have nowhere to go to solve these problems."

Attorney Scott Carpenter represents 3,000 HOAs and worked against Nancy Barto's bill.

"There is no story or evidence or statistics that I've seen that back up the assertion that associations are using fines for vehicles parked in public streets as a revenue generator," says Carpenter.

He describes HOAs as mini-democracies in which homeowners can vote members out.

"The people who are fine with it or happy with it just don't speak up because there's no reason to. They're not going to call the reporter for the paper or for Channel 10 and say I would just love to compliment my association. The lakes look great today."

Then there's Kert Anderson, whose Scottsdale neighborhood includes public streets. He collected boxes full of documents while investigating his HOA.

He and the HOA were involved in a drawn-out dispute about parking fines topping a thousand bucks. But he says, he never parked on the street.

Anderson also raises questions about how his HOA handled its last election. He ran for the Board of Directors and lost, and the HOA later dropped his fines.

The property manager sent us an email saying the disputes were settled months ago and the board sees no reason to respond again because a statement was made in the past.