Live in a home governed by a condominium, co-op or homeowner’s association? Have questions about what they can and cannot do? Ryan Poliakoff, an attorney and author based in Boca Raton, has answers.
Question: Our HOA (90 townhomes) refuses to enforce our dawn to dusk pool hours. Our property manager advised board members at the last meeting they did not have the resources to enforce it since we do not have security guards, while mockingly saying he would prefer to swim after sunset. We continually have residents and minors using pool, being loud, disrespectful and awakening owners after 11 PM. We are told to call the police, but to no avail. The board also refuses to invest in upgrading our camera system and access cards to deactivate the pool gates after dark.
What recourse do we have? Our community is falling apart mostly due to the board and management company’s lack of enforcing all our rules, as well as being cheap and not investing back into the community for improvements. Signed, D.K.
Dear D.K.,
You have a right, according to the HOA Act, to bring legal action against your neighbors if they are violating your covenants or rules. Of course, that’s rarely the best solution, as it would require you to invest potentially tens of thousands of dollars doing work that the association should be doing instead. You could conceivably sue the association and ask a judge to order the association to enforce its rules, but I wouldn’t expect that approach to be successful, and it would take the same investment on your part.
And the police are not going to get involved in civil matters like rules enforcement. Even when it’s a code violation, I find it’s often quite hard to get the authorities to act — about the best they could do is cite the HOA for a code violation for allowing nighttime swimming, which might motivate your board, but ultimately is unlikely to get the positive result that you’re looking for.
Instead, as I’ve described in prior columns, your solution here is almost certainly political.
You are obviously upset about the condition of your community. You need to motivate enough of your neighbors who feel similarly to take action in the next election and replace your board and then do the things that need to be done to enforce the rules. However, enforcing the rules will likely require a significant investment in additional fees (exactly as your manager said), and you may find that this isn’t something that the community supports. And if that’s the case, it may just be that this community isn’t the right fit for you anymore.
Question: Our HOA’s original incorporation was not renewed and it operated without being a registered corporation or business for the past 20-plus years. Despite this, they continued to collect money (monthly HOA fees plus special assessments). Two years ago, the HOA president filed a name change with the Florida Division of Corporations and finally filed annual reports for 2023, 2024, and 2025.
From 2002 until now all HOA payments have been deposited into a checking account that is neither the original name nor the updated name. The name says “Inc.”, but there is no record of that name ever being incorporated. Signed, L.P.
Dear L.P.,
Overall, this isn’t a major deal. Of course, the corporation needs to be registered with the state, but the consequences of failing to do so are relatively minor. There could have been civil penalties, and you would have had difficulty if you ever needed to file a lawsuit, but it wouldn’t invalidate your business operations in any way. Allowing corporate registrations to lapse happens from time to time.
I can’t really speak to the name change issues you mentioned, or if that was done properly (or needed to be done at all), but I don’t think that anything you described would have a negative consequence with respect to your assessments or your bank account. The board should just fix things and move on (as it sounds like they have).
Ryan Poliakoff, a partner at Poliakoff Backer, LLP, is a Board Certified specialist in condominium and planned development law. This column is dedicated to the memory of Gary Poliakoff. Ryan Poliakoff and Gary Poliakoff are co-authors of “New Neighborhoods — The Consumer’s Guide to Condominium, Co-Op and HOA Living.” Email your questions to condocolumn@gmail.com. Please be sure to include your location.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Loud, disruptive neighbors breaking HOA pool rules without consequence
Reporting by Ryan Poliakoff, Special to the Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Ryan Poliakoff, Special to the Palm Beach Post | USA TODAY Network
