Legislation is Needed to Enable a Balance of Power in HOAs

The problem at the root of HOAs (and special district and management companies) is that all covenants are written so that first the developer and then the board can control the association and the members. All levers of power are held by the board. There are no checks and no balances. They are the executive, the legislative, and the judiciary. They have tax and spend powers that residents have minimal input into. Nothing enforces fiscal discipline and once a board collects funds, lacking integrity, they are free to spend the money on their priorities not the budget that was passed. They can implement policies without resident input and hold residents accountable for following them through fines and fees for "covenant" violations. The right of appeal is to the same board that implemented the policy and assessed the fines. Nothing requires them to work collaboratively with the membership. They can thwart the will of the legislature by administratively burdening the architectural control approval processes and making costly cosmetic demands. They can ignore the law with impunity as there is no regulatory enforcement agency. For instance, our board routinely meets with less than 24 hour notice to the membership and passes policies and makes decisions in essentially private meetings at the board members' homes. They use the flexibility in the bylaws regarding "waiver of notice" meetings to conduct board business that directly impacts the members without allowing the members any input despite the requirement in CCIOA that they do so. HOA attorney practices are also part of the problem. Their business model relies on conflict and collections as profit centers. There is no incentive for them to advise boards to work collaboratively with the membership. They are also focused on control. It is almost an inherent conflict of interest. The only recourse homeowners have is to organize and have a recall. However, again, the deck is stacked in favor of the board as the average homeowner doesn't have the time and money to do this and the numbers required to do this are high. Alternatively, the homeowners could take the board to court however that also costs a considerably amount of time and money. As the board members control the annual meeting of the members, and write the policy concerning conduct of meetings; it is virtually impossible to achieve reform or vote them out an an annual meeting. This type of management structure might serve a for profit corportation well but it puts a very few people in control of a large number of people without even as much democracy as the US and the state of Colorado have. The idea that people choose to live in HOA communities is risable. There aren't any other communities except in exceptionally old housing stock. People live in HOA communties because there isn't anywhere else to live. HOAs have many desirable qualities but like any organization where power is concentrated, the door is open to abuse that power. CCIOA needs to be rewritten to force covenants to be written with more democratic rights for the homeowners and more accountability for the board. In addition, Colorado needs an enforcement agency with the ability to administratively order changes to HOA policies and procedures and binding arbitration between Boards and homeowners.