Your HOA’s governing documents are made up of not only the CC&Rs, but also your association’s bylaws, rules, and architectural guidelines. (Civ. Code, § 4150.) The CC&Rs, however, are the most important. An HOA’s CC&Rs are recorded with the county recorder’s office and they constitute the rulebook for you and your HOA, spelling out the rights and obligations that its members owe to the association, and vice versa. Your CC&Rs are, therefore, treated by law as a binding contract that addresses many very important issues, including: (i) the power and authority of the board of directors; (ii) what homeowners may do and not do with their properties; (iii) the association’s and homeowners’ mutual maintenance obligations; (iv) regular and special assessments; (v) lien rights and limitations; and (vi) the day-to-day management of the HOA.

Even though your HOA’s board of directors enjoys many of the same powers and responsibilities as any corporation’s board, your HOA’s board is made up of volunteers who often have no experience running a business, and certainly no experience with the Davis-Stirling Act. Problems arise when board members either fail to do their jobs, or they act arbitrarily, dishonestly, or capriciously. Typical CC&R violations by HOAs include things like:

• failing to preserve, maintain, or repair the association’s common areas;
• failing to address another owner’s nuisance behavior;
• failing to enforce the HOA’s governing documents, especially when such failure is negatively affecting the rights of another HOA member;
• failing to properly manage or account for the HOA’s finances;
• failing to follow the election requirements contained in the Davis-Stirling Act; and
• harassing certain members or treating some HOA members differently than others.

If you'd like to know more, you might be interested in reading the following Articles & Fact Sheets:

• Mandatory Annual Disclosures that CA HOAs Must Make to Members
• The Top 10 Reasons You Should Read Your HOA’s CC&Rs
• Misappropriation of HOA Funds
• Can California Homeowners Disband Their HOAs?

Contact Us to Discuss Your HOA Dispute By Calling:(949) 767-3910

In this episode of HOA HELL, California HOA lawyer and pioneer in homeowner-side law, Michael Kushner, walks HOA members through their CC&Rs, explaining which provisions they can safely skip and which ones they must read and understand. Instead of slogging through a hundred pages of legalese, this guide helps you focus only on the sections that directly impact your daily life and your rights as a homeowner.

HOAs must abide by the same antidiscrimination and antiharassment laws/regulations that all businesses and associations do. This means that HOAs are not permitted to violate the Fair Employment and Housing Act, the Americans with Disability Act (but only as to the common areas), the Fair Housing Act, the Unruh Civil Rights Act, and most importantly, the Davis-Stirling Act. These laws, and others, of course, not only prohibit discrimination and harassment on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, disability, etc., but they also require HOAs to make reasonable accommodations to people with disabilities.

Many older HOAs had overtly discriminatory racial quotas in their CC&Rs. And while most of those CC&Rs have since been updated to remove such language, that does not mean that HOAs don’t regularly violate antidiscrimination laws. Many HOAs still engage in conduct that violate rights of its members and residents by, for example:

• refusing to permit a disabled resident from building a ramp (violates reasonable accommodation regulations; see Civ. Code, § 4760);
• prohibiting a resident from displaying a political banner on the resident’s property (violates Civ. Code, § 4710);
• refusing outright to permit a resident from having a service or comfort animal (violates reasonable accommodation requirements; might also violate other statutes, such as Civ. Code, § 4715);
• barring a resident from operating a daycare center in their home (Health & Safety Code § 1597.40);
• barring domestic partners from enjoying membership rights; and
• controlling occupancy by redefining the term “family” from its legal definition.

View related Articles & Fact Sheets:

• HOA Discrimination, Retaliation, and Harassment in California: Homeowners’ Rights Under Federal and State Law;
• California HOAs and Mental Health: Accommodations and Homeowner Rights; and
• How HOAs Weaponize “Harassment” to Silence Homeowners Who Push Back.

Contact Us to Discuss Your HOA Dispute By Calling: (949) 767-3910

In this episode of HOA Hell, California HOA lawyer and pioneer in homeowner-side HOA law, Michael Kushner, tackles real-life mental health scenarios in California HOAs and explains how disability protections intersect with nuisance rules. You’ll hear how FHA and FEHA apply, where boards cross the line with harassment, public shaming, or refusing reasonable accommodations, and what practical accommodations and processes actually look like.

For the vast majority of people who live in communities governed by an HOA, they live in close proximity to other people. In short, most people have neighbors. “Neighbor disputes” do, therefore, form the basis of many disputes between homeowners and their HOAs (and neighbors). Some of the more common claims that give rise to liability against a neighbor, and in many cases the HOA as well, occur when your neighbor or HOA is guilty of:

• trespassing onto your property—either directly by walking onto your property, or indirectly, such as by allowing water to spread onto, or under, your property;
• participating in illegal activities (e.g., drug dealing, non-permitted activities, etc.) (Civ. Code, § 3479); or
• causing excessive noise, or for that matter, engaging in any other activities that interfere with your reasonable use and quiet enjoyment of your property.

• If you'd like to know more, you might be interested in reading the following Articles & Fact Sheets:
  • Disputes Involving Your Neighbor's Trees in California
  • California Neighbor Tree Disputes: Damages, Attorney’s Fees, and HOA Involvement
  • California Neighbor Tree Disputes: Your Rights on Encroaching Branches and Roots
  • When a Neighbor Pepper Sprays Your Dog Without Legal Justification
  • A California Homeowner’s Essential Guide to Neighbor Disputes

Contact Us to Discuss Your HOA Dispute by Calling: (949) 767-3910

In this first episode of HOA HELL's 6-part Neighbor Dispute Series, California #1 HOA lawyer and pioneer, Michael Kushner, breaks down one of the most common (and misunderstood) legal tools in California neighbor law: the private nuisance. Whether it’s relentless noise, recurring foul odors, or something harder to pin down like light pollution, Kushner explains when everyday annoyances cross the legal threshold and become actionable. Drawing from Civil Code § 3479 and local ordinances, this episode walks you through the elements of a nuisance claim, how to distinguish between permanent and continuing nuisances, and what kind of relief you can get (e.g., injunctions, money damages, etc.). You'll also get practical tips on how to document incidents, avoid common mistakes, and strengthen your case before calling a lawyer.

Click here for Part 2 of this 6-part Neighbor Dispute series from the HOA HELL podcast.

Part 3 is here | Part 4 is here | Part 5 is here | Part 6 is here.

Simply put, your HOA’s common areas refer to areas that are owned by the HOA (rather than by any particular member(s) of the HOA). (Civ. Code, § 4095.)

While many HOAs have in common certain typical kinds of common areas, such as greenbelts/landscaping, sidewalks/walkways, swimming pools, and tennis courts, the other types of common areas you’re likely to see in an HOA have more to do with the type of association you joined. For example, in typical multi-unit communities (e.g., condominiums and townhomes), where the HOAs typically own everything but the air space in the individual units, the common areas you tend to find include things like roofs, hallways and staircases, parking lots/carports, HVAC systems, buildings, and plumbing/electrical.

Regardless, because an association’s common areas are considered amenities by the members, and because they are often very expensive to construct and maintain, frequent common area-related disputes between condominium owners and their HOAs arise regarding things like an HOAs:

• failing to make necessary repairs to the common areas;
• failing to reasonably maintain the common areas;
• neglecting a condo owner’s damage to or destruction of the common areas;
• neglecting to take action against a condo owner who has taken exclusive control over a portion of a common area;
• facilitating the transfer of some portion of the common area to a condominium owner without membership approval; or
• allowing the destruction of a portion of the common area.

If you'd like to know more, you might be interested in reading the following Articles & Fact Sheets:

• Everything You Wanted to Know About Reserve Studies
• Who Pays for California HOA Common Area Repairs? Understanding Civil Code 4775
• Why California HOAs Are Legally Required to Maintain Common Areas and What Happens When They Don’t

Contact Us to Discuss Your HOA Dispute By Calling: (949) 767-3910

Some HOAs are failing to perform the most basic duty they owe to their members—maintaining, repairing, and replacing common area elements. In this episode of HOA HELL, leading pioneer in homeowner-side HOA law in California, Michael Kushner, breaks down why so many California HOAs fall short, how that failure puts YOU at legal and financial risk, and what red flags you should be watching for if your board is dragging its feet. From cracked stairways and leaking roofs to ignored inspection reports and deferred slope repairs, Kushner walks listeners through the most common scenarios where HOA neglect creates real danger. He also outlines exactly what steps you can take to force action before your property value, and your safety, are put at risk.

Your HOA has a duty to enforce the CC&Rs in a manner that is not arbitrary or capricious, as well as by “procedures which are uniformly applied.” Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, condo owners frequently find that the board members of their condominium association’s “serve” because they enjoy the power that being on the board gives them, or they like to tell people what to do. These people are the ones who treat their HOAs like their own personal fiefdoms, often granting themselves and their friends privileges that they deny to other members. Such selective enforcement is illegal.

You may have a claim against your HOA for selective enforcement if your HOA:

• allows a board member to enjoy a perk or privilege denied to other similarly situated condominium owners;
• denies your application for an improvement to your condo after having already approved applications from other similarly situated condominium owners;
• strictly enforces certain rules against you while ignoring similar violations of other members; or
• arbitrarily enforces certain rules while ignoring others.

If you'd like to learn more about selective enforcement in California HOAs, read the following Articles & Fact Sheets:

• How to Prove Selective Enforcement in California HOAs
• HOA Selective Enforcement in California: What It Is and How Homeowners Can Fight Back.
• Examples of Selective Enforcement in California HOAs: Uneven Rule Enforcement
• Selective Enforcement in California HOAs: What It Is and Why It’s Illegal

Contact Us to Discuss Your HOA Dispute By Calling: (949) 691-3317

In this episode of HOA HELL, California HOA attorney and pioneer in homeowner-side HOA law, Michael Kushner, breaks down one of the most common (and most destructive) forms of HOA abuse in California: selective enforcement. Through real case examples, including a dramatic greenhouse dispute in an upscale San Diego community, Michael exposes how bad HOAs apply rules unevenly to reward friends and punish critics. This episode explains how homeowners can recognize selective enforcement, prove it, and demand equal treatment under the Davis-Stirling Act.

In simple terms, negligence is the failure to act reasonably in a given situation. If your HOA and/or neighbor cause damage to you or your property as a result of unreasonable conduct on their part(s), you may file a claim for negligence.

For example, you may have a strong negligence claim against your HOA/neighbor in any of the following types of situations:

• while watering their balcony, an upstairs neighbor allows an unreasonably excessive amount of water to flow onto your balcony, causing damage to your property;
• your HOA fails to reasonably maintain the common areas, resulting in expensive replacements and repairs; or
• you report a roof leak in your condominium building that the HOA either ignores or delays before taking action, causing damage to your property.

Contact Us to Discuss Your HOA Dispute By Calling: (949) 767-3910

When water leaks into your home, most homeowners are told one of two things: the HOA has to pay for everything, or go through your own insurance. Both answers are often wrong. In Part 1 of this two-part HOA HELL episode, California HOA lawyer and pioneer in homeowner-side HOA law in California, Michael Kushner, breaks down why water intrusion disputes are so common in California HOAs, and why bad boards and managers give oversimplified answers that can cost homeowners thousands of dollars.

You can find Part 2 of that episode here.