If you receive a violation letter from the HOA, please read through the material below so that you are familiar with how the HOA is required to handle these matters, how we would like you to respond, and what the rules say about how the process is supposed to proceed. There is also a section at the end of this page that explains things you shouldn’t do.

Read Article XI (Amended)

When you receive a violation letter, you should read and become familiar with Article XI (Amended) of the CC&R’s for our neighborhood. It explains the HOA’s policies and procedures for CC&R rule enforcement. You can read a copy by clicking here: Article XI (Amended)

Remember that the HOA is required to address violations

It’s important to know that our HOA is organized as a nonprofit corporation and has been registered as such with the State of Oregon since March 20, 1998. As a nonprofit corporation the HOA and its directors and officers have powers and duties defined by Oregon law and our bylaws and CC&R’s. For example, Oregon law says that the HOA may conduct its activities, impose dues and assessments upon its members, carry on its business, and do any other act not inconsistent with law that furthers the activities and affairs of the corporation.  Oregon law also requires that directors of the HOA act in its best interests and says that “Each officer has the authority and shall perform the duties set forth in the bylaws or, to the extent consistent with the bylaws, the duties and authority prescribed by the board of directors or by direction of an officer”.  Our bylaws say that one of the duties of the board is to carry out the associations’s purposes which are defined in part by the CC&R’s.

The Bylaws and CC&R’s apply to all of our homes equally and aren’t something the HOA can waive or ignore for a homeowner without a strong and compelling reason. The HOA is required to enforce the CC&R’s and that is usually the end of the discussion as far as the HOA is concerned unless there is a strong and compelling reason to do something else. Every homeowner was provided a copy of the CC&R’s when the purchased their home and they are available on our website. Please read them and become familiar with the rules and limitations they contain. The HOA assumes all homeowners have read them.

Why do we send letters?

Occasionally homeowners ask why the HOA didn’t talk to them first and instead just mailed out the initial violation letter. The context is often that the homeowner feels the letter was impersonal or that the HOA was being confrontational.

The HOA sends violation letters because our rules require it to. Article XI, Section 4 says that if the HOA receives a complaint and a violation is found to exist, “a warning letter shall be sent to the Violator explaining the nature of the violation.” The HOA is following the rules just as we expect homeowners to do the same.

There have been times when the HOA has had one of its directors talk with a homeowner about an issue. That usually occurs if there are substantial questions about whether the activity is an actual violation, a temporary concern, or some other matter such as a construction project subject to permits, etc. But as was explained in a post on Facebook recently, there are some important reasons the HOA doesn’t generally discuss violations with homeowners in person:

1. It is difficult and very time consuming to go to homes – typically numerous times – to talk with a homeowner. We have families, jobs, and other responsibilities that often are important to us. The HOA doesn’t want to talk with a homeowner’s children, family, friends, etc. about the violation. Sometimes homeowners won’t answer the door despite being able to see them inside. It is also common to have a spouse open the door and say that the HOA has to come back when the other spouse is home because they handle these types of things. And don’t forget that some of our homes are rentals occupied by nonowners that often don’t care about the rules because it isn’t their house. The HOA board members may not know what the actual homeowners look like to be able to know when we are talking to them or to a renter.
2. The HOA wants to make sure the homeowner has a full understanding of the reason for the violation, our enforcement steps, and exactly how to contact us with questions. If the letter is detailed and explains these things, the HOA is confident that it has given the homeowner adequate notice and sufficient information to be fair to them.
3. The HOA doesn’t want to get drawn into conflict and drama about who said what. The notes of our directors about the conversation are helpful and a little bit better than “he said, she said” when it comes to what we discuss on someone’s front porch. But the HOA is tired of “no you didn’t say that” kinds of self-serving lies and conflict. Letters are clear about what was said. The HOA requires that any response to a violation letter by a homeowner be in writing for the same reason. We are trying hard to be fair and accurate and letters in writing help us do so.
4. Conversations with homeowners tend to trail off into indefinite “I’ll take care of it” sorts of inconclusive endings and promises. Which, of course, often never happen and the HOA ends up wasting weeks or months while the homeowner puts off the issue and the neighbor who filed the complaint gets more and more upset with the passage of time. Letters solve this issue by clearly getting to the point and moving things along. The HOA always listens when a homeowner has a reasonable request for more time to respond. But we all have an obligation to our community and to our neighbors to promptly take care of these issues the HOA points out.
5. It was mentioned at a recent annual HOA meeting that one of HOA directors was having a friendly and polite discussion with a homeowner about their RV parked in front of their home. The homeowner’s husband, who has since moved away, turned the situation into a very serious armed confrontation for no sane reason. The HOA is made up of volunteers who don’t deserve to be treated that way and certainly shouldn’t run the risk of being injured or killed for serving their community. Letters avoid the risk that a homeowner with mental health, drug, alcohol, or other issues will escalate an otherwise neighborly encounter. Bringing two or three board members might reduce this risk or it could just put more lives at risk. And as mentioned in #1 above it’s hard enough for one board member to make the time to go out and meet with homeowners let alone arrange for two or three of them to do something.
6. 1.  

Read the CC&R’s to understand the violation issue

After you have read Article XI (Amended) of the CC&R’s, your next step should be to read the Bylaws and CC&R’s that apply to your violation letter if you haven’t done so already. You can click on these links to read the specific rule the HOA is enforcing:

Bylaws – Original

Prepare a response

The CC&R’s for our neighborhood are generally very clear and the HOA board of directors is required to enforce them. However, that doesn’t mean the HOA cannot grant exceptions for a strong and compelling reason. If you feel that there is a strong and compelling reason you should not be required to follow the CC&R’s on a particular issue, please take some time to carefully prepare a thoughtful response. A general statement such as “someone told me it is dangerous” or “the contractor said to do it that way” is not very persuasive to the HOA. The same goes for getting loud or angry. Spend some time to take good pictures and draw a diagram to explain your position. Get a detailed letter from your contractor that provides the HOA board some solid information from an experienced specialist that says why you had to do what you did, even if it violated the CC&R’s.

The HOA board will carefully consider your response in light of its collective experience, individual backgrounds, and expertise. The board members live in our neighborhood, too, and have a home that is probably very similar to yours. If you help the HOA understand the issue and give it good information to consider, it may be able to justify allowing an exception to the CC&R’s. For example, a well written letter from an experienced arborist that explains a problem you experienced with one of your trees and proposes a logical solution will be given a lot of weight by the HOA board. A work order or an invoice from a plumber may not give the board much to consider but a detailed note from that plumber explaining the issue they fixed and why the plumber had to do it does. Keep in mind that the board will call your arborist or plumber to follow up and may even spend some money to hire their own to evaluate the situation and help the HOA understand what it should do.

Communicate with the HOA board of directors

After you have re-read the violation letter the HOA mailed to you, read the rules in our Bylaws and CC&R’s, and prepared a thoughtful response, please send it to the HOA in writing. In order to ensure the HOA receives it, the HOA requires that you send your response to either the HOA email address which is amblesidehoaspringfield@gmail.com or you may send it by regular mail by addressing it to:

Ambleside Meadows HOA
2300 33rd Street
Springfield, OR 97477

The HOA is aware of issues that affect responding to violations such as family vacations, the inability to arrange a contractor in a timely fashion in the summer, or the difficulty of hiring a painting crew within ten days. The HOA is also understanding when it comes to the expense of dealing with these issues. For these reasons, the HOA often invites homeowners to submit a reasonable plan to resolve the issue. The HOA always reads and considers the homeowner’s proposal. If the proposal is reasonable and will resolve the matter, the HOA may accept it or may otherwise work with the homeowner to come up with a good schedule to remedy the violation and get things done. The HOA also frequently waives fines if the homeowner acts appropriately and works out a solution with the HOA.

The HOA board members live in our neighborhood so it’s likely you may have the opportunity to talk with one about the violation letter you receive. Please remember that conversations you may have with board members have no bearing on the contents of the violation letter sent to you, the deadline to resolve the violation or respond, or the application of our Bylaws and CC&R’s.

What not to do

Please remember that the HOA is made up of people who live in our neighborhood and care about it enough to volunteer their time and serve our community. Violations of the rules affect the livability of the places we call home and reduce the value of our investments, which are currently worth approximately $55.5 million dollars. When the HOA sends out a violation letter it is following the rules, performing its duty, and reminding homeowners about the rules and restrictions in the CC&R’s that apply equally to everyone to protect our community.

With that in mind, if you wish to send the HOA a response to your violation letter please remember that the HOA will read your response and consider what you say. Take a moment before you hit the “send” button and make sure you won’t regret the things you say to your neighbors in a few days. Angry, insulting, threatening, or harsh comments will only make things worse, as will these things the HOA has dealt with:

1. Taunting the HOA with promises that the HOA will never be able to make you do anything. That just doesn’t work. The rules say that after three or more violations in a six month period the HOA can turn the matter over to its attorney for enforcement. At that point all options are on the table such as court orders to enforce the CC&R’s and liens. The bylaws and CC&R’s also state that the homeowner shall pay all the HOA’s costs including attorney fees.
2. Accusing the HOA of selective enforcement. The HOA is trying its best and actively responds to complaints from its homeowners. If you know of other violations, please tell the HOA so we can investigate but it doesn’t affect the violation on your property.
3. Posting rude comments or “trolling” on our Facebook page, the Nextdoor website, or other social media is also not going to help you at all. The HOA reads these public posts and takes them into consideration when determining how to proceed. For example, the HOA has authority to waive fines or allow additional time to comply but may not grant those courtesies based on the homeowner’s behavior.
4. Threatening to “turn us in” or to file a complaint with the attorney general. The HOA has kept careful records and is very comfortable with responding to any state or local inquiries. Vengeful conduct doesn’t address the underlying rule violation and sets a poor example for our children. The HOA won’t respond in kind but it reserves the right to document the behavior by homeowners and respond appropriately.
5. Yelling at board members or acting rude and angry toward them in person in our neighborhood. The issue is not going to go away because you are loud, sound really assertive, or act mad toward the HOA board members. The HOA just isn’t going to back down because of your bad behavior. The HOA will also not avoid sending you future violation letters because you get mad. Lastly, the children and families of board members are off limits so don’t ever cross that bright line.
6. Saying the CC&R’s are obsolete. If you have a proposal for modifying or changing the CC&R’s, please write it down with your explanation of why it should be changed and send it to the HOA so that we can consider your ideas for improvement. The HOA welcomes those kinds of things and always considers them carefully. But in the mean time, just saying the CC&R’s are out of date doesn’t advance the discussion of your violation.
7. You took too long. Your HOA board may not be as prompt as it could be some times. The board is made up of unpaid volunteers and other concerns such as our families, our jobs, our homes, and our health come first. The HOA also has to prioritize the things it does such as working with the City of Springfield, real estate agents, and dealing with certain issues in the neighborhood. Also keep in mind that many state and federal agencies often take a great deal of time to do anything. They don’t allow you to just go ahead and do something that violates their laws or permitting process because it took them a while to respond to you, so the HOA doesn’t either. It just doesn’t work to try to shift responsibility for your rule violation to the HOA because you feel the HOA didn’t work fast enough for your standards. If it’s an important concern for you, please volunteer to join the HOA board and serve your community so that you can help us respond to things quicker and be part of the solution.
8. “Well the real reason is ___.” Start off by explaining the real reason to the HOA and being completely truthful with us. When you say something like this you are telling the HOA that you were not being truthful earlier and that makes it really hard for the HOA to give any weight to anything you say.

We are an association of homeowners and adults who live by the CC&R’s for our neighborhood that we knew about before we bought our homes. The HOA encourages you to stay positive and respond in a mature fashion. Just saying the rules shouldn’t apply to your home won’t work. Treat the situation as a learning experience and something to work out with your fellow neighbors who also own beautiful homes in our community. Send the HOA a reasonable and well supported plan as to how you would like to resolve the violation so the HOA can see you are treating this seriously. Stay positive in what you say and help the HOA bring your property back into compliance with the CC&R’s. Remember that the HOA exists to preserve all of our property values for 171 homes and to keep our neighborhood a great place to live. While your violation may not seem like a big deal to you, real estate appraisers say that even little issues in the neighborhood drag down the value of our homes which as of the summer of 2018 were collectively worth about $70 million dollars.

We hope this helps. If you have any questions about how to respond to a violation letter from your HOA, please send the entire HOA board a message by email at amblesidehoaspringfield@gmail.com or by using the contact form at the bottom of this webpage.

-Jason

Jason Castanza, President of Ambleside Meadows Home Owners Association

Ambleside Meadows HOA adheres to all fair housing laws and welcomes requests for reasonable accommodations and reasonable modifications pursuant to the law. Ambleside Meadows HOA does not discriminate according to Federal law on the basis of:

• Race
• Color
• National Origin (also referred to as ethnicity)
• Sex
• Familial status
• Disability (physical or mental)

Ambleside Meadows HOA also does not discriminate according to Oregon fair housing law which includes the basis of:

• Marital status
• Sexual orientation (this includes gender identity)
• Source of income including Section 8 as of July 1, 2014
• Domestic violence

If you have a request for a reasonable accommodation or reasonable modification, please address it in writing to Ambleside HOA, 2300 33rd Street, Springfield, Oregon 97477.