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A Letter
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PARKING IN HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATIONS - A FINE BUSINESS!
Fines, towing and storage fees, cars sold, managers and lawyers fees
April 04, 2006
By
AHRC News Services
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| Chula Vista, California - CAI lawyers wrote the laws to collect maintenance dues in homeowner associations and they allow either judicial or non-judicial foreclosure. It is a very lucrative business for homeowner association lawyers and managers. Homeowners are battling CAI lawyers in legislative halls, in the media and courtrooms, to change these equity stripping homeowner association laws.
Fining and "enforcing" rules for board members is also a very lucrative business for many of the same CAI lawyers and managers. The lawyers, managers, patrol agents, towing contractors feed off the millions of homeowners for lawyers and managers fees, fines, towing and storage fees, cars lost to impound sales etc.
When the Scripps Ranch Homeowners Association lost their parking enforcement lawsuit which had been driven by lawyers, Peters & Freedman, and when the angry homeowners had topay $140,000, they fired them.
Abusive parking fines and enforcments make lawyers and managers wealthy. They deplete the association reserves, and drive up the insurance premiums that homeowners are mandated to pay in order to cover board members and managers. These fines devastate families and destabilize communities.
Adele a single working mother with three children sends the following parking horror story.
Adele and her children live in Serena Condo Association. She says that her community of 74 homes was a pleasant and tranquil place until a new board took over the association two years ago.
She says that owners now feel intimidated and nervous even when their cars are parked where they should be, because patrol cars constantly drive around citing cars. Tow trucks haul away cars without notice, and homeowners looking for lost cars face demands of hundreds of dollars in fines, tows and storage.
Adele says her parking nightmare happened in April 2005 after she came home and parked her Honda Accord in her assigned parking spot for the night. She double checked to make sure her parking permit was visible for the homeowners association parking citation and towing vendors (Summit Security and Western Towing).
When she came for her car the next morning, it was gone.
As she panicked and dashed to call the police, neighbors told her to call the association's management before calling the police. She did. Curtis Management told her that her car had been towed for not having a permit. After Adele insisted the permit was in her car and visible, she was told they did find the parking permit in the car and demanded $350 for the towing and storage. When Adele said she did not have $350 then, the manager told attend the the next board meeting in 2 1/2 weeks to speak to the board and refused to contact the board for emergency help.
In the days and weeks that followed, while Adele franctically attempted to get in touch with the board members to retrieve her car, her Honda Accord was sold wthout her knowledge.
The past year has been painful in many ways for Adele and her family. While coping with death in the family, illness, hospitalization, and work Adele has made repeated attempts to recover her car.
Adele says the board and Curtis Management have been stonewalling her requests including her repeated requests for a replacement parking permit that they took with her car so she could park her daughter's car who has since returned home from college.
Now Curtis Management directs all calls to the association lawyer. The lawyer Kieran J, Purcell of Epsten & Grinnell sent Adele the following letter:
EPSTEN GRINNELL HOWELL
Attorneys at law
March 27, 2006
Ms. Adele
Serena Circle
Chula Vista, CA 91910
Re- Serena Condominium Association
Our File No. 3520.01
Dear Ms. Adele:
We are writing to you on behalf of the Board of Directors of the Serena Condominium Association in response to your request for copies of minutes from the Association's recent Board meetings. Pursuant to this request, we have reviewed the Association's governing documents, and relevant portions of the California Corporations Code. Given that you appear to be a tenant within the Serena community, and not an owner, we have determined that you are not entitled to copies of these corporate records.
The right to review corporate records is set forth in Article XII of the Association's Bylaws. It provides that Members have the right to review certain corporate records. including minutes of meetings of Members, the Board, and Committees of the Board. However, these inspection rights are reserved for "Members" who are defined by Sections 1.18 and 1.21 of the Association's Declaration of Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions ("Declaration") as the record owners of fee simple title to a condominium. Article XII is consistent with an owner's right to inspect corporate records under California Corporation Code Section 8333.
Our review of the chain of title for Unit indicates that it was purchased on or about August 7, 2000, by xxxxx , However, if you are now the holder of fee simple title in Unit , please provide us with a copy of your grant deed confirming your ownership, and the Association will provide you with the requested copies of its Board Meeting Minutes.
We note in your recent e-mails that you are requesting that a parking pass be issued to you by Curtis Management Company. Please note that within the Serena community, parking passes are issued by the Association's Board of Directors, not by Curtis Management. To obtain a parking pass, you have two options; (1) you may attend one of the Association's regularly scheduled Board meetings, or (2) you may contact Mr. Walsh to make an appointment for one of the Board members to meet with you and issue a pass.
Finally, we would like to address your mistaken belief that the Association is subject to provisions of the Brown Act. This is incorrect. For your information, the Ralph M. Brown Act ("Government Code Sections 54950 through 54962") states that aall meetings of the "legislative body of a local agency shall be open and public." While the term "legislative body" used in the Act can refer to a private corporation, a legislative body must be the governing entity, board or commission of a local agency. A "local agency" is defined as a county, city, school district, a municipal corporation, district or political subdivision, The only private non-private organizations considered local agencies by the Act are organizations that receive public money to be expended for public purposes pursuant to the "Economic Opportunity Act of 1964." Accordingly, a California non-profit mutual benefit corporation such as Serena is not considered a local agency and the Board is not a legislative body subject to the Act.
I hope that this letter satisfactorily answers your questions regarding these matters. If you have any additional questions, please direct them in writing to the Board of Directors, or attend its next regularly scheduled meeting on April 26, 2006.
Sincerely,
EPSTEN GRINNELL & HOWELL, APC
Kieran J, Purcell |
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