Your CC&Rs should include an Internal Dispute Resolution procedure, where you can meet with a board member to discuss your concerns and try to work them out. If this doesn't work, then you can require Alternative Dispute Resolution. However, the statute does not require the HOA to stop or postpone the work while you go through this process. If the HOA Board decides that the fumigation is critical, they might be right.
If you sue the HOA Board to stop the fumigation until the IDR and ADR processes are completed, you will have a very high standard to prove. The decisions of the HOA Board are deemed reasonable, unless you prove that there is no substantial evidence to support their decision. If reasonable minds can disagree, then you lose. If you lose, you will have to reimburse the HOA for all its legal fees and expenses. Since the HOA Board and the attorney both know that you are likely to lose and have to pay the legal fees, they don't have any incentive to keep the legal fees down.
If the building really is suffering from some infestation, you are not going to win any friends or allies by causing the fumigation to be delayed. After it is all over, they will still be your neighbors.
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Do you have a revocable living trust to protect your heirs against probate? Probate takes forever, is expensive, and is annoying. Do your family a favor. Set up a trust, and put all your property, especially any real property, into the trust. Since it is revocable, you can change it, add to it, take property out of it, or even cancel it completely, at any time. We set up such trusts, provide a pour-over will as a back-up for any property that does not make it into the trust, provide you with blank durable powers of attorney for health care and financial decisions, in case you become incapable of making such decisions while still alive, and convey one piece of real property to the trust, usually the family home, for $1500.00. If you would like to hire me to do this, let me know, and I'll send you a list of the information I need.
Dana Sack
Answered on Apr 18th, 2017 at 2:05 PM