Covenants Enforcement

Effective covenants enforcement is essential to any well-run community association. A covenant is an agreement that binds all homeowners together in an HOA or condominium association. The association’s Declaration of Covenants, Conditions, & Restrictions outlines a community’s covenants. This document creates the rules, rights, and obligations of the community. Communities with covenants retain their property values better than communities without.

In most cases, the Declaration goes into effect the minute a homeowner purchases property in an HOA community. They must abide by the covenants (or rules) outlined in the Declaration. But covenants only work when the community follows them. So, without a group dedicated to covenant enforcement, your whole community will suffer. However, covenant enforcement can place a huge burden on an already overworked and stressed volunteer board. Yet, it is the board’s fiduciary duty to see that covenants are enforced.

Is your board looking to outsource Covenants Enforcement so that someone else can make the initial judgment call on whether a condition constitutes a violation? Would you prefer not to stand in front of your neighbors’ homes, taking pictures and issuing violation notices? If the answer to either question is yes, then Majerle Management, Inc. (MMI) is here to help.

How MMI Can Help

MMI has a highly effective Covenants Enforcement Program, previously available only to full-service MMI Client Associations. Now, we offer this program as a stand-alone package at a very affordable price.

Any community association in central Maryland can use our covenants enforcement program. Once you have tried it, you will be amazed at how much time and effort MMI can save your board members. You will also experience more satisfied homeowners and a better-run community.

Let’s go over the completely customizable program in detail:

• Organization: Our covenants enforcement program begins with organization. We examine your governing documents to determine what constitutes a covenant or rules violation.
• Creation of violations list: Then we create a list citing all the rule infringements. Your board may decide only to enforce certain covenant violations. Or you can use the whole list. The decision is up to you. Once you have determined the covenant violations you wish to enforce, we will create an entry of the “violation” in our system. That entry includes the actual language from YOUR governing documents—document, section, and relevant text.
• Notice templates: We then create a series of escalation and hearing notice templates from the violation entry in our system. Our notice templates are court-tested and ready. You can choose to use the template as is or customize them for tone, language, or content. We work with your board to create the escalation and hearing notices that will work best for your community.
• Inspections: After the preliminary work is complete, we will begin conducting inspections. We provide inspectors, either seasoned managers or maintenance personnel. They use a well-known industry software app to conduct inspections. Our inspectors look for applicable violations, photograph those violations, and issue a separate letter with a photo for each observed infringement. We will make these letters available to homeowners on the community portal for one year (longer if you renew). The board will also have full access to review all homeowners’ letters and photos during that time.
• Tracking: In addition to alerting your board of the violations, we will also input the violations into our system. This system will track violations. We can resolve the entry if the infringement is settled. Our system also tells us when to conduct a new inspection or escalate the issue. Some violations may receive a second notice, and some may go straight to enforcement. Our automatic system keeps track of these differences. It removes the risk of human error in this lengthy and legally complicated process.
• Hearing: Finally, some homeowners may refuse to take the steps needed to resolve the violation. In that case, you will need to escalate the situation even further. If required, we will set up hearings to fix the problem. If you wish, we will even attend those hearings virtually.

As you can tell from the above outline, customization is key in MMI’s covenants enforcement program. Before we inspect, we will work with your board to build and customize the program to suit your community’s needs.

You do not need to worry about being handed a one-size-fits-all plan when you work with MMI. We will even roll our covenants enforcement program into our other community management service plans. You can add it to our Full-Service Management Program.

The experts at MMI are here to help community associations in the central Maryland area better serve their homeowners. This promise includes enforcing your covenants and keeping your community’s value stable. Do not let the process of covenant enforcement intimidate you. Contact MMI to learn more about our covenants enforcement program and the benefits it can bring.