Creating a mandatory homeowners association in your existing neighborhood
If you are considering creating a mandatory homeowners association in your existing neighborhood, your first step should be to identify its purpose. Mandatory associations serve particular purposes. For example, mandatory associations are often created to enforce restrictive covenants and to maintain common areas. Maybe you are considering a mandatory association to enforce neighborhood covenants, such as architectural standards, or to enforce new covenants that have been proposed. Or, maybe your community currently has a voluntary association that maintains a common area with facilities, such as a pool, but dwindling membership in the association has caused homeowners to consider making it mandatory to prevent the common area from falling into disrepair.
The next step is to explain that purpose to the homeowners in your community. This is an important step because you cannot force owners to join a homeowners association. Although the developer of a new neighborhood may incorporate an association and subject all of the lots to mandatory membership before the lots are sold, you will need to obtain the homeowners’ consent if title to their property was not subject to a mandatory association when they acquired their homes.
You should then put whatever agreement that is reached into a written declaration. The declaration should show the full agreement and intention of the parties, identify the subject land, and include covenants concerning the land or its use. For instance, do the homeowners agree to allow the association to enforce covenants against them? If so, what covenants? Do the homeowners agree to pay assessments to the association? The written declaration will then need to be recorded in the county land records, and all property of the consenting owners will need to be subjected to the declaration. The association itself will also need to be incorporated with the Georgia Secretary of State and bylaws prepared.
This article is intended as a general road map and does not address specifics (such as the rights of a mortgage company that holds a security deed on property before the creation of the mandatory association) or circumstances that might be unique to your community.