Encino Property Management

Another Law for 2014 that property management companies and owners should be aware of is the Davis-Stirling Act on Common area reimbursment assessments.
Many California condominium and homeowner associations’ CC&Rs permit the Board of Directors, on behalf of an association, to impose a reimbursement assessment/monetary charge on a member for the cost of repairing damage caused by a member (or the member’s guest or tenant) to association common areas and facilities. In addition to an association’s authority under the CC&Rs to impose a reimbursement assessment, former California Civil Code Section 1367.1(d) stated that “[a] monetary charge imposed by the association as a means of reimbursing the association for costs incurred by the association in the repair of damage to common areas and facilities…may become a lien against the member’s separate interest enforceable by the sale of the interest…”

Unlike other monetary charges that can be imposed on members, such as monetarily fining a member for a rule violation, reimbursement assessments may be enforced by recording a lien on a member’s property. And effective January 1, 2014, the new Davis-Stirling Act now expressly requires what we have been advising our clients for years, that Boards must hold a hearing before they can impose a fee or penalty on an owner for the cost of repairing damage to the common area.