Many of us purchased townhouses as the market was going bust and home builders were dumping their excess inventory of townhouses.  I know of developments were more than 50% investors.  The deals were good and we all felt like the market could not drop as far as it has.

While a home in an association has less maintenance because a lot of it is taken care of by the association, renting a home in an association takes a little more work that you may expect.  Unlike a regular single family home or even a multi-family building, you have the association watching over your property for things.

Some associations are great and they function and as long as nothing is out of control, they leave everyone alone.  I had the misfortune to be involved with one association where the president made her personal crusade to be the mother hen of this 60 unit townhouse development.  She literally watched secretly out her window as people walked their dogs and would take pictures of anyone that did not pick up after their dog or let the dog walk on the grass.  She would then send the pictures to the management company and the offender would get a warning or a fine.

This happened constantly and was not limited to dog cleanup.  She called the police on her neighbor for loud music or loud voices over 15 times.  Only 3 of those were documented by the police as a nuisance.  If you forgot to bring in your garbage can within 24 hours after garbage pick up, she would get you fined.

She seemed to especially hate tenants.  This project had about 15% of the units rented.  My tenants had 2 dogs, which was the association limit.  One day I get an email from the association management company with a picture attached of 3 dogs playing in the yard with my tenant another woman.  They were giving me a warning saying my tenant had 3 dogs and that I was in violation of the association rules.  I immediately called my tenant who explained that the 3rd dog was her sister’s who stopped over for a couple minutes (this explains the 2nd woman in the picture).

The reason I am telling you all this is that if you own a property in an association, you need to be sure that your lease states something to the effect of:  “tenant has read the association rules and bylaws and will obey both.  Failure to comply with the rules can be grounds for eviction.  This lease is subordinate to the association rules.”  This will help you in the situation where your tenant decides to do something outside the rules.  For example, if my tenant decided to keep a 3rd dog, without this provision, I would have no legal ground to do anything about it.  And the association would have kept fining me indefinitely.

If you own a property in an association, make sure to have your leases include the above language and consider having an attorney review it prior to executing it with a tenant.  This will save headaches later.