7 Strategies for Keeping Your Condo/HOA Out of the Bad-News Business
HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - October 20, 2023
When a Black man who was fishing in his own HOA’s pond was approached by White residents asking if he belonged, he began posting videos of the encounters on social media. Then the HOA president asked him to stop posting videos—and the video of his request was online likely before he got home that
day.
In this week’s tip, we evaluate the president’s request to tamp down the problem. Was it even authorized by the board? And if so, was it the association’s best move?
"I think this is a greater societal issue," says Brendan Bunn, CCAL, a partner at Chadwick, Washington, Moriarty, Elmore & Bunn, P.C., who has practiced community association law since 1993 in both Virginia and Washington, D.C. "The availability of cell phones with cameras has changed everything for so
many people. Interactions that are so quick are now recorded and used in a variety of contexts. Associations are facing situations no different than any other entity in the world where their efforts get recorded."
Ben Solomon, managing
partner and founder of Association Law Group in Miami, who advises hundreds of associations as general counsel and also represents developers, banks, hotels and other real estate investors through his second law firm, Solomon, Cooperman, Recondo & Weiss LLP., agrees. "It’s unfortunate today that what used to be private conversations can now become public with phones and social media," he says. "Boards need to be mindful that almost anything could be put on social media and used against you
and distorted. We’re living in a different era."
We’d love more detail, but here’s what we can glean from news reports and videos. Anthony Gibson lives in an HOA in Newnan, Ga. The Atlanta News
First report says Gibson’s father has owned a home in the HOA for two years, and Gibson himself says he lives in the community.
As Gibson has fished in the HOA’s pond, a number of White residents
have stopped to ask if he lives in the community, and Gibson began videotaping. He says he was "bothered four times by four different people" in one day. Some residents have called the police, and Gibson says he’s recording because the police advised him to create evidence of his interactions.
What we’re reporting on here, however, is the HOA president’s approach to Gibson—which was, of course, videotaped. In the video in which a man identifies himself as the HOA president, and he even spells his name for Gibson (but it’s hard to hear), the president asks Gibson "if it’s possible to stop posting viral videos on the Internet...we’ve got to help each other and not post viral videos…And we’ll have a discussion within the
community about the Black-White part of things. It’s obviously paramount."
At no point in the video does the president tell Gibson that it’s against the community’s rules for Gibson to be fishing there.