An HOAleader.com reader asks: "My question is simply, is this a valid rule: No discharge of firearms in the community.
It seems to me to be overly broad. If it were to say no discharge in the common areas, perhaps it would be something that would stand up in court. But to make a broad rule like that means that if a homeowner had a firearm in their home for self-defense, they couldn't discharge. If they did, they'd be in violation of this rule."
In this week's tip, our experts also question the enforceability of this rule.
The big issue here is that word discharge. "The rule doesn't prohibit guns in the common area," says Adrian Chiang, an associate at Swedelson Gottlieb in Los Angeles who represents about 100 condos and HOAs throughout California at any given time. "This says no discharge."
Melissa S. Doolan, an attorney at The Travis Law Firm in Phoenix, who has represented community associations for the last 15 years, has a guess as to where a rule like this might come
from.
"I could see a rule that says no discharge in the common areas or not even in your front or back yard," she explains. "The board probably doesn't want target shooting in owners' backyards. But in their house? Often, you can't regulate
what people do in their home."
Chiang picks up on Doolan's point. "Typically, the association's powers are limited to what the CC&Rs allow the board to do," he explains. "In most CC&Rs I see, the association's ability to create
rules on conduct are limited to the common areas. They rarely extend those powers to owners' homes, with a few exceptions, such as with architectural issues. Also, owners can't carry on in their units to create noise nuisances. So maybe boards can create a rule to require quiet hours after 10 p.m.
"Boards can piggyback off those types of provisions and can sometimes stretch a little bit what the CC&Rs allow them to do," says Chiang. "But in this situation, if someone were discharging a gun in self-defense, I wouldn't even consider that a nuisance issue. Certainly that's a big mitigating circumstance when it comes to this rule. So how are you going to enforce this rule? To me, it's really a law enforcement
issue."