HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - February 13, 2026
Published: Fri, 02/13/26
Updated: Mon, 02/16/26
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HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - February 13, 2026
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In this week's tip, we put our eyeballs back in our head and then objectively analyze a situation in which a manager seemingly mouthed off to an HOA board client.
A reader online asks: “The board recently discovered that a unit has a doggie door through the exterior wall of the unit (we discovered it because the unit is for sale and had pictures on the listing).
We notified our management company and asked for a violation to be issued for breaching the HOA-owned exterior wall and were called 'creepy' by the management company owner for monitoring units that are for sale.
Our backyards are limited common elements, due in part to the drainage that runs through the backyards. The owner of the management company went on to say, 'Monitoring the limited common elements would be too time-consuming and cause way more work.'"
Wow.
We tackle three questions that arise: Is this board's violation monitoring "creepy?" Is this manager right in saying it's too time-consuming to monitor limited common elements? And finally, what kind of management company tells a board they're creepy?
Question 1: Is this board's violation monitoring "creepy?"
Nope.
"I know there are board members and owners and people in general who can be very nosy," says Jennifer Biletnikoff, a shareholder in the Naples, Fla., office of Becker & Poliakoff, who has represented condos and HOAs for more than 15 years. "But if there are pictures on a website for a listing, you're putting it out there. That's not creepy whatsoever."
Online home listings aren't private, agrees Sara A. Austin, CCAL, the founding partner at the Austin Law Firm LLC in York, Pa., who represents more than 130 condos, HOAs, and co-ops throughout Pennsylvania. "I don't know that it's creepy," she says. "It's public information. Based on what I see, a board member hasn't said to someone, ‘Make me a friend on your Facebook page so I can stalk your posts.' In a way, I applaud this board for finding an innovative way to monitor the community."
This board's oversight isn't so unusual, says Molly Peacock, a partner at Briglia Hundley, P.C. in Tysons Corner, Va., who has represented condos and HOAs for 17 years. Find out why—and get answers to our two other questions—the in our new article: https://www.hoaleader.com/members/5251.cfm
Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President
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