HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - March 31, 2017
Published: Fri, 03/31/17
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Ready for Takeoff: What Will Fly in Your HOA’s Drone Policy
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In this week’s tip, we fire up the engine on your HOA’s drone policy.
What? You don’t have one yet? No worries. We’ve got you covered.
We’ve reported on the fact that drones are becoming more popular. At the same time, we offered general advice on how to handle their emergence, which is growing at a faster pace than many predicted.
“I haven’t seen any in my associations, but believe it or not, there were expected to be more than a million drones sold in 2016,” reports Robert E. Ducharme, founder of Ducharme Law in Stratham, N.H., who specializes in representing community associations.
As you might imagine, they can and do cause conflicts.
“In 2015, a Kentucky man shot down a drone hovering over where his 16-year old daughter was sunbathing,” states Ducharme. “The judge acquitted the shooter of a criminal mischief charge. So you can envision all these problems with drone use in associations.”
Here’s a specific provision you might want to include in your drone policy:
1. Spell out when owners can use drones and for what purpose. In other words, can owners use drones for recreation on your greenbelts or solely on their own property? Can owners receive deliveries from vendors by drone? Is drone use OK at 6 a.m. on a Sunday or 10 p.m. on a Wednesday? Decide what’s reasonable, and list it all clearly in your rules.
“This is so new that we don’t know how it’s going to manifest itself,” reports Stephen Marcus, a partner at Marcus, Errico, Emmer, Brooks in Braintree, which represents about 4,000 associations, mostly condos, in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island.
“For example, on ‘60 Minutes,’ Amazon revealed its plans to use drones for deliveries,” adds Marcus. “That brings up issues. If it’s an HOA, in theory, vendors could drop the package on the person’s front step.
“But what happens in a high rise?” asks Marcus. “Does your association install a drone delivery site? Or do you amend the documents to not permit such deliveries? Do you make the owner to whom the package is being delivered somehow responsible if there’s a crash and there are damages? I think some of these things are in the future.”
Ducharme adds more suggestions. If you designate a delivery area, fence it off, and post signs warning people of the risk of drones overhead. Also, if you set a rule that bars owners from flying their drone over common property, like your pool, also state how far away drones must stay from such property. Be sure to state who’s responsible (hint: not the HOA) if a package is delivered but sits unattended on a common area for days and is then stolen.
That’s just one of 5 Points to Cover in Your HOA’s Drone Policy, all of which you can crib from our new article. Get started now: https://www.hoaleader.com/members/2528.cfm.
Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President
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HOA Board Members and Fiduciary Duties:
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Recent articles posted at HOAleader.com:
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5 Points to Cover in Your HOA's Drone Policy
We've reported on the fact that drones are becoming more popular. At the same time, we offered general advice on how to handle their emergence, which is growing at a faster pace than many predicted.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/5-Points-Cover-in-Your-HOAs-Drone-Policy.cfm
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Can Owners Decline Membership in Your HOA?
An HOAleader.com reader writes, "We recently established an HOA for a 50-home residential neighborhood in Thurston County, Wash., in accordance with Washington state laws regarding HOAs (RCW 64.38) for the primary purpose of enforcing existing covenants, codes, and restrictions that each homeowner agreed to when purchasing their home.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/Can-Owners-Decline-Membership-in-Your-HOA.cfm
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Save Money and Protect Your Association and Yourself: What You Need to Know about Condo and HOA Insurance
Insurance for HOAs and condominium associations is critical but not well understood. Do you have the right types insurance? The right amounts? Are certain types of insurance for community associations required by law? What HOA insurance provisions cost more than they're worth? Are you paying too much for the coverage you're getting? Watch this on-demand webinar now and, in 60 minutes, you'll have concrete information to purchase the right insurance for your community association, to purchase the right amount of insurance for your association, and to pay the right price for the insurance you need.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/products/condo-hoa-insurance-b.cfm
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HOA President Refuses to Boot Decades-Serving Committee Members
In this week's tip, we help a reader out on the question of whether committee members can be forced to step down. In a question on HOAleader's discussion forum, our reader complains that architectural control committee members at his HOA have served as long as 20 years. And the president isn't inclined to boot them off--despite willing replacements waiting in the wings.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/HOA-President-Refuses-Boot-DecadesServing-Committee-Members.cfm
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Limiting the Terms of Your HOA's Committee Members: Pros and Cons
An HOAleader.com reader writes, "We have a 53-home HOA in Virginia incorporated in 1986. The architectural control committee has several members that have been on the ACC since sometime in the 1990s. Since minutes are rarely published and records poorly kept, it's unclear, but multiple homeowners have told me that some ACC members have been on that long, if not longer.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/Limiting-Terms-Your-HOAs-Committee-Members-Pros-Cons.cfm
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