Articles Posted in Current Affairs

On February 6, the Orange County Regional Chapter of Community Associations Institute honored SwedelsonGottlieb’s Associate Attorney Cyrus Koochek with its Rising Star award. The award is given to new members of the chapter in recognition of the member’s volunteer service and commitment to the chapter’s goals. Cyrus served on the chapter’s programs committee in 2014 and looks forward to continued success with the chapter this year.

Is your community association located in Orange County? Be sure to check out all the great events and opportunities offered by the chapter for managers and board members at www.caioc.org.

Or, find your chapter here.

He is finally here, and we could not be happier. Brian Moreno, already a seasoned community association attorney, has decided to move on from the firm he worked with for the last six years and bring his experience, skills and excellent reputation to SwedelsonGottlieb. Brian enhances the firm’s team of lawyers and will certainly benefit the firm’s clients. Brian could have joined any of the other community association law firms, yet he chose SwedelsonGottlieb. That says a lot about Brian and SwedelsonGottlieb.

Brian has extensive litigation and general corporate, real estate and community association legal experience. Follow this link to read Brian’s stellar resume. We hope you will have the opportunity to work with Brian.

SwedelsonGottlieb Senior Partner Sandra Gottlieb was recently honored by the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Community Associations Institute with a nomination for the chapter’s award for Excellence in Education. Sandra was nominated as a result of her January 2014 presentation, Hoarders, Board Member Hostility & Controlling Rental Tenants. Slides from Sandra’s presentation appear below (if you are reading this post via email, click through to see the presentation).

If your homeowners association is located in the Greater Los Angeles area, be sure to get involved with CAI-GLAC and take advantage of all the terrific educational programs that they offer, some of which are free to board members and managing agents. Our attorneys are frequent speakers at their events, so be sure to watch for when we’ll be there. And if you’re in a different area of California, find your local chapter on CAI’s national website.

[Pictured: Left, Joan Urbaniak, CAI-GLAC Executive Director; Right, Sandra L. Gottlieb]

By David Swedelson, Partner, SwedelsonGottlieb, Community Association Attorneys

The LA Times reports that the Los Angeles City Council has adopted a new system that allows police officers to issue citations for minor “quality of life” crimes that would typically be resolved with a warning. Read the article here.

According to the article, “a pilot program, called Administrative Citation Enforcement, gives the Los Angeles Police Department and the Department of Animal Services a new enforcement tool that bypasses the court system. It allows city officials to impose fines for offenses such as urinating in public, having dogs off leashes or dumping garbage in public streets.”

By David Swedelson, Partner, SwedelsonGottlieb, Community Association Attorneys

We deal with a lot of view obstruction disputes. We are able to resolve most of these disputes, as they are subject to CC&Rs which set out what view is protected. And the CC&Rs and the Civil Code provide that the prevailing party is entitled to collect their attorneys’ fees. That usually convinces most people that the fight is not worth the cost.

Sometimes, these view disputes cannot be resolved. For example, in July of 2013, I blogged about a case I had tried and won that dealt with a homeowner who was not part of the association she sued, claiming her cherished view of the association’s lake was obstructed by the trees in the association’s park; she claimed it was a spite fence. Follow this link to read that story.

So, I found an article about a lawsuit involving a 40 foot hedge to be interesting. The legal battle over the hedge is between two Santa Monica properties. Follow this link to read the Daily Journal article.

The article tells us that while they tried to settle the dispute, the “Santa Monica neighbors – well-known local plaintiffs’ attorney Browne Greene and former California state treasurer Phillip N. Angelides – are instead opting to go to court in September over the 40-foot hedge between their two homes.”
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By David Swedelson, Senior Partner, SwedelsonGottlieb, Community Association Attorneys

Robin Williams is dead. We lost a great talent, a very funny man. As one commentator wrote, the world is a lot less funny today.

I read an interesting article about Robin Williams and the No Asshole Rule. Not surprising, it is reported that Robin Williams was NOT an asshole. Apparently he treated others with warmth and respect. If only homeowners at community associations followed the No Asshole Rule. Just saying…

Report by David Swedelson, Partner, SwedelsonGottlieb, Community Association Attorneys

An article in the LA Times last week reported that Los Angeles City auditors revealed that the bureau charged with fixing and maintaining Los Angeles’ streets is plagued with problems that include failing to collect or spend hundreds of millions of dollars, keeping shoddy records and neglecting to address the most heavily trafficked roads first. Follow this link to read the article.

Below are some highlights and comments. And as you read this, think about what would happen at a community association that so badly managed maintenance and repair. I know what would happen; the owners at the association would be very unhappy. And they would let the board know just how they feel. So why aren’t more people letting the city know just how they feel about the situation?
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Looking for a fun, healthy way to support a great cause? This Saturday, SwedelsonGottlieb staff will be teaming up with the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of Community Associations Institute in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life. Come on over to Santa Monica and join us this Saturday, July 26th at 10:00 a.m.

Follow this link to register for the event. Select the “SIGN UP” button, then find the button that says “JOIN A TEAM” and use the drop-down list to find CAI-GLAC and join the team.

Thanks for your support!

By David Swedelson, Partner at SwedelsonGottlieb, Community Association Attorneys

I am not an accountant, far from it. But I am aware that there are two different tax returns that condos, HOAs, and cooperatives can (and should) file (and yes, community associations, while exempt to some extent from paying taxes on assessment income, still may have income and need to file tax returns). I have never really understood when an association would file one tax return form versus the other. I was therefore interested in a blog article on this issue by Donna DiMaggio Berger, a Florida community association attorney. Donna’s article addressed a class she took that focused on the issues pertaining to association tax returns. I am only going to summarize it here. [Editor’s note: the prior link to Donna’s article is no longer valid, our apologies.]

As Donna points out, most board members are not all likely to understand the complexities of accounting principles. And most likely do not understand the complexities of tax issues, returns, etc. as the same applies to their homeowners association. This means that board members do need to hire a competent accounting professional to assist their community.
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