HOA Reform Legislation Is Not A Panacea: What Strong HOA Boards Should Do in the Meantime

Updated August 2026

In recent legislative sessions proposals to change the law governing what North Carolina's community associations can and must do have been proposed. have been . Some pass one chamber without a single dissenting vote. As is the case with many bills, most never become law. For the volunteers who govern communities from Greensboro to Charlotte and across the state, that pattern raises a practical question with little to do with politics: what should a board do while lawmakers decide what, if anything, to require?

A note before we begin. We write as community association management practitioners, not attorneys, and nothing in this article is legal advice. Bills and statutes change, governing documents vary widely, and how any law applies to a specific community is a question for qualified legal counsel.

HOA Legal Reform is Complicated for Many Reasons

Most HOA reform bills are challenging for two structural reasons in addition to the reasons that most legislation that is introduced does not ultimately become law. First, a single statute must govern thousands of very different communities, from associations of a few homes that maintain little more than an entrance sign to master-planned developments responsible for roads, pools, and stormwater systems. Second, there is no easy answer to the question of who would enforce new oversight, what authority that office would hold, or how it would be funded.

The recent history illustrates both challenges. Senate Bill 378 passed one chamber last session. As reported, it would have limited certain violation fines, restricted foreclosure based solely on unpaid fines, and required mediation before certain disputes could proceed to court. It stalled in the other chamber.as many bills do. This session House Bill 1174 proposed to direct the Department of Justice to collect and track HOA complaints, though it would not give the agency authority to regulate associations or resolve disputes. As of this writing, it remains in committee. We reviewed the current session's proposals in more detail in our recent update on the 2026 HOA bills. Pending legislation moves quickly, so anyone relying on a bill's status should verify it at www.ncleg.gov or with counsel.

The pattern has exceptions, and fairness requires noting them. This year, lawmakers strengthened the protections for displaying the American and North Carolina flags that appear in both the Condominium Act and the Planned Community Act. The change was included in a broader regulatory reform measure, Senate Bill 445 ( Session Law 2026-59). That is the shape change usually takes in this field: narrow provisions with broad

consensus cross the finish line, sometimes as a part of bills addressing many subjects, while sweeping HOA reform packages stall. Boards adopting or enforcing any rule that applies to flags should review the updated law with counsel before acting.

Both sides of this debate are legitimate. Homeowners who feel outmatched in a dispute with their association often have few affordable remedies, and their frustration is real. Associations depend on assessments to fund insurance, utilities, and shared infrastructure, and requirements designed for large professionally managed communities can overwhelm a small volunteer board. Homeowner advocates and association professionals disagree in good faith about which remedies would help and which would create new problems. That disagreement, as much as any procedural hurdle, can be why so many bills stall.

What North Carolina's HOA Reform Proposals Keep Asking For

Look past the bill numbers and a pattern emerges. Session after session, the proposals reach for a similar set of outcomes: restraint in imposing fines, foreclosure treated as a genuine last resort, a real opportunity for owners to be heard, easier access to association records, and a visible place for complaints to land. Read together, North Carolina's stalled HOA reform bills sketch a consensus picture of what fair community governance looks like.

Reasonable people differ over whether any particular bill gets the mechanics right, and we make no argument here about what the General Assembly should pass. Our point is narrower. The practices these bills propose do not require a statute. A board can adopt every one of them voluntarily because they are simply sound governance.

The Standard Well-Run Boards Already Meet

With over 40 years managing Carolina communities, we have found that the strongest boards never wait for the law to require fairness. They build it into written policy: a violation process that begins with a courtesy notice, escalates deliberately, and guarantees a hearing before any penalty is imposed. They apply rules consistently, whether the owner involved is a friend, a stranger, or a fellow director. And they document decisions well enough that a future board could understand exactly what was done and why.

Levying a finedeserves particular care, because it is where enforcement most often goes wrong. We explore this at length in Boards, Bylaws, and Better Governance, the first volume of the Lessons from the Neighborhood series. (www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com), where I wrote that "fines work best when they function as a calibrated nudge toward compliance rather than a punitive revenue stream." Some boards go a step further and suspend a fine once the violation is corrected, which keeps the focus where it belongs, on resolving the problem rather than punishing the person.

We once worked with a townhome association where one owner had ignored three notices about a trailer parked beside his unit. By the time the hearing was scheduled, several directors had privately settled on the maximum fine the documents allowed. They were tired of the issue, and honestly, we understood why.

The hearing changed the room. Following the association's written policy, the owner spoke first. He explained that the trailer had belonged to his late brother, that the estate was unresolved, and that he had nowhere to store it while the family sorted things out. He was not defiant. He was overwhelmed. The directors asked a few careful questions, thanked him for coming, and deliberated privately afterward, exactly as their policy required.

Their decision gave him sixty days and suspended any fine on the condition the trailer was gone by then. It was gone in forty. No fine was ever collected, no attorney was ever needed, and the owner later volunteered for the landscaping committee.

Notice what happened in that room: restraint in fining, a genuine opportunity to be heard, and a resolution far short of escalation. Those are the very outcomes reform bills keep reaching for, and this board delivered them with nothing more than a written policy and the discipline to follow it. As I remind readers throughout the book: process is your armor.

How Carolina Boards Can Prepare Now

Whatever Raleigh does next, the responses to four recurring questions are entirely within a board's control.

1. Do we have a clear written violation policy?

2. Does every owner receive a genuine opportunity to be heard before a penalty is imposed?

3. Would our documentation demonstrate consistency if anyone ever examined it?

4. Could we produce appropriate association records promptly if an owner asked?

A board that can answer yes to all four has already met the standard of most reform proposals, and it has done so on its own terms.

Preparation also means knowing the framework already on the books. North Carolina communities generally operate under the Planned Community Act (Chapter 47F) or, for condominiums, the Condominium Act (Chapter 47C) or the older Unit Ownership Act (Chapter 47A), with the Nonprofit Corporation Act (Chapter 55A) working quietly in the background. Our plain-language guides to North Carolina HOA laws at www.amgworld.com, beginning with the Planned Community Act guide, walk through these statutes so directors can arrive at their attorney's office with better questions. When an enforcement or collection matter turns serious, involving counsel early is almost always less expensive than correcting a misstep later.

Readers who want to follow the legislation itself can track any bill through the General Assembly's website. The pages for Senate Bill 378 (https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookUp/2025/S378) and House Bill 1174 (https://www.ncleg.gov/BillLookup/2025/H1174) show each measure's full history and current status, and the text of the enacted flag measure, Session Law 2026-59, is available there as well (https://www.ncleg.gov/Sessions/2025/Bills/Senate/PDF/S445v7.pdf).

If you're already working with AMG, reach out to your community manager. They can help your board review its enforcement policies and records practices against the standards discussed here. If you're not yet an AMG client, our client services team is happy to point you toward qualified professionals or other resources who can help, whether or not that leads to working with us.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are new HOA laws coming to North Carolina?

Proposals appear in nearly every session, and their outcomes are difficult to predict. Occasionally a narrower change does pass, as with a 2026 measure that strengthened flag display protections in the community association statutes. Recent reporting also describes pending measures, including House Bill 1174, which would direct the Department of Justice to collect and track HOA complaints without new enforcement authority. Boards are wise to follow developments each session and to govern well regardless of what passes.

How can an HOA board prepare for changes to North Carolina HOA laws?

Audit the practices reform proposals keep targeting. Adopt a written violation policy, hold a fair hearing before imposing penalties, apply rules consistently, document decisions, and keep association records organized and available. A board that already meets that standard has little to fear from some new legislation, and counsel can confirm how current law applies to your specific community.

Paul's Key Guidance

Two habits will serve your board better than any prediction about the legislature. First, run your enforcement file as though it will someday be read aloud in a committee room in Raleigh. If that thought makes you uncomfortable, the fix is the file, not the hypothetical. In four decades of this work, we have never seen a board regret the notice it sent, the hearing it held, or the minutes it kept. We have seen many regret the shortcut.

Second, assign one director each session to follow association legislation and deliver a five-minute report at the board meeting. Communities are almost never harmed by laws they saw coming; they are harmed by the ones that arrive as a surprise. The boards that fear new legislation least are the ones already governing above it.

About the Author

Paul Mengert, CMCA®, PCAM®, is a visionary leader, award-winning educator, and transformative strategist in community association management. With over 40 years of experience, he is the founder and CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm that began in 1985 with three Greensboro, North Carolina, associations, and is now a leading, nationally respected management company. Today, AMG serves over 30,000 property owners across the Carolinas, supporting the volunteer boards that steward communities with a combined asset value exceeding $5 billion.

Paul was named a Community Associations Institute (CAI) Educator of the Year and serves as senior faculty there. He is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in the Harvard Business School alumni program at Queens University, focusing on the intersection of governance, finance, law, and human dynamics.

Paul's influence extends beyond community associations. He has advised the US Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and served five terms as Chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. Under his leadership, the airport became a dynamic aerospace and innovation hub, attracting major global players in aviation and advanced manufacturing.

Recognized as a "Most Admired CEO" by the Triad Business Journal, Paul is the author of the acclaimed Lessons from the Neighborhood book series. Through writing, speaking, and consulting, he equips community leaders with practical frameworks for governance excellence, while preserving the human touch that makes neighborhoods thrive.

Paul Mengert doesn't just manage communities: He builds strong, smart, resilient community leaders.

Learn more at www.amgworld.com and www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

Why Condo Dues Are Rising in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Charlotte: New Lending Rules Put Reserves in the Spotlight

If you serve on a condominium board in Greensboro, Winston-Salem, or Charlotte, you may already be fielding a version of the same question: why are our dues going up again? Part of the answer is familiar. Insurance, labor, and materials all cost more than they did a few years ago. But a newer force is now at work, and it comes not from your vendors or your neighbors but from the mortgage market itself.

Recent reporting by The Wall Street Journal describes how the government-backed companies that stand behind most conventional home loans are tightening their expectations for condominium associations, particularly around how much communities budget for future repairs. For boards, this shifts reserve funding from a best practice worth aspiring to into a factor that can directly affect whether units in the building can be bought, sold, or refinanced with a standard mortgage.

Why Are Condo Dues Going Up?

Here is the direct answer. In many communities, condo dues are rising because federal lending guidelines now expect associations to budget more for long-term repairs and replacements, and buildings that fall short can become harder to buy or refinance with a conventional loan. Boards that strengthen reserve contributions to meet those expectations often adjust dues to close the gap.

A reserve fund, for anyone newer to this world, is the money an association sets aside for major future expenses such as roofs, elevators, paving, and building systems. It is separate from the operating budget that pays for day-to-day services. A reserve study is the professional analysis that estimates when those big-ticket items will need attention and what they will likely cost, so the community can save gradually instead of scrambling later.

What Changed in the Lending Rules

The reporting describes updated guidelines under which associations are generally expected to dedicate a meaningful share of their annual budget to reserves, and that minimum has been trending upward. Communities budgeting less may still qualify when a current reserve study supports the lower figure and the budget follows the study's recommendations. At the same time, some insurance requirements that lenders and associations had found burdensome are reportedly being eased.

Industry observers connect the tightening to the 2021 condominium collapse in Surfside, Florida, which prompted lenders to look far more closely at building condition, insurance, and deferred maintenance nationwide. The practical consequence for an association that falls short and cannot document an exception is significant. Prospective buyers may struggle to obtain standard financing, and existing owners may find refinancing more complicated. Lenders have started reading association budgets the way they read credit reports.

It is fair to note that reasonable people see these rules differently. Supporters view them as overdue protection for buyers and for the long-term soundness of aging buildings. Critics point out that they add cost and administrative burden to volunteer-run communities, and that a lending standard applied nationally cannot account for every building's circumstances. Both perspectives have merit, and boards do not get to choose the rules. They get to choose how prepared their community is.

What This Means for Condo Boards in the Triad and Charlotte

The condominium landscape across our region spans uptown Charlotte towers, converted buildings in downtown Winston-Salem, and established mid-rise and townhome-style condominium communities throughout Greensboro. Many of these buildings are reaching the age where major components come due. In North Carolina, the Condominium Act generally addresses topics such as assessments and association insurance at a high level, but the details live in each community's own declaration and bylaws, and those vary widely. Boards should review their specific obligations with qualified legal counsel rather than assuming their documents match their neighbors'.

We saw the new reality land in a very ordinary way at one Triad condominium community. A unit went under contract, the lender's questionnaire arrived, and a question about the reserve line item stalled the file. The board spent an anxious week assembling its reserve study, budget detail, and insurance certificates while the buyer's rate lock ticked down. The closing happened, but the seller's experience changed how the board thought about its budget. Their funding decisions were no longer an internal matter. They had become part of every owner's resale story. At the next budget cycle, the board aligned contributions with its reserve study, and it now keeps a current lender-ready package on file.

That last habit matters. Underfunded reserves are a cost every owner pays eventually, usually at the worst possible time. A recent industry analysis cited in the Journal's reporting found that associations with declining reserve balances were substantially more likely to levy special assessments than those with stable or growing balances. The pattern matches what we have watched play out in communities for decades.

The Honest Debate About Raising Dues

None of this makes a dues increase easy, and boards deserve a fair account of both sides. Owners on fixed incomes feel every increase, and affordability is a legitimate concern in a market where housing costs have climbed across the board. Boards that hold dues steady are usually acting from genuine care for their neighbors, not negligence.

The other side of the ledger is that deferred funding does not make costs disappear. It converts predictable monthly contributions into unpredictable special assessments, and it can now also affect owners' ability to sell or refinance. As Paul writes in Dollars, Decisions, and Better Stewardship, the second volume of the Lessons from the Neighborhood series, "Stewardship is real control." The series, which carries a foreword by Dawn M. Bauman, CAE, Chief Executive Officer of the Community Associations Institute, explores this tension at length, and it is available at www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

With over 40 years managing Carolina communities, we have found that owners accept increases they understand far more readily than assessments that surprise them. The board's job is not to pick a side in the abstract. It is to put a current reserve study, an honest funding gap, and the financing implications in front of the membership, then decide with full information.

What Boards Can Do This Budget Season

A few practical steps position a community well, whatever its starting point:

1. Confirm your reserve study is current and correctly scoped. Consistent with CAI best practices, most communities update studies on a regular cycle. It is also worth confirming with legal counsel which components the association is actually responsible for before the specialist begins, since governing documents differ.

2. Compare your budgeted contribution to the study's recommendation. If there is a gap, quantify it and consider a multi-year plan to close it rather than a single painful jump.

3. Get lender-ready. Keep financial statements, the reserve study, insurance certificates, and governing documents organized so a lender questionnaire can be answered in days, not weeks. Every resale in the building now depends on it.

4. Communicate early and plainly. Show owners the math, including what the alternative paths would cost. Our guides on the importance of reserve studies and managing rising HOA costs in North Carolina offer frameworks boards can borrow.

Boards looking for additional planning resources, including budget and reserve guidance written for volunteer leaders, can find them at www.amgworld.com.

If you're already working with AMG, reach out to your community manager, who can help your board assess where your community stands. If you're not yet an AMG client, our client services team is happy to point you toward qualified reserve specialists, attorneys, or other resources who can help, whether or not that leads to working with us.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are condo association dues increasing in 2026?

Rising insurance, labor, and material costs are part of the story, and tightening federal lending guidelines now expect associations to budget more for long-term repairs. Communities strengthening reserve funding to meet those expectations often adjust dues to close the gap. The specifics vary by community, so boards should review their own budget and governing documents with qualified professionals.

What happens if a condo association's reserves are underfunded?

Underfunding typically leads to deferred maintenance and, eventually, special assessments when major repairs can no longer wait. Under current lending guidelines, it can also affect buyers' ability to obtain conventional financing, which touches every owner's resale value. A current professional reserve study is the standard tool for measuring the gap and planning to close it.

How much should a condo association contribute to reserves?

There is no single correct number for every community. The generally accepted best practice, consistent with CAI guidance, is to fund at the level a current professional reserve study recommends. Lending guidelines generally look for a meaningful share of the annual budget to go toward reserves, and boards should confirm their specific position with their reserve specialist, attorney, and financial professionals.

Paul's Key Guidance

Run what I call the resale test at your next board meeting. Ask one question: if a unit went under contract tomorrow, could we hand the lender a complete, current package within three business days? If the answer is no, fix that before you debate anything else, because the fix is operational, inexpensive, and protects every owner in the building immediately.

Then treat reserve funding as a glide path, not a cliff. Boards that adopt modest, planned increases tied to a reserve study almost never face the meeting where a stunned membership absorbs a large special assessment all at once. The board that raises dues thoughtfully and explains why is doing its owners a financial favor, even in the years when no one says thank you. And keep your attorney in the conversation early. Laws, lending guidelines, and governing documents all change, and the communities that navigate change best are the ones that ask good questions before they act.

About the Author

Paul Mengert, CMCA®, PCAM®, is a visionary leader, award-winning educator, and transformative strategist in community association management. With over 40 years of experience, he is the founder and CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm that began in 1985 with three Greensboro, North Carolina, associations, and is now a leading, nationally respected management company. Today, AMG serves over 30,000 property owners across the Carolinas, supporting the volunteer boards that steward communities with a combined asset value exceeding $5 billion.

Paul was named a Community Associations Institute (CAI) Educator of the Year and serves as senior faculty there. He is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in the Harvard Business School alumni program at Queens University, focusing on the intersection of governance, finance, law, and human dynamics.

Paul's influence extends beyond community associations. He has advised the US Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and served five terms as Chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. Under his leadership, the airport became a dynamic aerospace and innovation hub, attracting major global players in aviation and advanced manufacturing.

Recognized as a "Most Admired CEO" by the Triad Business Journal, Paul is the author of the acclaimed Lessons from the Neighborhood book series. Through writing, speaking, and consulting, he equips community leaders with practical frameworks for governance excellence, while preserving the human touch that makes neighborhoods thrive.

Paul Mengert doesn't just manage communities: He builds strong, smart, resilient community leaders.

Learn more at www.amgworld.com and www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

Charleston's Dockside Condominium Is for Sale: Questions Every Condo Board in the Carolinas Should Be Asking

A year and a half after its residents were ordered to leave, Charleston's Dockside condominium is officially back on the market. According to reporting by ABC News 4 in Charleston, the Dockside Association has selected the commercial real estate firm JLL to market the 3.31 acre Concord Street property through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. The site includes the evacuated 18 story tower, 21 townhomes, and nearly 300 feet of Cooper River frontage.

The February 2025 evacuation was one of the hardest community association stories the Carolinas have seen in years. The City of Charleston ordered residents out after engineers concluded the building was unsafe to occupy, and owners reportedly had less than 48 hours to leave. Legal disputes involving owners, insurers, and the association followed, as the reporting notes, and those questions belong to the engineers, the courts, and the parties involved. Nothing here assigns cause or fault at Dockside, and no board should draw conclusions about a specific community from news coverage alone.

What the rest of us owe the families displaced there is to take the general questions seriously. Every aging condominium building, in the Carolinas and beyond, is quietly asking its board a version of them.

What is a reserve study? A reserve study is a long-term financial plan that identifies a community's major physical components, estimates their remaining useful life and replacement cost, and lays out how the association will pay for that work before it becomes urgent.

Aging Buildings Rarely Announce Their Problems

Time works on every building. On the coast, salt air, humidity, and storm exposure accelerate the wear on concrete and steel; inland, water intrusion, settling, and aging mechanical systems do quieter versions of the same work, and much of it happens where no one can see it. A large share of the condominium stock across the Carolinas was built in the 1970s and 1980s, which means those buildings are now entering the stretch of life where original systems and structures reach the end of their design expectations. Deterioration in a building is gradual for a long time and then, seemingly, sudden.

A building tells its board the truth long before it tells the public. It tells it through inspection reports commissioned or skipped, through maintenance logs, through the small findings that get repaired promptly or explained away. With over 40 years managing Carolina communities, we have found that the difference between a manageable capital project and a crisis is usually time: how early the board decided to look.

Why Do Condo Boards Delay Funding Repairs?

Boards that hesitate are rarely careless. Directors are volunteers and neighbors, carrying real concerns about affordability, owners on fixed incomes, and what rising assessments might do to resale values. Owners who push back on increases have legitimate worries too. A board that raises dues to fund repairs no one can see yet takes on genuine political risk.

The other side of the ledger is just as real. Deferred work compounds, and construction inflation erodes purchasing power. Since the 2021 building collapse in Surfside, Florida, lenders and insurers across the country have looked much harder at the structural and financial condition of aging condominiums. Lending guidelines generally call for associations to set aside a meaningful share of the budget for reserves, and that expectation has been trending upward. Reserves are the scheduled cost of owning a building, and the schedule does not care whether the money was set aside. As Paul Mengert writes in Dollars, Decisions, and Better Stewardship, the second volume of the Lessons from the Neighborhood series "Small annual increases feel manageable. Special assessments feel like financial trauma."

We once worked with the board of a decades-old coastal mid-rise where an engineer's proposal for a structural and building envelope assessment appeared on three consecutive meeting agendas without a vote. No one spoke against it. Every director was quietly running the same math about what the findings might cost and what a special assessment would mean for neighbors on fixed incomes. When the study was finally commissioned, the repairs it identified were significant but schedulable, and one director later admitted the hardest part had been agreeing to look.

Reserve Study vs. Engineering Study: What Each One Tells a Board

These two tools are often confused, and the distinction matters for older buildings. A reserve study relies on visual observation and professional judgment to support long-term financial planning. It can tell a board roughly when a component will likely need replacement and what that might cost. It generally cannot tell a board what is happening inside a structural system, because that level of certainty requires a more detailed engineering evaluation, which may involve testing and invasive analysis.

For a building of some age, particularly, though not only, in a coastal environment like Charleston's, the prudent posture usually involves both ideas: a regularly updated reserve study driving the financial plan, and periodic conversations with licensed engineers about whether a deeper structural or envelope evaluation is warranted. As Paul writes in the same volume: "Reserve studies aren't about predicting the future perfectly; they're about refusing to ignore what experience has already made predictable."

What Condo Boards in the Carolinas Can Do Now

Make building condition a standing agenda item, and ask when a licensed engineer last evaluated the structure and envelope. Commission or update a professional reserve study, and align actual funding with it, using multi-year projections so gradual increases feel normal to owners rather than alarming. Review the association's insurance program with qualified professionals, and communicate with owners early and plainly, because informed owners handle hard news far better than surprised ones.

Laws, lending requirements, and governing documents vary by community and jurisdiction, and they change. Boards should consult qualified legal counsel before acting on any of this, and licensed engineers on any question about a building's physical condition. For boards looking for a starting framework, AMG maintains board education resources, including a step-by-step annual budget playbook, at www.amgworld.com.

If you're already working with AMG, reach out to your community manager. If you're not yet an AMG client, our client services team is happy to point you toward qualified professionals or other resources who can help, whether or not that leads to working with us.

Frequently Asked Questions

What happened to the Dockside condominium in Charleston?

In February 2025, the City of Charleston ordered residents to evacuate the waterfront Dockside condominium after engineers deemed the structure unsafe for occupancy, according to local news reporting. In August 2026, reporting indicated the Dockside Association had selected the real estate firm JLL to market the property for sale through Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings. Legal disputes involving owners, insurers, and the association have been reported, and questions of cause remain with the engineers, courts, and parties involved.

How often should a condominium association update its reserve study?

Many professionals recommend updating the financial component of a reserve study annually and completing a full physical inspection about every three years, with more frequent reviews for older buildings and harsh coastal environments. Requirements vary by jurisdiction and by a community's governing documents, so boards should confirm their specific obligations with qualified legal counsel and a credentialed reserve specialist.

Are structural inspections required for condominiums in the Carolinas?

Requirements vary by state, by jurisdiction, and by a community's own governing documents, and rules in this area have been evolving nationally in recent years. Whether or not an inspection is mandated, periodic evaluation of an aging building by licensed engineers is widely regarded as prudent. Boards should ask qualified legal counsel to confirm what currently applies to their community.

Paul's Key Guidance

Bring two questions to your very next board meeting. First: when did a licensed engineer last look at this building's structure and envelope, and what did we do with what they found? Second: does our funding actually match our reserve study, or do we simply have one on file? If the board finds itself dreading what a study might reveal, treat that dread as the clearest evidence the study is overdue.

And remember what time is really for. The kindest thing a board can do for owners on fixed incomes is give them years to prepare instead of weeks, and early information is the only way to give it. The families of Dockside deserved that kind of time. Every community still has the chance to provide it.

About the Author

Paul Mengert, CMCA®, PCAM®, is a visionary leader, award-winning educator, and transformative strategist in community association management. With over 40 years of experience, he is the founder and CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm that began in 1985 with three Greensboro, North Carolina, associations, and is now a leading, nationally respected management company. Today, AMG serves over 30,000 property owners across the Carolinas, supporting the volunteer boards that steward communities with a combined asset value exceeding $5 billion.

Paul was named a Community Associations Institute (CAI) Educator of the Year and serves as senior faculty there. He is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in the Harvard Business School alumni program at Queens University, focusing on the intersection of governance, finance, law, and human dynamics.

Paul's influence extends beyond community associations. He has advised the US Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and served five terms as Chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. Under his leadership, the airport became a dynamic aerospace and innovation hub, attracting major global players in aviation and advanced manufacturing.

Recognized as a "Most Admired CEO" by the Triad Business Journal, Paul is the author of the acclaimed Lessons from the Neighborhood book series. Through writing, speaking, and consulting, he equips community leaders with practical frameworks for governance excellence, while preserving the human touch that makes neighborhoods thrive.

Paul Mengert doesn't just manage communities: He builds strong, smart, resilient community leaders.

Learn more at www.amgworld.com and www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

The HOA Manager and Board Relationship: How Strong Partnerships Evolve in Carolina Communities

There is a structural oddity at the center of community association management that almost no one outside the industry fully appreciates. The community manager is expected to lead, anticipate problems, bring hard truths into the room, and keep the association moving forward. Yet the manager holds no vote, sets no policy, and serves entirely at the pleasure of the very group they are trying to guide.

Recent Harvard Business Review research on how CEO and board relationships evolve, moving through distinct phases of trust-building, growing influence, and eventual succession, maps surprisingly well onto the daily reality of community managers and HOA board presidents across Greensboro, Charlotte, and communities throughout the Carolinas. The dynamics are familiar. The setting is different. And the differences are where the practical lessons live.

What is the manager-board relationship in an HOA? It is the working partnership between a community association's volunteer board of directors, which holds the legal decision-making authority, and its professional community manager, who provides operational expertise and carries out the board's direction. The board governs; the manager manages. When the relationship works, the community gets both sound decisions and sound execution.

Why This Partnership Is Unlike Anything in the Corporate World

A corporate CEO typically works with a board whose membership changes slowly and whose members were recruited for specific expertise. A community manager works with a board of volunteers elected by their neighbors, people who may or may not have governance experience and whose composition can change substantially at a single annual meeting. A partnership that took three years to build can be reset in one election night.

That reality shapes everything. A community manager's authority is borrowed: it is granted by the board and renewed, or quietly withdrawn, at every meeting. Managers who understand this treat trust as a perishable asset, something that must be re-earned with each new director rather than banked once and drawn on forever. Boards who understand it recognize that continuity of institutional knowledge often rests more with the manager and the management company than with any individual volunteer. That is both a strength to use and a dependency to watch.

With over 40 years managing Carolina communities, we have found that the manager-board relationships that endure are not the ones that avoid friction. They are the ones where both sides understand which role owns which decisions, and where that understanding gets refreshed every time the cast changes.

The Early Season: Earning the Right to Be Heard

Every new manager-board pairing begins in roughly the same place, whether the community is in Winston-Salem or Columbia. The board does not yet know whether the manager's judgment can be trusted, and the manager does not yet know how this particular board thinks, decides, and communicates. The work of this phase is unglamorous: learn each director as an individual, not just as a seat at the table.

The practical moves are simple to describe and easy to skip. A short one-on-one conversation with each director early in the relationship reveals what a year of meetings might not: who worries most about finances, who carries history from a past dispute, who wants detail and who wants summaries. Just as important is settling expectations out loud. How far in advance does the board want materials? What decisions does the board expect to make, and what does it expect the manager to simply handle and report? Most early friction between boards and managers traces back to expectations that were assumed rather than stated.

Boards have work to do in this season as well. A board that treats a new manager purely as a vendor to be supervised will get vendor-level performance. A board that shares its priorities, its history, and its concerns openly gives the manager the raw material to become a genuine partner.

The Working Years: When the Manager Becomes a Partner

As credibility accumulates, the relationship changes character. The board stops asking whether the manager's recommendations are sound and starts asking the manager to help frame the questions themselves. Meeting agendas shift from status reports toward the decisions where volunteer judgment adds real value: reserve priorities, policy questions, long-range planning. A seasoned manager also learns to use the board president as a sounding board between meetings, testing how an issue might land before it arrives on an agenda.

It is worth naming an honest debate here, because reasonable people in our industry disagree about it. Some believe a manager should remain strictly execution-focused, offering information but never shaping the board's agenda or nudging its composition of skills, on the theory that influence belongs solely to elected volunteers. Others believe an experienced manager who watches a board struggle without a finance-minded director, or a president who can run a meeting, has a professional obligation to raise it. Both views protect something important: the first protects the board's autonomy, the second protects the community's outcomes. In our experience the resolution is transparency. A manager who shares observations openly, in front of the full board, and leaves the decision entirely with the volunteers, serves both principles at once. A manager who maneuvers privately, however good the intent, eventually spends trust faster than any result can replace it.

The Comfort Trap: When Trust Turns Into Silence

Here is the phase almost nobody warns managers or boards about. Deep trust, the thing everyone worked years to build, carries its own quiet risk. When a board has approved the manager's recommendations for long enough, directors can stop examining them. Questions start to feel impolite, even disloyal. Meetings get shorter and smoother, and everyone mistakes the smoothness for health. The absence of friction begins to feel like success, and that is precisely when a board is at its most vulnerable.

We watched this unfold in one community we worked with over many years. The board and its longtime manager had an excellent relationship, and for several consecutive budget seasons the board adopted the proposed budget with barely a question asked. Then a new treasurer joined the board, a retired accountant, and she did what new treasurers do: she asked about assumptions behind the insurance line, the contribution to reserves, the contingency figure. The room tensed. A couple of veteran directors read her questions as an attack on the manager. The manager, to her credit, read them as exactly what a board is for, answered every one in writing, and thanked the treasurer publicly at the next meeting. Two of the assumptions, it turned out, deserved updating. The budget got better, and so did the board, because the other directors relearned that scrutiny and trust are not opposites.

The healthiest sign in a long manager-board relationship is not agreement; it is that hard questions are still being asked. As Paul Mengert writes in Conversations, Conflict, and Better Culture, the fourth volume of the Lessons from the Neighborhood series, "Board culture is not established by intention. It is established by tolerance." A board that tolerates silence will get silence. Managers can help by explicitly inviting challenge, circulating alternatives they considered and rejected, and treating the director who pushes back as an asset rather than a problem.

Elections, Transitions, and the Reset Button

Every partnership in this industry ends or transforms eventually. Board members term out, move away, or simply decline to run again. Managers are promoted, retire, or transition to new portfolios. The communities that handle these moments well share one habit: they start the conversation before it is urgent.

For boards, that means treating director recruitment and officer succession as a standing topic rather than an annual scramble, so that the skills the community needs are being cultivated before a resignation letter forces the issue. A simple, concrete practice helps: at the first regular meeting after the annual election, place a 20-minute agenda item titled "Manager and Board Expectations Reset." Use it to restate mutual expectations while the new configuration is still fresh. We explore this at length in Conversations, Conflict, and Better Culture, which devotes a full chapter to leadership succession and continuity; the series, which carries a foreword by Dawn M. Bauman, CAE, Chief Executive Officer of the Community Associations Institute, is available at www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

For managers and management companies, it means documenting institutional knowledge thoroughly enough that a transition costs the community continuity of personality, not continuity of information. Meeting cadence preferences, decision history on recurring issues, and key vendor context are practical starting points. And when a longtime manager does move on, the graceful final act is the same one the research describes for departing CEOs: prepare the ground, then step back and let the board own the choice of what comes next.

Boards evaluating how these transitions should work, or wondering what a well-supported manager-board partnership looks like in practice, can find additional governance resources for Carolina communities at www.amgworld.com.

If you're already working with AMG, reach out to your community manager. This is exactly the kind of conversation they are equipped to have with your board. If you're exploring options, our client services team is happy to point you toward qualified professionals or other resources, whether or not that leads to working with us.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between an HOA board and a community manager?

The board of directors is the elected body that holds legal authority to make decisions for the association, from budgets to policies to contracts. The community manager is a professional engaged by the board to provide expertise, coordinate operations, and carry out the board's decisions. The manager advises and executes; the board decides.

How can an HOA board build a better relationship with its manager?

State expectations explicitly rather than assuming them: what decisions the board wants brought to it, how much detail directors need, and how far in advance materials should arrive. Invest in individual conversations early, especially when new directors join. And protect the manager's ability to deliver unwelcome news, because a manager who is punished for candor will stop offering it.

What should happen when a new board is elected in an HOA?

Treat the transition as a partial restart of the manager-board relationship, not a continuation by default. An orientation for new directors, a fresh review of mutual expectations, and one-on-one introductions between the manager and each new director help a rebuilt board reach productive trust in months rather than years.

Paul's Key Guidance

If you manage communities, put a date on your calendar within two weeks of every annual meeting to sit down individually with each new director, before the first regular board meeting, not after. The relationship you build in that window will determine how the next year goes, and it cannot be built from the far end of a meeting table.

If you serve on a board, ask yourself one uncomfortable question this quarter: when did a director last challenge a management recommendation in open session, and what happened next? If the answer is that no one can remember, do not congratulate yourselves on harmony. Assign someone to argue the other side of the next significant recommendation, and thank them for it publicly. The strongest partnerships we have seen across four decades are the ones that never stopped testing themselves.

About the Author

Paul Mengert, CMCA®, PCAM®, is a visionary leader, award-winning educator, and transformative strategist in community association management. With over 40 years of experience, he is the founder and CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm that began in 1985 with three Greensboro, North Carolina, associations, and is now a leading, nationally respected management company. Today, AMG serves over 30,000 property owners across the Carolinas, supporting the volunteer boards that steward communities with a combined asset value exceeding $5 billion.

Paul was named a Community Associations Institute (CAI) Educator of the Year and serves as senior faculty there. He is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in the Harvard Business School alumni program at Queens University, focusing on the intersection of governance, finance, law, and human dynamics.

Paul's influence extends beyond community associations. He has advised the US Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and served five terms as Chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. Under his leadership, the airport became a dynamic aerospace and innovation hub, attracting major global players in aviation and advanced manufacturing.

Recognized as a "Most Admired CEO" by the Triad Business Journal, Paul is the author of the acclaimed Lessons from the Neighborhood book series. Through writing, speaking, and consulting, he equips community leaders with practical frameworks for governance excellence, while preserving the human touch that makes neighborhoods thrive.

Paul Mengert doesn't just manage communities: He builds strong, smart, resilient community leaders.

Learn more at www.amgworld.com and www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

Do North Carolina and South Carolina Require HOA Reserve Studies? What a New CAI Report Reveals

This work traces back to a tragedy. In June 2021, the partial collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, Florida, took the lives of residents and forced the entire condominium industry to confront hard questions about aging buildings, deferred maintenance, and financial planning. The Community Associations Institute, the leading industry organization for community associations, dedicated years of research to the question of what could be done differently. Its June 2026 Condominium Safety Public Policy Report is the result, and it's worth understanding, even for Boards far from the coastline where that tragedy occurred.

We explore reserve planning and financial stewardship at length in Dollars, Decisions, and Better Stewardship, the second volume of the Lessons from the Neighborhood series. Learn more at www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

One note before we go further: if your community is a homeowners association rather than a condominium, don't stop reading. CAI's report is titled around condominium safety, and Surfside was a condominium tragedy, but the underlying reserve-funding challenge doesn't respect that line. Plenty of single-family HOAs carry the same kind of shared infrastructure and obligations, clubhouses, pools, private roads, gates, retaining walls, roofs and other exterior building responsibilities, landscaping, and stormwater systems, that eventually need the same kind of planning a condo's roofs and elevators do. Most of what follows applies just as much to an HOA Board as it does to a condo Board.

Why this report exists

CAI's report grew out of task forces convened in the weeks after the Surfside collapse, bringing together reserve specialists, engineers, attorneys, insurance professionals, developers, and community association managers to study what changes could help other communities avoid a similar tragedy. The report covers two related but distinct topics: reserve studies and funding, and building maintenance and structural integrity.

A reserve study, in plain terms, is a long-range financial planning tool. It examines the physical condition of a community's major shared components, roofs, elevators, pools, paving, and similar assets, and pairs that assessment with a funding plan intended to cover future repair and replacement costs without relying on a surprise special assessment.

It is important to understand what a reserve study is not. CAI's own report is direct on this point: a reserve study is a budgeting tool based on the expected life cycle of components, not an engineering evaluation of whether a building is currently safe. Structural and facade inspections are a separate, related practice.

What the report says about North Carolina and South Carolina today

Here's the part most Carolina Boards haven't seen. CAI's report includes a state-by-state summary of reserve fund laws, and as of June 2026, according to the report neither North Carolina nor South Carolina has a statutory requirement to conduct a reserve study or to fund reserves.

In North Carolina, community associations may adopt budgets that include reserves, and public offering statements must disclose whether a reserve amount exists, but nothing in the statutes requires an association to commission a study or maintain a funded reserve account. South Carolina's statutes are similarly silent on the point. That puts both states outside the group CAI identifies as currently requiring reserve studies (a group that includes California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maryland, Nevada, Oregon, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Washington State) and outside the group requiring reserve funding specifically.

This doesn't mean Carolina communities can't or don't maintain reserves. Many do, either because their own governing documents require it or because their Boards have simply chosen good practice over the legal minimum. But a legislative gap isn't the same thing as a free pass, and that's worth unpacking before any Board treats this as a non-issue.

So does that mean your Board has no obligation at all?

Not quite. The absence of a state mandate is only part of the picture. At least three practical realities, plus one legal doctrine that never goes away, can put a Board in a position where reserve funding stops being optional, even without a statute requiring it.

The developer disclosure that doesn't carry forward.

Under the North Carolina Condominium Act, a declarant selling units is generally required to disclose the association's budget in the public offering statement, including whether an amount has been set aside as a reserve for repairs and replacement. That gives early buyers real visibility into what the developer is or isn't saving for common elements. But that disclosure obligation is tied to the declarant's sales process. Once the community transitions to homeowner control, the statute goes largely silent on any ongoing requirement to study or fund reserves going forward. The starting point the developer disclosed doesn't come with instructions for what happens next.

What your own governing documents already say.

State statutes are only one layer. A community's declaration of covenants, conditions and restrictions, and bylaws function as a binding contract among the association and its owners. If those documents specify that the Board must maintain a reserve account, or fund it to a particular level, that obligation exists regardless of what state law does or doesn't require. Failing to follow it isn't just a missed best practice, it's a breach of the community's own governing framework. This is one of the first things worth checking before assuming "no state statute" means "no obligation."

The mortgage market has its own rules.

This point applies specifically to condominiums, not typical single-family HOAs. Even where state law is silent, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together stand behind a large majority of conventional mortgages nationally, require condominium associations to meet minimum reserve funding standards before loans in that community can be sold on the secondary market. That minimum has historically required associations to set aside a meaningful share of their annual budget for reserves, and lenders have been raising the bar in recent years, with further tightening already announced for the near future, including stricter expectations for how a reserve study supports the funding level an association actually budgets. An association that falls short can be flagged as ineligible for conventional financing, which can directly affect whether owners can sell their units and what buyers are willing to pay for them. A statute doesn't have to require a reserve fund for a lender to require one anyway.

The fiduciary duty that doesn't go away.

Finally, even in states with no reserve statute at all, Board members owe a fiduciary duty to the association, generally understood to include reasonable care for the community's common elements. Courts in a number of states have found that a Board that knowingly lets infrastructure deteriorate, with no plan and no funds set aside, can face claims of negligence down the road. The business judgment rule typically protects Boards that make informed, good-faith decisions, and a documented reserve study is often exactly the kind of record that shows a Board was acting on real information rather than guesswork.

Taken together, these four points are why "our state doesn't require it" is rarely the end of the analysis, even for communities that are managing perfectly reasonably today.

Why CAI is pushing for a national standard

CAI's official policy position, approved in May 2025, supports mandating reserve studies and funding for all community associations, new and existing, and opposes legislation that would let owners waive or opt out of that funding once required. Since Surfside, a growing number of states have passed new laws addressing reserves, structural inspections, or both.

There's a real cost consideration on the other side of that push, and CAI's own recommendations acknowledge it. Requiring full reserve funding overnight could create financial strain for communities that have gone years without saving for major repairs. That's part of why CAI's recommended approach includes a practical transition period, allowing associations to phase in required funding over time rather than demanding it all at once, along with hardship provisions some states have already adopted. The tension is a familiar one: protecting owners from being blindsided by deferred maintenance costs, without imposing sudden financial hardship on the same owners in the name of protecting them.

Research cited in the report drives home why the stakes are real. A Stanford University analysis on life cycle cost planning found that the longer a repair is deferred, the more it costs, and the difference isn't small; deferred maintenance can end up costing dramatically more than staying current on a routine schedule. Separately, a 2026 homeowner survey found that most residents already support annual investment in reserves, even where nothing requires it.

What this means for your Board right now

Even setting aside the governing-document, lending, and fiduciary-duty realities above, treating this purely as a matter of legal minimums misses the point. A funded reserve, built on a real study rather than a guess, is one of the clearest ways a Board can protect property values, avoid contentious special assessments, and give homeowners an honest picture of what's coming.

None of this is a knock on Boards that haven't gotten there yet. Most communities without a funded reserve aren't in that position because anyone was careless. They're there because homeowners push back on fee increases, because utility and maintenance costs have often been climbing faster than general inflation in recent years, and because a Board balancing today's budget against next decade's roof is a genuinely difficult position, not a simple oversight. It's a lot like retirement savings. The ideal is starting with your first paycheck, but almost nobody does, and starting later is still meaningfully better than not starting at all. A community five or ten years behind on reserves isn't beyond help. It just means the plan has to be realistic about the runway that's left, rather than pretending the runway is longer than it is.

It's also worth being upfront that steady reserve funding isn't the only approach some communities use, and CAI's recommendation isn't the only path a governing document might allow. A number of declarations and bylaws explicitly permit a Board to address major repairs through a special assessment when the need arises, or through borrowing against future assessment income, rather than building a standing reserve fund year over year. Some Boards choose this deliberately, on the reasoning that it avoids collecting and holding large sums well in advance of a repair that may still be years off. We generally recommend the reserve-study approach CAI describes, because it tends to spread cost more predictably and gives homeowners more advance notice than a large assessment sprung on short notice. But whether an alternative approach is sound for a particular community depends on what the governing documents actually allow, the association's borrowing capacity, and how a special assessment of that size would land on homeowners when the bill actually comes due. Any Board considering an alternative to steady reserve funding should work through the specifics with the association's attorney and a CPA familiar with community association finance, rather than assuming either path is automatically the right one.

We once worked with a community that had never commissioned a reserve study and hadn't planned for a special assessment or loan either, for exactly these kinds of reasons. Several buildings needed roof replacement within the same two-year window, and there was no dedicated fund to draw from. The special assessment required to cover it landed hard, several thousand dollars per unit, all at once, and it created real strain for homeowners on fixed incomes and real tension on the Board. A neighboring community of similar age and size had been funding a modest reserve for years based on a professional study. When their roofs needed the same work, the cost came from reserves that had already been building quietly in the background. Neither Board did anything wrong on purpose. One simply started sooner, and the difference showed up years later in how their homeowners experienced the exact same problem.

Building safety inspections: a related but separate issue

CAI's report also recommends a structural inspection framework for aging buildings, an initial inspection around 10 years, another at 20, and then every five years after that, along with separate facade inspections for buildings four stories or taller. States like Florida and Virginia have already adopted mandatory inspection laws following Surfside. As with reserve studies, nothing in the report suggests North Carolina or South Carolina currently has a statewide mandate along these lines, though local building codes can vary, so it's worth checking directly with your local building authority if your community includes taller or older structures.

Before your Board acts

Nothing here should be read as legal or financial advice, and reserve funding decisions should be made with input from a qualified reserve specialist, your association's attorney, and your management team, not from a summary of a national report. Laws in this area are changing quickly; CAI's report notes that a number of states have updated their requirements since 2021, and more legislative activity is likely.

For the full report, including the complete state-by-state summary and CAI's detailed policy recommendations, visit CAI directly at www.caionline.org, or www.condosafety.com, which CAI maintains specifically to track ongoing legislative developments in this area.

Have questions about your own community?

If your community work with AMG, reach out to your community manager. They can help you think through where your community stands and what a reasonable next step looks like. If you're not yet an AMG client, our client services team INSERT EMAIL HERE is happy to point you toward a qualified reserve specialist, CAI's resources, or other professionals who can help, whether or not that leads to working with us.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does North Carolina require HOA reserve studies?

Not currently. According to CAI's June 2026 report, North Carolina's community association statutes allow associations to budget for reserves but don't require a reserve study or reserve funding. Laws can change, so Boards should confirm current requirements with legal counsel.

Does South Carolina require HOA reserve funding?

Not currently. CAI's report indicates South Carolina has no statutory requirement to conduct a reserve study or fund reserves as of June 2026. As with any legal question, confirm current requirements with your association's attorney.

What is a reserve study, and why get one if it isn't required?

A reserve study is a long-range financial planning tool that assesses the condition of a community's major shared components and creates a funding plan to cover future repair and replacement costs. Even without a legal mandate, many communities use one to avoid unexpected special assessments and give homeowners a realistic picture of upcoming costs.

Can a lack of reserve funding affect a condo owner's ability to sell or get a mortgage?

Yes, for condominiums. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac require condominium associations to meet minimum reserve funding thresholds before loans in that community can be sold on the secondary market, and that minimum has been trending upward in recent years, with further tightening already announced for the near future. Associations that fall short can be flagged as ineligible for conventional financing, which can affect both individual sales and overall property values.

Can a community fund major repairs through special assessments or borrowing instead of building a reserve fund?

In some cases, yes. Many governing documents allow a Board to address major repairs through a special assessment or a loan when the need arises, rather than building a standing reserve. CAI's best-practice recommendation, and ours, is a funded reserve based on a professional study, but Boards considering an alternative approach should review it carefully with the association's attorney and a CPA familiar with community association finance before relying on it.

Paul's Key Guidance

Here's what I'd tell any Board reading this, whether your state requires a reserve study or not. Start with three checks, not one.

1. Read your own declaration and bylaws to see whether they already obligate you to fund a reserve, regardless of what state law says.

2. If you're a condominium association, find out where your current reserve allocation stands against your lender's requirements, since those minimums have been rising and more changes are already on the way.

3. And commission a reserve study from a qualified reserve specialist regardless of either answer, then use it to build a funding plan your community can actually sustain, phasing toward full funding over several years if that's what it takes.

If your community is starting from zero, that's a completely normal place to be, not a mark against your Board. The goal isn't to catch up overnight. It's to start the clock now, with a plan that's honest about how much runway you actually have. The best time to start funding reserves was years ago. The second-best time is the next budget cycle.

About the Author

Paul Mengert, CMCA®, PCAM®, is a visionary leader, award-winning educator, and transformative strategist in community association management. With over 40 years of experience, he is the founder and CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm that began in 1985 with three Greensboro, North Carolina, associations, and is now a leading, nationally respected management company. Today, AMG serves over 30,000 property owners across the Carolinas, stewarding communities with a combined asset value exceeding $5 billion.

Paul was named a Community Associations Institute (CAI) Educator of the Year and serves as senior faculty there. He is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in the Harvard Business School alumni program at Queens University, focusing on the intersection of governance, finance, law, and human dynamics.

Paul's influence extends beyond community associations. He has advised the U.S. Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and served five terms as Chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. Recognized as a "Most Admired CEO" by the Triad Business Journal, Paul is the author of the acclaimed Lessons from the Neighborhood book series. Through writing, speaking, and consulting, he equips community leaders with practical frameworks for governance excellence, while preserving the human touch that makes neighborhoods thrive.

Learn more at www.amgworld.com and www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

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Author's Note: I have spent more than 40 years working with community association Boards and managers throughout the Carolinas. My perspective is based on practical experience in community association management, governance, and financial planning. I am not an attorney, and nothing in this article is intended to provide legal or financial advice. Statutory summaries referenced here come from CAI's June 2026 Condominium Safety Public Policy Report, North Carolina General Statutes, and publicly available Fannie Mae guidance, and reflect the law and lending standards as understood at the time of writing; laws and lending guidelines change, and this article should not be relied on as a current or complete statement of North Carolina or South Carolina law, any community's governing documents, or any lender's requirements. Boards should confirm current requirements with qualified legal counsel and consult a qualified reserve specialist before making funding decisions.

Georgia's New HOA Law and the Balancing Act Every Carolina Board Should Understand

A new Georgia law is limiting how homeowners associations can charge attorney's fees, and it's worth a look, even for Boards who will never operate under it. Not because it applies here. It doesn't. But because the tension behind it, protecting a homeowner accused of a violation while also protecting the neighbor who has to live next door to an unresolved problem, is a tension every Board in every state eventually faces.

That balance, more than any specific rule, is where HOA leadership actually lives.

We explore this exact territory, how governing documents establish fair process and how communities can update their own rules over time, in Boards, Bylaws, and Better Governance, the first volume of the Lessons from the Neighborhood series. Learn more at www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

What Georgia's new law actually does

Georgia's Senate Bill 406, the Property Owners' Bill of Rights Act, changes how associations there can pursue attorney's fees and, later, how they handle registration, foreclosure, and complaints.

The attorney's fees provisions took effect July 1, 2026, and apply to actions filed on or after that date. Before a Georgia HOA can collect or be awarded attorney's fees, it must send written notice by certified mail identifying any outstanding fines or fees, give the homeowner 30 days to pay before pursuing attorney's fees, and provide an itemized list of any fees being claimed. In bench trials, a judge must also review those fees for reasonableness before they can be awarded.

The remainder of the law takes effect January 1, 2027. At that point, Georgia HOA boards must register with the Secretary of State to collect fines or fees, issue liens, or foreclose. Homeowners will be able to file complaints with that office, which automatically pauses collection while the complaint is under review. The foreclosure threshold rises, fines and fees are excluded from that threshold, foreclosure notice extends to 60 days, and payments must be applied in a set order, with regular dues first.

Why a law like this gets written

Reporting on the bill traced its origins to real complaints from homeowners across Georgia, people who said HOA boards and attorneys claimed they owed tens of thousands of dollars, often stemming from fines as small as $50 for something like leaving a trash bin out too long. Homeowner advocacy groups pushed hard for the bill, and lawmakers heard directly from families who described the fear of losing a home over a dispute that started small and escalated without much warning.

That's a legitimate concern, and it's not unique to Georgia. Anywhere fines can generate legal fees, a homeowner with limited resources can end up facing costs that are wildly disproportionate to the original violation, especially if there was little notice and no real check on whether the fees claimed were reasonable.

The other side of the balance

At the same time, national industry advocates, including the Community Associations Institute, raised concerns while the bill was moving through the legislature. Their argument was that broad, one-size-fits-all state mandates can make it harder for volunteer boards to act decisively, add cost and complexity to routine enforcement, and shift authority away from the kind of private, community-based governance associations were originally built on.

There's a practical version of that concern worth sitting with. Picture a homeowner living next to a property that has genuinely deteriorated into a hazard, not a minor cosmetic issue, but something serious enough that it's affecting their safety, their property value, or their ability to enjoy their own home. Extended notice periods, mandatory cure windows, and complaint-triggered stays exist to protect the accused homeowner's due process, which matters. But those same protections can also slow down a Board's ability to resolve a legitimate, serious problem for the neighbor who has been waiting for it to be fixed.

Worth noting directly: an HOA is not law enforcement, and neither the association nor its management company is responsible for guaranteeing anyone's personal safety. If a situation involves an actual threat to a person, that belongs with law enforcement, not an association's enforcement process. What we're describing here is the more common version of this tension, a property or use violation serious enough to genuinely affect a neighbor's quality of life, not a criminal matter.

Neither side of this is wrong. A homeowner shouldn't lose sleep over a trash can fine ballooning into a legal bill they can't pay. A neighbor also shouldn't have to wait indefinitely for a legitimate, documented problem to get resolved. Good process tries to hold both of those truths at once.

The art of HOA leadership is finding the balance

This is, in our experience, the actual job. Not choosing a side between the accused and the affected, but building a process fair enough to protect both. That means real notice. A genuine chance to cure. Documentation instead of memory. And also, a Board that doesn't confuse patience with paralysis when a legitimate problem is affecting someone else's home.

We've sat with Boards wrestling with exactly this. A homeowner facing an enforcement action who insists the process feels rushed and unfair. A different homeowner two doors down who is frustrated the Board hasn't acted faster on something that's been affecting them for months. Both can be right about their own experience. The Board's job is to build a process that would look fair to either one of them if they traded places.

Several years ago, we watched a Board handle a version of this well. One homeowner had let a portion of their property fall into serious disrepair, well past a cosmetic issue, to the point that a neighboring family raised real safety concerns. The homeowner, for their part, felt targeted and said they hadn't been given a fair chance to address it. The Board slowed down just enough to document everything properly, notice, a defined cure period, a follow-up inspection, while still moving with real urgency given the safety concern involved. It wasn't fast enough to satisfy the frustrated neighbor immediately, and it wasn't informal enough to feel arbitrary to the homeowner being cited. It was, by design, somewhere in between. That's usually where the right answer lives.

Why legislators struggle, and why your own documents may already help

There's a broader pattern worth naming here, and it isn't unique to Georgia. State legislatures write laws that have to apply uniformly to every community in the state, regardless of size, budget, culture, or the specific problem a Board is actually trying to solve. A rule calibrated to stop a bad actor from bankrupting a homeowner over a trash can risks also slowing down the Board dealing with a genuinely serious violation next door to a family who just wants it resolved. Broad mandates are a blunt instrument by design, because they have to work for thousands of communities the legislature will never know personally.

That's part of why most community associations already have a more precise tool available to them, their own governing documents. In many communities, subject to federal and state law restrictions, the declaration and bylaws can be amended through a vote of the membership, commonly a majority or a supermajority, depending on what those specific documents require. That process lets a community calibrate its own fairness protections and enforcement procedures to its actual circumstances, rather than waiting for, or being entirely bound by, a single statewide template. It's self-government working the way it was designed to.

What this means for Boards outside Georgia

To be clear, this Georgia law does not apply to communities in North Carolina or South Carolina. Nothing in this article should be read as a description of North Carolina or South Carolina law, or as guidance about how either state's requirements apply to any specific community. Community association law varies significantly by state, and Boards with questions about their own state's requirements should consult qualified legal counsel.

What travels well across state lines isn't the statute. It's the underlying question. Does our enforcement process give an accused homeowner real notice and a genuine chance to be heard? And does it move quickly enough to protect a neighbor living with a legitimate, documented problem? Those are questions worth asking on your own timeline, not just when a legislature forces the issue.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Georgia's new HOA law actually change?

Starting July 1, 2026, Georgia HOAs must provide written notice, a 30-day opportunity to pay, and an itemized fee list before pursuing attorney's fees, and the law requires a judge to review those fees for reasonableness. Starting January 1, 2027, associations must register with the Secretary of State, homeowners gain a complaint process that pauses collections, the foreclosure threshold rises, and payments must follow a set priority order.

Does this Georgia law apply to HOAs in North Carolina or South Carolina?

No. This is a Georgia state law that applies only to Georgia community associations. North Carolina and South Carolina each have their own separate legal frameworks, and any changes affecting Carolina communities would come through their own legislative or regulatory processes. Boards should rely on their own legal counsel for questions about their state's requirements.

Can a community change its own enforcement or fee-recovery procedures without waiting on new legislation?

In many communities, yes. Declarations and bylaws typically include a process for amendment, often requiring a vote of the membership by a majority or supermajority as specified in the governing documents. Whether a particular amendment is appropriate, and what threshold applies, depends on your community's specific documents, so this is worth discussing with your association's attorney.

Paul's Key Guidance

Here's what I'd take from a story like this, whether or not it ever reaches a legislature near you. Pull your community's fee-recovery and violation-enforcement provisions and read them the way a frustrated homeowner would, not the way a Board writing them originally intended. Is there a clear notice? A real chance to cure before costs escalate? A way for someone with a serious, ongoing complaint next door to get a timely response?

If the honest answer is no in either direction, that's worth bringing to your attorney and considering for amendment through your own community's process, rather than waiting for a state legislature to decide it for you. Boards that get ahead of fairness usually don't need a law to force the issue.

The hardest part of this job was never picking a side between the accused homeowner and the frustrated neighbor. It's building a process fair enough, and fast enough, to serve both.

About the Author

Paul Mengert, CMCA®, PCAM®, is a visionary leader, award-winning educator, and transformative strategist in community association management. With over 40 years of experience, he is the founder and CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm that began in 1985 with three Greensboro, North Carolina, associations, and is now a leading, nationally respected management company. Today, AMG serves over 30,000 property owners across the Carolinas, stewarding communities with a combined asset value exceeding $5 billion.

Paul was named a Community Associations Institute (CAI) Educator of the Year and serves as senior faculty there. He is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in the Harvard Business School alumni program at Queens University, focusing on the intersection of governance, finance, law, and human dynamics.

Paul's influence extends beyond community associations. He has advised the U.S. Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and served five terms as Chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. Recognized as a "Most Admired CEO" by the Triad Business Journal, Paul is the author of the acclaimed *Lessons from the Neighborhood* book series. Through writing, speaking, and consulting, he equips community leaders with practical frameworks for governance excellence, while preserving the human touch that makes neighborhoods thrive.

Learn more at www.amgworld.com and www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

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Author's Note: I have spent more than 40 years working with community association Boards and managers throughout the Carolinas. My perspective is based on practical experience in community association management, governance, and Board decision making. I am not an attorney, and nothing in this article is intended to provide legal advice. This article describes a Georgia state law for informational and comparative purposes only. It is not a description of North Carolina or South Carolina law, and it should not be read as guidance about how any state's requirements apply to a specific community. Laws and governing documents vary significantly by state and by community. Boards should consult qualified legal counsel regarding their own association's circumstances.

Can an HOA Be Liable for a Homeowner's Pet? A South Carolina Lawsuit Raises the Question

A lawsuit recently filed in Horry County, South Carolina, has HOA Boards across the Carolinas asking an uncomfortable question. If a homeowner breaks a clear rule and someone gets hurt, how much responsibility does the association carry?

That's a fair question to ask. It isn't, however, a question any Board should try to answer for itself. The honest answer depends on the community's governing documents, its enforcement history, and applicable South Carolina law, and it belongs with qualified legal counsel, not a news article.

What the case does offer is a useful prompt: a chance to look at how your own community handles known rule violations, before something similar happens on your streets.

We explore this exact topic, enforcement authority and due process, in *Boards, Bylaws, and Better Governance*, the first volume of the *Lessons from the Neighborhood* series. Learn more at www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

What the lawsuit alleges

According to reporting by WBTW in Horry County, South Carolina, a resident is suing a homeowners association and two neighbors after being bitten by the neighbors' pet pig in 2024. The lawsuit states the community's governing documents prohibited residents from keeping the pig, that the association knew the animal was on the property, and that the pig escaped through a broken fence and attacked the resident on a public street.

These are allegations, not findings. Nothing has been decided, and the parties involved haven't yet had the opportunity to present their side in court. What makes the case worth a closer look isn't the outcome, which isn't known yet. It's the pattern the lawsuit describes: a known rule violation, and a claim that nothing was done about it before someone got hurt.

Why this matters beyond one pig

Most communities will never deal with a pet pig. Nearly every community, though, has some version of the same underlying issue: an animal or use restriction written years ago that doesn't quite anticipate every situation a Board will eventually face.

Governing documents commonly restrict "livestock," "farm animals," or animals "not customarily kept as household pets," without spelling out exactly how that language applies to a potbellied pig, a large exotic breed, or an animal a homeowner insists is a companion rather than livestock. That kind of ambiguity is where disputes often start. A rule that seems obvious to a Board in a meeting can look very different to a homeowner who acquired the animal in good faith and never read the declaration closely.

The lesson here isn't really about pigs. It's that vague or outdated restrictions can create exactly the kind of gap this lawsuit describes, a violation everyone assumes is being handled, until it turns out no one followed through.

Enforcement authority has real limits

It's worth saying plainly: an HOA is not a law enforcement agency, and neither the association nor its management company is responsible for guaranteeing personal safety within the community. Boards have the authority to enforce their governing documents. They don't have the authority, or the practical ability, to patrol every yard or supervise every homeowner's pet.

That said, authority that exists on paper but isn't used consistently can become its own liability. If a violation is reported and never addressed, through documented notice, a defined cure period, and real follow-through, that gap can matter later, regardless of who is ultimately found responsible. Reasonable people can disagree about how far an association's responsibility should extend in any given case. What isn't really debatable is that consistent, documented enforcement is safer for everyone than good intentions that were never followed up on.

A pattern we've seen before

We once worked with a community where residents complained for months about a dog that had gotten loose twice already, both times without incident. The Board discussed it at three separate meetings, and each time decided to keep an eye on it rather than issue a formal notice. No one wanted to be the one to escalate a conflict with a neighbor over a dog.

The third time the dog got loose, it charged a jogger on the community's sidewalk. No one was seriously hurt, but the near miss changed how that Board operated. They adopted a simple standard afterward: every reported violation gets a dated, written notice and a defined follow-up, regardless of how minor it seems or how well the Board knows the homeowner. Avoiding an uncomfortable conversation is rarely worth the risk of avoiding it at the wrong moment.

Before your Board reacts

If this story prompts your Board to look inward, that's a good instinct. Start by asking whether your governing documents clearly address animals and pets, including unusual or exotic ones, not just dogs and cats. Ask whether reported violations are documented in writing, with dates and follow-up, or handled informally and left to memory. And ask whether your Board has a clear process for escalating a known violation that could pose a safety risk, rather than treating it the same as a paint color complaint.

Professional management doesn't replace legal counsel, and nothing here should be read as legal advice about this case or any other. Its value is in the follow-through: making sure reported violations are logged, tracked, and escalated consistently, so a Board's good intentions turn into a documented record if one is ever needed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can an HOA be held legally responsible for a homeowner's pet or animal?

It depends heavily on the specific facts, the governing documents, and applicable state law. Associations generally aren't the animal's owner and aren't automatically liable simply because an incident occurred within the community. Whether a known, unaddressed violation changes that analysis is a fact-specific legal question, so Boards should consult qualified legal counsel rather than assume.

What should a Board do when it learns a homeowner is violating a pet or animal restriction?

Most governing documents establish a notice-and-cure process for rule violations. Boards typically benefit from documenting the violation in writing, following the steps outlined in their documents, and escalating consistently rather than relying on informal conversations, particularly when the violation could pose a safety concern.

Does having a rule against certain animals in the governing documents protect the HOA from liability?

Having the rule in writing is an important first step, but it isn't the whole picture. How consistently and promptly a Board enforces that rule can matter as much as the rule itself. Boards should work with legal counsel to understand both their documents and their enforcement practices.

Paul's Key Guidance

Here's what I'd take from a case like this, regardless of how it's ultimately resolved. Pull your community's list of open or recently closed violation reports and check one thing: does every entry show a written notice and a documented follow-up, or are some of them sitting on an informal understanding that someone is "working on it"?

That gap, between a rule that exists and a rule that's actually being tracked, is where most enforcement risk lives. I'd also make sure your governing documents' animal and pet provisions have been reviewed in the last few years, since a lot of communities are still working from language written before exotic and nontraditional pets were as common as they are now.

Boards don't need to react to every headline. They do need a system that turns a reported violation into a documented one, every time, before it becomes something bigger.

About the Author

Paul Mengert, CMCA®, PCAM®, is a visionary leader, award-winning educator, and transformative strategist in community association management. With over 40 years of experience, he is the founder and CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm that began in 1985 with three Greensboro, North Carolina, associations, and is now a leading, nationally respected management company. Today, AMG serves over 30,000 property owners across the Carolinas, stewarding communities with a combined asset value exceeding $5 billion.

Paul was named a Community Associations Institute (CAI) Educator of the Year and serves as senior faculty there. He is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in the Harvard Business School alumni program at Queens University, focusing on the intersection of governance, finance, law, and human dynamics.

Paul's influence extends beyond community associations. He has advised the U.S. Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and served five terms as Chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. Recognized as a "Most Admired CEO" by the Triad Business Journal, Paul is the author of the acclaimed *Lessons from the Neighborhood* book series. Through writing, speaking, and consulting, he equips community leaders with practical frameworks for governance excellence, while preserving the human touch that makes neighborhoods thrive.

Learn more at www.amgworld.com and www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

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Author's Note: I have spent more than 40 years working with community association Boards and managers throughout the Carolinas. My perspective is based on practical experience in community association management, governance, and Board decision making. I am not an attorney, and nothing in this article is intended to provide legal advice or to substitute for the advice of qualified legal counsel. This article discusses a pending lawsuit reported by a South Carolina news outlet. The claims described are allegations only, have not been proven in court, and nothing in this article should be read as a comment on the merits of that case or the conduct of any party involved. Court decisions and litigation outcomes are highly dependent on the specific facts presented, the governing documents involved, and the legal issues before the court. Boards should review their own circumstances with qualified legal counsel before taking action.

North Carolina HOA Dues Ruling: What Boards Should Understand Before Reacting

A recent decision from the North Carolina Court of Appeals has generated real debate among HOA Boards. Some are reading it as a win for associations. Others are calling it a loss for homeowners.

Both reactions miss the more useful question. It isn't "does this apply to us?" It's "what does this decision actually say, and how does it compare to our governing documents?"

With more than 40 years managing communities across North Carolina and South Carolina, we have learned that expensive governance mistakes usually start with assumptions, not bad intentions. A headline is not a legal opinion, and one decision rarely answers every community's question.

We explore this principle in *Boards, Bylaws, and Better Governance*, the first volume of the *Lessons from the Neighborhood* series. Good governance starts with understanding what your documents actually say before deciding what they mean. Learn more at www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

What did this decision actually involve?

According to reporting by WCNC Charlotte, the case involves the Smoky Mountain Country Club Property Owners' Association in Swain County, in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

The community's founding governing documents contractually obligate every property owner to pay dues supporting a private clubhouse. That clubhouse sits outside the gated neighborhood and is owned by the community's original developer, not by the association itself. A group of homeowners stopped paying, arguing they should not have to fund an amenity they don't own, especially one the general public can also use. A trial court initially sided with them.

The Court of Appeals reversed. Based on the reporting, the court held that the association has the authority to collect the dues because homeowners purchased their properties already subject to that obligation, regardless of who owns the clubhouse or where it sits. The association's attorneys reportedly pointed to an earlier appellate decision, roughly a decade old, that had already addressed a similar clubhouse-dues arrangement in the same community, and the appellate judges agreed that earlier ruling controlled.

The homeowners' attorney has been outspoken about the decision, describing it to WCNC Charlotte as unfair to homeowners statewide and warning it could allow other for-profit companies to embed similar permanent payment obligations into a community's covenants. The Smoky Mountain Country Club Property Owners' Association declined to comment for the story.

Reasonable people see this differently

That tension is worth acknowledging directly. Homeowners who rarely or never use an outside amenity can understandably feel it's unfair to fund it indefinitely, particularly when someone else owns it. At the same time, recorded covenants exist precisely because they're supposed to be predictable. They put buyers on notice, through the public record, of the obligations attached to a property before closing. Courts have long treated that predictability as valuable, even when an individual owner later wishes the obligation didn't exist.

This isn't an isolated question in the Carolinas. WCNC Charlotte has also reported on a separate community near Charlotte, in Union County, where homeowners were required to pay dues for a pool, clubhouse, and tennis courts owned by a private builder rather than their association. After that reporting, the builder voluntarily gave more than 200 homeowners the option to opt out of the monthly dues, and roughly half took it. Both situations point to the same practical lesson: agreements between a developer or builder and an HOA can outlast the relationship that created them, and homeowners are often the ones left paying.

One decision is rarely the final word

Appellate decisions are built on the specific facts, contracts, and governing documents in front of the court. The homeowners' attorney has suggested this ruling could affect any community with a similar third-party amenity arrangement. Whether that turns out to be true for your community depends entirely on how your association's attorney interprets your own declaration, plats, and related agreements, not on how one case was decided elsewhere in the state.

A few grounded questions matter more than the headline. Does our declaration contain a similar contractual obligation to an outside party? Do we have amenities owned by a developer or private company rather than the association? Has that arrangement ever been challenged or amended? If the answer to all of those is no, this case may have little bearing on your community. If the answer to any of them is yes, that's exactly the kind of question worth raising with your association's attorney now, rather than after a dispute begins.

The documents matter more than the debate

Several years ago, we sat in on a Board meeting where directors were under real pressure to eliminate an assessment that had existed since the community was built. Most of the room agreed it no longer made sense. One director finally said, "Let's vote tonight and stop collecting it."

Before the vote, the association's attorney asked one question: "Where in your declaration does it give the Board that authority?" The room went quiet. After reviewing the documents, everyone reached the same conclusion. The Board couldn't eliminate the assessment on its own. Any change required a member vote under the amendment process the declaration established.

No one left that meeting with the answer they had hoped for. Everyone left with clarity, and the Board redirected its energy toward educating homeowners and pursuing an amendment the right way. A Board's role isn't to rewrite governing documents during a meeting. It's to govern within the authority those documents actually provide, even when that authority is unpopular.

Before your Board reacts

Much of what is publicly known about this case comes from media reporting and the perspective of the homeowners' attorney, not from an independent review of the court's opinion or a response from the association. That's worth keeping in mind. Whether your community has a similar contractual arrangement, whether it could be challenged or renegotiated, and what your options would be are fact-specific questions that depend on your own governing documents and legal advice, not on how any single case has been reported.

Professional management doesn't replace legal counsel, and nothing here should be read as legal advice. Its practical value is elsewhere: knowing which contracts and agreements exist within your community, keeping them organized, and flagging anything that resembles a reported case so your Board and attorney can review it before it becomes a dispute.

Have questions about your own community?

If you're already working with AMG, reach out to your community manager. They can help you think through whether a situation like this has any bearing on your community. If you're not yet an AMG client, our client services team is happy to point you toward qualified resources, whether or not that leads to working with us.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this ruling apply to every HOA in North Carolina?

Not automatically. It involved a specific contractual arrangement described in one community's founding documents. Whether a similar obligation exists in your community depends on your own declaration and any agreements with developers or outside amenity owners, so Boards should review those specifics with legal counsel rather than assume.

Can an HOA require dues for an amenity homeowners don't use, or that's owned by someone else?

In many communities, historical practice shows that when recorded governing documents establish that obligation, it has applied regardless of who owns the amenity or how often it's used. Whether a specific arrangement is enforceable depends on the contract and covenant language involved, so Boards and homeowners should confirm this with legal counsel rather than assume.

Can a Board or developer change or remove one of these arrangements?

It depends on how the obligation was created and what the governing documents allow. Some builders have voluntarily offered homeowners an opt-out from similar arrangements; others have not. Changing an existing obligation typically requires either a formal amendment process or a renegotiated agreement, so Boards should consult legal counsel before assuming either is possible.

Paul's Key Guidance

Here's what I'd actually do after a case like this becomes public. I wouldn't start by asking whether the ruling applies to us. I'd start by pulling every contract and recorded agreement our association has with a developer, builder, or outside company, especially anything tied to an amenity the association doesn't own outright. That's the exact fact pattern at the center of this case, and it's also the fact pattern most Boards have never fully inventoried.

I'd also treat this as a standing practice, not a one-time reaction. Once a year, ask your manager and your attorney to review any third-party agreements attached to your community, before a dispute or a news story forces the conversation. The builder in the Union County case referenced above chose to offer homeowners an opt-out voluntarily. Not every company will make that choice. Boards that know what they've signed are in a far stronger position than Boards that find out from a headline.

Volunteer directors are protecting one of the largest investments most families will make. That deserves a documented inventory, not a scramble after the fact.

About the Author

Paul Mengert, CMCA®, PCAM®, is a visionary leader, award-winning educator, and transformative strategist in community association management. With over 40 years of experience, he is the founder and CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm that began in 1985 with three Greensboro, North Carolina, associations, and is now a leading, nationally respected management company. Today, AMG serves over 30,000 property owners across the Carolinas, stewarding communities with a combined asset value exceeding $5 billion.

Paul was named a Community Associations Institute (CAI) Educator of the Year and serves as senior faculty there. He is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in the Harvard Business School alumni program at Queens University, focusing on the intersection of governance, finance, law, and human dynamics.

Paul's influence extends beyond community associations. He has advised the U.S. Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and served five terms as Chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. Recognized as a "Most Admired CEO" by the Triad Business Journal, Paul is the author of the acclaimed *Lessons from the Neighborhood* book series. Through writing, speaking, and consulting, he equips community leaders with practical frameworks for governance excellence, while preserving the human touch that makes neighborhoods thrive.

Learn more at www.amgworld.com and www.LessonsFromTheNeighborhood.com.

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Author's Note: I have spent more than 40 years working with community association Boards and managers throughout the Carolinas. My perspective is based on practical experience in community association management, governance, and Board decision making. I am not an attorney, and nothing in this article is intended to provide legal advice or to substitute for the advice of qualified legal counsel. This article relies on published media reporting rather than an independent legal review of the court's opinion. Court decisions are highly dependent on the specific facts presented, the governing documents involved, and the legal issues before the court. Before taking action based on this or any court decision, Boards should review their association's specific circumstances with qualified legal counsel.

HOA Board Decision Making in Greenville, Greensboro, Charlotte, Raleigh and everywhere in the Carolinas: What Mistakes Can Teach Community Leaders

Board members often worry about making the wrong decision.

That concern is understandable. Every significant vote involves competing priorities, limited information, financial implications, and homeowner expectations. Whether the topic is a reserve study, a special assessment, a contract renewal, or a covenant enforcement issue, there is always pressure to get it right.

What many experienced leaders eventually learn is that mistakes and failures are not the same thing. Understanding that distinction can help HOA boards govern more effectively and recover more quickly when decisions do not produce the expected outcome.

Failure and Mistakes Are Not the Same Thing

A failure can occur even when a board follows a thoughtful process.

A community may approve a capital project, select a qualified contractor, review references, and perform appropriate vendor oversight. Even with strong planning, unexpected circumstances can derail the project. Costs may increase. Materials may become unavailable. A contractor may experience workforce shortages.

Those situations are frustrating, but they are not necessarily mistakes.

Mistakes typically involve something different. They often emerge from poor assumptions, emotional reactions, incomplete analysis, or decisions made without fully understanding the circumstances.

For HOA governance, this distinction matters.

If boards treat every unfavorable outcome as a mistake, they may become overly cautious and avoid necessary decisions. If they fail to recognize actual mistakes, they risk repeating them.

Strong community association management helps boards understand the difference so lessons can be learned without creating fear around future decisions.

Looking Beyond the Decision Itself

When something goes wrong, most people focus on the final vote.

In our experience, the more valuable lessons are usually found before the decision was made.

• What assumptions influenced the discussion?

• What information was missing?

• Were board members reacting to homeowner pressure?

• Was there concern about increasing assessments or funding reserves?

Those questions often reveal more than the outcome itself.

We have seen this play out more than once. A board delayed a significant maintenance project because several members worried homeowners would react negatively to the expense. The discussion focused almost entirely on avoiding short term criticism rather than the long term condition of the property. Two years later, repair costs increased substantially.

The actual mistake was not the final vote.

The mistake occurred earlier when fear of homeowner reaction became the primary factor driving the conversation.

That distinction changed how the board approached future decisions.

Asking “Why?” Until You Reach the Real Issue

One useful exercise for HOA board responsibilities is repeatedly asking a simple question.

Why?

• A board may postpone reserve funding.

• Why?

• Because assessments would need to increase.

• Why is that a concern?

• Because homeowners may object.

• Why is homeowner objection driving the decision?

• Because board members are concerned about conflict.

At some point, the conversation shifts from finances to human behavior.

That is where many governance challenges originate.

On paper, decisions often appear straightforward. In practice, they are shaped by emotion, relationships, assumptions, and personal experiences.

Boards that examine these underlying influences tend to make better long term decisions.

The Value of Outside Perspective

One of the biggest risks in HOA governance is operating inside an echo chamber.

Boards can unintentionally reinforce assumptions without realizing alternative viewpoints exist.

This is why experienced management professionals, reserve specialists, auditors, attorneys, and trusted advisors can be valuable resources.

An outside perspective often identifies blind spots that are difficult for volunteers to see on their own.

A management professional may recognize patterns from dozens of similar communities.

A reserve specialist may highlight future risks that are not obvious today.

Legal counsel may identify governing document provisions that significantly affect available options.

Most governing documents provide boards with authority to seek professional guidance when making significant decisions. Using that authority wisely can help communities avoid repeating common mistakes.

For boards in Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, and throughout North Carolina and South Carolina, objective input frequently improves both decision quality and homeowner confidence.

Learning Without Carrying the Weight Forever

Some boards spend years revisiting a past mistake.

The topic resurfaces during meetings. New proposals are compared to old failures. Progress slows because confidence never fully returns.

That approach rarely helps the community.

Mistakes deserve honest reflection. They do not deserve permanent control over future decisions.

The healthiest boards acknowledge what happened, identify the lesson, adjust their process, and move forward.

The same principle applies to community association management.

Whether the issue involved vendor management, HOA communication, financial planning, or project oversight, the goal is improvement rather than punishment.

Communities evolve when leaders are willing to learn without becoming trapped by the past.

What This Means for HOA Boards in The Carolinas

Communities across North Carolina and South Carolina face increasingly complex decisions involving reserve funding, infrastructure maintenance, insurance costs, and homeowner expectations.

Mistakes will happen.

Every experienced board member has one decision they would handle differently today.

The objective is not perfection.

The objective is creating a decision making process that consistently improves over time.

Boards that distinguish mistakes from failures, examine their assumptions, seek outside perspectives, and learn lessons promptly are typically better equipped to serve their communities over the long term.

For board members looking to strengthen governance practices, resources available through www.amgworld.com and the Lessons from the Neighborhood book series provide practical insights into how real communities navigate these challenges every day.

Paul’s Key Guidance

If I could give one piece of advice to every HOA board, it would be this: pay close attention to the emotion in the room before you pay attention to the vote.

Most governance mistakes do not begin with bad intentions. They begin when fear, frustration, urgency, or conflict quietly influences the discussion.

When a board is debating a major issue, ask what concern is driving each position. Sometimes the real issue is not the contract, the reserve contribution, or the policy itself. Sometimes it is discomfort with conflict or concern about homeowner reaction.

Once you understand the motivation behind a position, better decisions usually follow.

The communities that govern most effectively are not the ones that avoid mistakes. They are the ones that learn from them quickly and continue moving forward.

About the Author

Paul Mengert is a premier educator and strategist with over 30 years of expertise in community association management. As CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm, he is a CAI Educator of the Year and a PCAM® designee dedicated to elevating professional and volunteer leadership.

A governance advisor and a decision maker strategist, Paul teaches at Wake Forest University School of Law and a Harvard Business School alumni program. His global influence includes advising the U.S. Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and chairing the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority, earning him the “Most Admired CEO” title from the Triad Business Journal. Through his book series, Lessons from the Neighborhood, and his work at AMG, Paul provides community leaders with the essential framework to master the intersection of finance, law, and human dynamics.

Who Owns the Street? HOA Parking Rules and What Every Homeowner Should Know

It started with a letter in the mailbox. For one Waterbridge resident, the fine arrived after she parked on the street for just a few hours to clean out her garage. For another — a woman whose husband has been battling cancer — it meant the neighbors, friends, and family who had rallied around her family were no longer welcome to line the street with their cars. "Golf carts, vehicles all down the street, to spend time with him when he couldn't leave the house," she told WMBF. "That was a huge part of why we love this community so much."

The HOA's position, as shared by Waterbridge Board president Gary Wakley, is that the enforcement is not punitive — it reflects both a longstanding community rule and Horry County's own regulations on street parking. He noted that rapid growth and wildfires in the area made stricter enforcement necessary.

Both sides have a point. And that's exactly what makes this story worth unpacking — because it isn't unique to Carolina Forest. Variations of this conflict play out every week in planned communities across the country.

The Governance Question at the Heart of It

Homeowners' associations occupy a peculiar space in American civic life. They are private organizations with government-like powers — the ability to create rules, levy fines, and in some cases, place liens on homes. Yet they operate with far less public accountability than a city council or county commission.

When a rule that sat dormant for nearly two decades is suddenly enforced with daily fines, residents reasonably ask: Was this ever really communicated to us? Was there a process? Who decided, and why now? These are governance questions, not just parking questions.

"We just want to have a conversation with community leaders to find a solution that works for everyone."

— Waterbridge resident Rachel W., as reported by WMBF News

That desire for dialogue is itself revealing. Good HOA governance doesn't just enforce the rules — it communicates changes, explains the reasoning, and ideally invites residents into the process before fines start appearing in mailboxes. The absence of that dialogue is often what turns a manageable policy into a neighborhood crisis.

The Case for Enforcement

• Street parking can obstruct sightlines at intersections, raising genuine safety concerns

• Rules in the CC&Rs exist precisely to maintain community standards and property values

• County regulations may require the HOA to act — the board may have limited discretion

• Rapid community growth can change traffic patterns, making older parking habits more disruptive

• Consistent enforcement protects the HOA from claims of selective rule application

The Homeowners' Concerns

• Years of non-enforcement created a reasonable expectation that the rule was inactive

• Sudden enforcement with fines — without a warning period — feels punitive regardless of intent

• Households with multiple drivers, teenagers, or guests have real, practical parking needs

• $25 per day adds up quickly and disproportionately impacts lower-income households

• No clear appeals process or compassionate exemptions (e.g., medical circumstances)

The Jurisdictional Layer Nobody Talks About

One important detail in the Waterbridge story: the HOA president pointed to Horry County rules as a driver of the enforcement, not just community bylaws. This is a nuance that trips up homeowners constantly.

In many communities, there are actually three layers of authority governing what you can do with your property:

1. Municipal or county ordinances. These are government regulations — zoning laws, fire codes, traffic rules — that apply to everyone in the jurisdiction regardless of whether they live in an HOA. In this case, Horry County has its own street parking rules that the HOA may be obligated to enforce.

2. The HOA's CC&Rs (Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions). These are recorded with the county when the community is developed. They run with the land — meaning every owner is legally bound by them whether or not they read them before purchasing. They can be more restrictive than local law, but not less.

3. HOA rules and regulations. These are separate from the CC&Rs and are typically adopted and amended by the board. Importantly, South Carolina law now requires that bylaws and rules and regulations be recorded with the county in order to be enforceable — so a rule that has never been recorded may have no legal teeth, regardless of how long it has appeared in internal HOA documents. This is a meaningful protection for South Carolina homeowners, and one worth verifying with a real estate attorney if you're facing enforcement of a rule you've never seen in recorded form.

Knowing which layer a rule comes from matters. A rule rooted in county ordinance may be non-negotiable for the HOA. A rule that exists only in unrecorded board regulations may be challengeable — in South Carolina especially, the recording requirement gives homeowners a concrete line of inquiry when enforcement feels sudden or unfair.

Steps Toward Better Enforcement — On Both Sides

If you're an HOA board navigating a rule like this, here are practices that tend to reduce conflict and build community trust:

For HOA Boards: Enforcement Best Practices

• Issue a community-wide notice with at least 30–60 days advance warning before fines begin

• Explain the why — county requirements, safety concerns, or growth pressures deserve plain-language explanation

• Establish a formal warning period before any monetary fines are issued

• Create an exceptions or appeals process for documented hardship circumstances

• Hold a town hall or community meeting to hear resident concerns before enforcement begins

• Review fine structures for proportionality — escalating fines over time are often more equitable than flat daily rates

• Consider alternatives: visitor passes, designated overflow parking areas, or timed street parking windows

If you're a homeowner who has received a fine or anticipates one, you have options too. Start by requesting the specific rule in writing, along with any county or state regulation the HOA says it's based on. Verify that independently. Then review your HOA's enforcement procedures — most governing documents require a specific process, and deviations from that process may make a fine unenforceable. You can also request to speak at the next board meeting; HOAs in most states are required to allow homeowners to address the board at open meetings.

What Buyers Should Look for Before They Sign

The honest truth? Many of the heartaches in HOA communities could be avoided with better due diligence before purchase. Here is what we recommend reviewing — ideally with your real estate agent and a real estate attorney — before closing on any home in a planned community.

Home Buyer's HOA Due Diligence Checklist

• Count the parking spaces. How many dedicated spaces does the home have — in a garage, on a driveway, or in an assigned lot? Do the math against your household's actual vehicle count.

• Read the parking rules in full. Not just the summary. Look for street parking restrictions, overnight guest rules, RV and boat storage policies, and commercial vehicle clauses.

• Ask about enforcement history. An HOA that has never enforced a rule may begin doing so — especially if new management or new board members come in. Ask neighbors directly, not just the seller.

• Review the CC&Rs, bylaws, AND rules/regulations separately. These are different documents with different legal weights. Request all three.

• Check county and municipal ordinances. Understand the baseline layer of law before assuming the HOA has flexibility.

• Review recent board meeting minutes. A good HOA will provide these. They reveal pending rule changes, ongoing disputes, and the overall governance culture.

• Look at the fine schedule. What does the HOA charge for violations? Are there caps? Is there an appeals process?

• Talk to current residents. Walk the neighborhood. Ask people how they feel about the HOA. Their candor is irreplaceable.

• Consider your lifestyle honestly. Do you host often? Do you have teenage drivers? Do you work from a vehicle? Match the community's rules to your real life, not your ideal life.

The Bigger Picture: Community or Corporation?

HOAs exist on a spectrum. At their best, they maintain shared spaces beautifully, build a sense of neighborhood, and protect property values in ways that individual homeowners simply can't on their own. At their worst, they become adversarial bureaucracies that leave residents feeling policed rather than represented.

The Waterbridge situation doesn't have to be a story about an HOA gone wrong. It could become a story about a community that found a better way to balance legitimate safety and compliance needs with genuine compassion for its residents. That outcome is possible — but it requires dialogue, transparency, and a shared understanding that enforcement is a means to community wellbeing, not an end in itself.

The neighbors who spoke to WMBF weren't asking for the rules to disappear. They were asking for a conversation. That's not an unreasonable ask. And for HOAs everywhere, meeting that ask — proactively, before the letters go out — is the mark of governance done right.

The best HOA rules are the ones residents understand, accept as fair, and rarely have to be reminded of.

Whether you're a current homeowner navigating a dispute, a board member weighing enforcement decisions, or a buyer doing your homework, we hope this gives you a useful framework. And if you have questions about a specific situation in your community, feel free to reach out — this is exactly the kind of conversation we're here for at AMG World.

Why North Carolina’s 2026 HOA Bills Are Sparking Concern Among Community Associations

Several proposed North Carolina HOA law changes for 2026 are generating strong reactions across Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Charlotte, and communities throughout the Carolinas. These bills challenge one of the core purposes of an HOA: balancing individual property rights with neighborhood expectations and property values.

At the center of the debate is a difficult reality. What one homeowner sees as a reasonable personal freedom, another homeowner may see as a direct threat to the visual character, quality of life, or resale value of the community they chose.

Here’s a quick summary of the key bills:

• House Bill 1212 (HOA Accessory Limitation Ban): Would limit HOAs’ ability to prohibit solar panels, edible or pollinator gardens, and certain accessory dwelling units (ADUs) that meet building, environmental, and zoning codes.

  • Supporters highlight benefits for sustainability, lower energy costs, housing flexibility, and homeowner autonomy.

  • Opponents raise concerns about inconsistent neighborhood appearance, parking strain, drainage issues, and potential overcrowding.0

• Senate Bill 1051 (Don’t Zone Out Child Care): Would restrict HOAs from prohibiting licensed in-home family child care businesses.

  • Supporters point to North Carolina’s growing need for affordable child care and the value of neighborhood-based services for working families.

  • Other homeowners worry about increased traffic during drop-off and pickup times, limited guest parking, noise, and safety concerns on residential streets. Most Boards are not opposing child care itself — they are focused on preserving the residential character many owners relied upon when purchasing their homes.15

• House Bill 1174 (HOA Oversight Act): Would create a publicly searchable North Carolina Department of Justice complaint database for HOA disputes involving fines, records access, meetings, collections, and covenant enforcement.

  • Supporters believe this creates needed transparency and accountability for poorly governed associations.

  • Critics worry about unintended consequences. Legitimate complaints deserve visibility, but repetitive or unsubstantiated complaints could also appear publicly. A prospective buyer researching a community may see multiple entries and choose to look elsewhere — potentially affecting property values for the entire neighborhood, even before facts are fully reviewed or resolved.

In our experience, these disputes rarely stay theoretical. One homeowner may view a front-yard garden as environmentally responsible, while neighbors believe it changes the community aesthetic. Nearly every HOA eventually deals with conflict involving a highly dissatisfied owner. Sometimes these highlight real issues. Other times they stem from personal disputes or enforcement disagreements.

What is HOA governance?

HOA governance is the process of balancing individual rights with the collective interests of the community while operating within governing documents and applicable law. That balance is rarely simple.

Resources such as www.amgworld.com and the Lessons from the Neighborhood book series can help Boards better understand how legislative changes often create operational challenges long before legal disputes emerge.

AMG’s Key Guidance for North Carolina HOA Law Changes 2026

Strong communities recognize that rights and restrictions are interconnected. Boards should avoid reacting emotionally or politically to these proposals. Instead, focus on:

• Consistent, fair enforcement of existing rules

• Clear, proactive communication with homeowners

• Understanding how potential changes may affect all residents — not just the loudest voices

Call to Action: If your HOA Board is concerned about how these bills could impact your community, AMG can help. Contact us to discuss preparation strategies, policy reviews, or educational sessions tailored to your association.

About the Author

Paul Mengert is a nationally recognized governance strategist with more than 30 years of experience in community association management. As CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm, he is a CAI Educator of the Year and PCAM® designee dedicated to improving HOA leadership and decision-making.

Paul is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in a Harvard Business School alumni program. Through his Lessons from the Neighborhood book series and his work with community associations throughout the Carolinas, he helps Boards better understand the intersection of governance, finance, and human behavior.

Emotional Support Animals and Homeowners Association Rules in North Carolina: What Boards Need to Know About HUD’s New Guidance

Why Homeowners Association Boards in Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, and Across the Carolinas Should Not Rush to Deny Emotional Support Animal Requests

Fair housing law continues to evolve, and few issues create more confusion for homeowners association boards and condominium associations than emotional support animals. Across North Carolina, South Carolina, Charlotte, Raleigh, Greensboro, and other communities throughout the Carolinas, boards are now asking whether recent guidance from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development changes how associations should handle emotional support animal accommodation requests under the Fair Housing Act.

The short answer is no, but the situation is more nuanced than many headlines suggest.

A newly issued memorandum from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has shifted federal enforcement priorities regarding emotional support animals and trained service animals. Some community associations may mistakenly interpret the guidance as permission to automatically deny emotional support animal requests. That would be a serious governance mistake. The Fair Housing Act itself has not changed, state and local fair housing laws may still apply, and courts across the country continue to evaluate reasonable accommodation requests differently.

For homeowners association boards, condominium association leaders, and community association management professionals, this is not simply a legal issue. It is a governance issue involving risk management, homeowner communication, consistency, and responsible decision-making.

AMG recommends reviewing these matters with legal counsel. 

This article from attorney Jim Slaughter explains what changed, what did not, and why associations should approach emotional support animal requests carefully and deliberately moving forward.

Fair Housing and ADA Issues in HOA Management Across North Carolina and South Carolina

Fair Housing Act and Americans with Disabilities Act Considerations

A quick but vital disclaimer before we dive in: Nothing in this article constitutes legal advice. These observations reflect practical experience gained through work in community association management, consulting, and volunteer leadership. The Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) are U.S. federal laws.

Because these laws, applicable accessibility requirements, and enforcement standards vary significantly by jurisdiction and circumstance, HOA boards should consult experienced legal counsel familiar with community association law in their jurisdiction regarding any specific legal issue or accommodation request.

In our experience, fair housing and accessibility issues are among the most sensitive situations a community association board can face. Many of the mistakes associations make are avoidable, yet the consequences of mishandling even a single request can become expensive and disruptive very quickly. Boards should involve qualified legal counsel early in the process, ideally before substantive communications or decisions occur.

Know Which Law Applies

One of the more common mistakes we see in HOA governance is treating the Fair Housing Act and the ADA as interchangeable. They are not. Boards that approach them as though they are the same law often end up focused on the wrong issue entirely.

How each law applies depends heavily on how a specific community is structured and used. This is where experienced legal counsel matters. Even where the ADA may not apply to a community or facility, the Fair Housing Act may still impose significant obligations relating to reasonable accommodations and modifications.

One issue worth paying attention to involves associations that sell memberships to non-residents, rent facilities to the public, or otherwise open amenities beyond the resident membership. In some situations, that type of use may increase the likelihood that portions of the property could be viewed as places of public accommodation under applicable law. That distinction can matter, sometimes significantly.

This is exactly the kind of analysis an attorney should handle, not a volunteer board trying to interpret federal law during a meeting discussion.

State and local laws create another layer of complexity. In both North Carolina and South Carolina, local requirements and enforcement standards may go beyond federal law. Most governing documents do not fully address these issues on their own, and boards should avoid relying on internet summaries or informal interpretations.

Let Counsel Lead the Early Conversation

When an accommodation request arrives, the natural instinct is to start gathering information immediately. That reaction is understandable. Acting on it without legal guidance is where many associations unintentionally create problems for themselves.

Questions about what information may appropriately be requested, how to request it, and when additional inquiry is justified should generally be answered with guidance from qualified legal counsel. In many situations, counsel should guide or participate directly in the early communications. Experienced attorneys can also help boards avoid unintentionally creating inconsistent standards or documentation practices that later become problematic during an investigation or dispute.

This is not about being adversarial. Quite the opposite. The attorney’s role is to advise the association on the law, proper process, help ensure that everyone’s rights are appropriately protected, and provide guidance as counsel otherwise believes is appropriate under the circumstances.

We have seen situations where a board believed it was simply asking reasonable follow-up questions, only to later discover that the tone or wording of early emails became the center of the dispute. In one association, the underlying issue itself was relatively manageable. What escalated the matter into a costly complaint was a rushed exchange between volunteers trying to “clarify” the request without legal guidance. The first few communications created far more exposure than the accommodation request itself.

Having counsel guide the process early helps ensure that everyone’s rights are respected and that the association remains on solid footing from the start.

Most accommodation requests arise from legitimate human circumstances. Boards should approach these conversations with professionalism, patience, respect, and close coordination with qualified legal counsel.

Procedures and Documentation Matter

Associations that navigate these situations successfully tend to share a few important habits. They slow down. They follow counsel’s guidance. They communicate carefully. They document everything.

A poorly worded email, an offhand remark during a meeting, inconsistent meeting minutes, or a hastily drafted response can seriously complicate the association’s position, even where the underlying decision may have been appropriate.

Before formally responding to any accommodation or modification request, boards should generally have counsel review both the process and the proposed response.

The financial stakes are real. Mishandling these matters can lead to administrative complaints, litigation, fines, damages, and substantial legal expense, even where the association ultimately prevails.

D&O insurance policies also vary significantly. Some policies may limit or exclude fair housing-related claims altogether. Boards should consult both legal counsel and their insurance professionals to better understand potential exposure and coverage limitations.

What Is a Reasonable Accommodation?

A reasonable accommodation generally refers to a change in rules, policies, practices, or procedures that may be necessary to allow a person with a disability equal opportunity to use and enjoy housing.

Whether a request is legally required depends heavily on the facts, the governing documents, applicable law, and the specific circumstances involved. That determination should be made with qualified legal guidance.

Questions HOA Boards Should Ask Legal Counsel Now

One of the more practical things a board can do is discuss these issues before a complaint or accommodation request arrives. Waiting until emotions are high and timelines are compressed usually makes the process more difficult.

Here are several topics worth discussing with qualified legal counsel:

Facility Use

Does the association’s use of common facilities, such as public rentals or non-resident memberships, affect how Fair Housing or ADA obligations may apply?

Rules and Governing Documents

Do existing rules, policies, or governing documents create unintended fair housing exposure?

The Intake Process

Does the association have a standard process for receiving and responding to accommodation requests, and has legal counsel reviewed it?

Point of Contact

Who on the board or management team should handle initial communications if a request arrives?

Insurance Coverage

Does the association’s D&O policy cover fair housing or discrimination claims, and where might coverage gaps exist?

These are not hypothetical concerns. In our experience with HOA management and community association management throughout the Carolinas, these are often the exact issues boards wish they had addressed before they needed answers.

Boards looking for additional governance resources can find educational material at www.amgworld.com, including insights from the Lessons from the Neighborhood series by Governance Strategist Paul Mengert.

Paul’s Key Guidance

Do not let urgency force the board into quick reactions on fair housing issues. Most of the real exposure comes from process mistakes, emotional communications, or volunteers trying to solve legal questions informally.

Slow the conversation down. Designate one point of contact. Keep communications professional and limited. Involve legal counsel early, especially before requesting information or issuing formal responses.

On paper, accommodation requests sometimes look straightforward. In practice, they rarely are. The boards that manage these situations best are usually the ones disciplined enough to avoid improvising.

About the Author

Paul Mengert is a premier educator and strategist with over 30 years of expertise in community association management. As CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm, he is a CAI Educator of the Year and a PCAM® designee dedicated to elevating professional and volunteer leadership.

A governance advisor and a decision maker strategist, Paul is a longtime guest lecturer at Wake Forest University School of Law and teaches in the Harvard Business School alumni program. His global influence includes advising the U.S. Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and chairing the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority, earning him the “Most Admired CEO” title from the Triad Business Journal. Through his book series, Lessons from the Neighborhood, and his work at AMG, Paul provides community leaders with the essential framework to master the intersection of finance, law, and human dynamics.

Why HOA Boards Slowly Lose Governance Discipline

Most HOA governance failures do not begin with fraud, lawsuits, or dramatic public conflict.

They begin with drift.

A meeting runs 30 minutes longer than planned because no one wants to end a repetitive discussion. A director consistently arrives unprepared, yet the board chooses to compensate rather than confront the issue. One personality gradually begins steering every conversation while others retreat into silence to avoid friction. Another director becomes so consumed with technical minutiae that larger financial or operational concerns receive only passing attention.

None of these moments feels catastrophic when viewed individually.

Over time, however, they accumulate.

Eventually, the board stops governing proactively and starts reacting emotionally.

In HOA and condominium associations, that shift matters enormously. Unlike corporate boards, community association management operates in highly visible environments where the consequences of dysfunction appear quickly. Deferred maintenance shows up in deteriorating sidewalks, leaking roofs, unstable reserves, frustrated homeowners, and increasingly hostile meetings.

People feel governance failures long before they understand them.

What Is HOA Governance Drift?

Governance drift occurs when an HOA board gradually loses disciplined decision-making through avoidance, inconsistent procedures, weak participation, or unclear operational boundaries.

Associations rarely become unstable because of one disastrous decision. More often, they weaken through smaller leadership habits that slowly replace discipline with avoidance.

In our experience, emotional avoidance in HOA governance almost always becomes a financial issue.

That pattern appears repeatedly in HOA management and condominium association management communities throughout the country, including many associations across North Carolina and South Carolina.

The Boardroom Problem Few Associations Discuss Openly

Most HOA boards are comfortable discussing budgets, landscaping contracts, insurance renewals, architectural requests, reserve studies, or covenant enforcement.

They are far less comfortable discussing board behavior itself.

That hesitation is understandable. HOA directors are volunteers. They are neighbors. In many communities, they accepted board positions simply because no one else volunteered.

Addressing unhealthy meeting habits can feel personal very quickly.

So boards tolerate behaviors they would never accept from vendors, managers, or homeowners.

• Meetings wander.

• Conversations repeat.

• Operational boundaries blur.

• Decisions stall.

We have seen associations spend more time debating the wording of a homeowner violation letter than discussing reserve deterioration that may eventually require a significant special assessment.

That imbalance is rarely about intelligence.

It is usually about emotional comfort.

Detailed arguments often feel safer than difficult strategic decisions.

Three HOA Board Behaviors That Quietly Create Long-Term Problems

1. The Silent Partner

Every HOA board eventually encounters the director who attends regularly but contributes very little.

They rarely challenge assumptions. Rarely ask difficult questions. Rarely engage unless directly prompted.

At first glance, this may appear respectful or cautious.

In practice, it weakens the board’s collective judgment.

Reserve studies, vendor management, HOA financial planning, insurance renewals, delinquent assessment collection, and capital repair decisions all require active participation from directors willing to openly evaluate competing risks.

Lessons from the Neighborhood: Greensboro Commons

At Greensboro Commons, Director Emily quietly worried for months that reserve funding was falling behind projected roofing obligations. She carefully reviewed the financials before each meeting but rarely raised concerns because stronger personalities dominated the discussions.

Two years later, the community faced a rushed special assessment after multiple roof failures accelerated unexpectedly.

Her silence was not malicious.

It was uncomfortable.

But the financial consequences were still real.

Prolonged silence inside an HOA boardroom usually signals intimidation, disengagement, or a culture where balanced participation no longer feels welcome.

None of those conditions supports healthy HOA governance.

2. The Super Volunteer

Some directors struggle to distinguish between governance and operations.

Instead of setting policy and evaluating outcomes, they begin inserting themselves directly into contractor supervision, maintenance oversight, vendor communication, or management instructions.

At first, this often looks like dedication.

Eventually, it creates confusion.

Vendors stop knowing who speaks for the association. Managers become hesitant to act independently. Fellow directors gradually disengage because one personality dominates implementation details.

Lessons from the Neighborhood: Charlotte Manor

At Charlotte Manor, Director Mike routinely texted landscaping vendors between meetings to “clarify expectations.” He attended weekend repair projects personally and frequently issued informal maintenance instructions without board approval.

Within months, vendors received conflicting directives, project timelines slipped, and billing disputes escalated into expensive legal disagreements.

Mike genuinely believed he was helping.

That is what makes this governance pattern so common.

Strong community association management depends on authority flowing through the process rather than personality.

3. The Deep Diver

This behavior is common in HOA governance and property management.

Boards become so absorbed in operational details that strategic thinking gradually disappears.

The discussion may involve paint specifications, asphalt thickness, irrigation systems, or architectural wording. Those details matter. But they are not always the board’s highest value contribution.

Strong governance requires perspective.

Boards are responsible for preserving long-term financial stability, not simply winning operational debates.

Lessons from the Neighborhood: Winston Place

At Winston Place, the board spent nearly forty-five minutes debating the exact color and placement of new clubhouse benches while a reserve study warning about underfunded roofing obligations sat untouched on the agenda.

By the end of the meeting, the benches were approved.

The reserve discussion was postponed again.

Buildings do not respond to optimism.

They respond to maintenance, timing, reserve planning, and disciplined financial decision-making.

The “Deep Diver” habit is often avoidance disguised as diligence.

Why Boards Hesitate to Correct Dysfunction

Neighbor politics changes everything.

Corporate boards often confront dysfunction more directly because relationships remain primarily professional. HOA boards operate inside social environments layered with friendships, prior conflicts, elections, and community visibility.

People worry about embarrassment.

Retaliation.

Social tension around the clubhouse or pool.

So instead of addressing unhealthy behavior directly, many associations quietly adapt around it.

That adaptation becomes expensive over time.

Meetings grow longer. Volunteer burnout increases. Decision-making slows. Capable future volunteers decide not to participate after watching dysfunction firsthand.

The board slowly loses institutional resilience.

Healthy HOA Boards Build Structure Before Conflict Appears

The strongest community associations rarely rely on chemistry alone.

They rely on process.

• Clear agendas.

• Defined authority.

• Preparation expectations.

• Committee boundaries.

• Decision timelines.

• Executive session discipline.

• Written policies.

None of these governance tools eliminates disagreement. Nor should they. Productive disagreement often improves board decision-making.

But structure prevents disagreement from consuming the system itself.

On paper, strong HOA governance sounds straightforward.

In practice, it rarely is.

Particularly in volunteer environments, where communication styles, personalities, and emotional investment vary dramatically from one director to another.

This is one reason experienced HOA management companies often provide value beyond administration alone. Strong operational systems create consistency even when board personalities fluctuate over time.

Boards looking for practical governance guidance often turn to Association Management Group and the Lessons from the Neighborhood series for real world insight into HOA governance, reserve planning, vendor oversight, and long term community stability.

Paul’s Key Guidance

Pay attention to meeting behavior long before those habits create visible operational problems.

If the same discussions repeat month after month without resolution, governance discipline is already weakening.

Healthy HOA boards do not avoid uncomfortable conversations. They create systems that make those conversations manageable through structure, preparation, accountability, and disciplined communication.

The strongest boards are rarely the ones with the fewest disagreements.

They are the ones where process remains stronger than personality.

About the Author

Paul Mengert is a nationally recognized educator, governance strategist, and leader in community association management with more than 40 years of experience. As founder and CEO of Association Management Group (AMG) , an AAMC® accredited firm established in Greensboro in 1985, he oversees communities representing more than 30,000 property owners and over $5 billion in community assets across North Carolina and South Carolina.

A CAI Educator of the Year and PCAM® designee, Paul has dedicated his career to advancing HOA governance, condominium association management, and volunteer board leadership. He serves as senior faculty for the Community Associations Institute and lectures on governance and decision making at Wake Forest University School of Law and in the Harvard Business School alumni program at Queens University.

Beyond community associations, Paul has advised the U.S. Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and served five terms as Chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority, helping guide the airport’s transformation into a major aerospace and innovation hub.

Through his Lessons from the Neighborhood book series, speaking engagements, and consulting work, Paul continues helping HOA boards and community leaders navigate the financial, operational, and human realities that shape successful associations.

HOA Governance in North Carolina: What the Proposed House Bill 1212 Could Change

The proposed House Bill 1212 has sparked important discussion across North Carolina.

It is important to be clear.

This bill has not passed the legislature and has not been signed into law. It remains a proposal as of May 1, 2026. Still, community leaders should pay attention to what it represents.

What the Proposal Seeks to Do

House Bill 1212 would limit an association’s ability to regulate:

• Solar panels

• Edible or pollinator gardens

• Accessory dwelling units that comply with zoning and building codes

The policy direction reflects growing interest in sustainability and housing flexibility. Many homeowners and boards support those goals.

Where the Real Question Lies

The issue is not whether these uses should exist.

It is who decides how they are implemented.

Community associations are built on shared agreements that guide property use and expectations. These agreements are not perfect, and not every owner fully understands them at purchase. Even so, they create a structure that allows communities to function with consistency.

Research from the Community Associations Institute continues to show that the vast majority of homeowners report satisfaction with their association leadership and management.

Across the state of North Carolina and through its major metropolitan areas, including Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh, most communities are operating effectively under local governance.

Why One-Size-Fits-All Governance Is Challenging

Community associations are not uniform.

Across North Carolina, and in metropolitan areas like Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, and Raleigh, communities vary widely in design, density, infrastructure, and homeowner expectations.

What works in one neighborhood often does not translate cleanly to another.

We have seen this play out within communities themselves.

In one association, a board attempted to standardize a policy across all sections of the neighborhood to simplify enforcement. On paper, it made sense. In practice, the sections had different layouts, different parking realities, and different homeowner expectations. What was reasonable in one area created friction in another. The board eventually had to revisit the policy and tailor it more carefully.

That experience is not unique.

Uniform rules can be efficient.

Communities, however, are rarely uniform.

This is where local governance tends to matter most. Boards, working with their residents, are usually in the best position to balance flexibility with the practical realities of their specific neighborhood.

Keeping Governance Where It Belongs

Most governing documents already provide a process for change. If homeowners want to allow different uses, they can amend their covenants.

That process is not always easy, but it serves an important purpose.

It keeps decision-making within the community, with the people who live there and experience the outcomes.

Legislative policy plays a role. But community associations function best when neighborhood decisions remain in the neighborhood.

Paul’s Key Guidance

Boards should view proposals like this as a signal.

When communities approach requests reasonably and with consistency, it reduces the likelihood of outside intervention. Take a fresh look at how your board handles solar, gardens, and similar requests. Where flexibility makes sense, consider it.

Fair, thoughtful decision-making is not just good governance.

It is what helps preserve the ability for communities to govern themselves.

About the Author

Paul Mengert is a premier educator and strategist with over 30 years of expertise in community association management. As CEO and founder of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm, he is a CAI Educator of the Year and a PCAM® designee dedicated to elevating professional and volunteer leadership.

A governance advisor and decision maker strategist, Paul teaches at Wake Forest University School of Law and a Harvard Business School alumni program. His global influence includes advising the U.S. Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union, chairing the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority, and founding and serving as CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), earning him the “Most Admired CEO” title from the Triad Business Journal.

Through his book series, Lessons from the Neighborhood, and his work at AMG, Paul provides community leaders with the essential framework to master the intersection of finance, law, and human dynamics.

HOA Management Services in Winston Salem, Greensboro and Charlotte: What Strong Communities Actually Rely On

When Boards begin evaluating HOA management companies, the conversation often starts with a checklist: communication, financials, vendors, enforcement. On paper, it all looks straightforward.

In practice, it rarely is.

Across Winston Salem, Greensboro, Charlotte, and the broader Carolinas, we have seen how these areas are deeply connected. When one area falters, the others are quickly affected. A missed financial detail can create tension. Poor communication can breed suspicion. Inadequate vendor follow-up can lead to costly surprises.

Strong community association management is not simply about offering services. It is about helping Boards execute them consistently — especially when challenges arise.

Below is how experienced management teams assist Boards in handling these responsibilities effectively.

Proactive Communication and Responsiveness

Most Boards understand the importance of communication. The real challenge lies in the timing, tone, and consistency.

Silence from the Board or management team often creates more issues than delivering difficult news. Homeowners tend to fill informational gaps with assumptions.

Experienced management helps Boards communicate proactively — getting ahead of issues, setting clear expectations early, and responding in ways that acknowledge concerns even when the answer is not ideal. Predictable, consistent communication has helped many communities stabilize during difficult periods.

Financial Accuracy and Transparent Reporting

Financial reporting is where community trust is either strengthened or eroded.

HOA financial planning involves managing operating expenses, reserve funds, and long-term obligations to help the community avoid sudden financial strain.

Accurate reports are essential. Transparency makes them truly useful.

Management teams assist Boards by delivering clear, well-organized reports with consistent explanations and visible reserve tracking. This support helps Board members understand the information and make confident decisions rather than hesitant ones. When financials are unclear, decisions stall — and stalled decisions often become expensive ones.

Active Vendor Oversight and Accountability

Vendor management is one of the most underestimated areas in community association management.

Hiring vendors is relatively straightforward. Helping Boards maintain accountability afterward is where experienced management provides the most value.

Management assists Boards by monitoring performance after contracts are signed, verifying work completed, and helping address issues early when performance drifts. This oversight helps prevent missed deadlines, incomplete work, or unanticipated change orders.

One Board we supported assumed their landscaping vendor was properly maintaining the irrigation system. No one had verified the work for months. By the time the problem became visible, large sections of common area required expensive replacement. The cost was significant, but the sense of being blindsided was even more damaging. Situations like this are more common than most Boards realize.

Consistent and Fair Rule Enforcement

Rule enforcement is rarely just about the rules themselves. It is about the perception of fairness.

Governing documents typically grant clear authority, but how that authority is applied matters greatly.

Experienced management helps Boards apply rules consistently, reducing the risk of selective or overly aggressive enforcement that can create tension or resentment. This support assists Boards in removing personal bias from the process and reinforcing that expectations apply equally to all residents. It also helps Board members avoid emotionally driven decisions.

Expert Guidance on Legal and Legislative Compliance

HOA governance operates within an evolving legal framework.

In North Carolina, communities are generally guided by the Planned Community Act (Chapter 47F) or condominium statutes (Chapter 47C). South Carolina follows Title 27. These laws provide structure, but they rarely answer every practical question a Board encounters.

Management teams help Boards interpret how legislation typically applies in day-to-day situations while clearly identifying when outside legal counsel should be engaged. This guidance assists Boards in staying compliant while making reasonable, practical decisions.

Modern Technology and Homeowner Portals

Today’s homeowners expect easy access to information.

Management can help Boards implement and maintain modern homeowner portals that allow residents to view accounts, access documents, submit requests, and receive updates. When supported by responsive follow-through, these tools reduce friction, increase transparency, and limit unnecessary escalation.

Technology alone is not enough — it works best when paired with strong human support behind it.

Strategic Project Management for Capital Improvements

Capital projects test both planning and execution.

A reserve study serves as a long-term financial roadmap to help communities prepare for major repairs and replacements.

Management assists Boards by supporting coordination, oversight, and communication throughout capital projects. This help helps Boards balance timing, cost, and homeowner impact while keeping the community’s long-term health in focus. We have seen delayed projects lead to much higher costs later — and rushed projects create unnecessary disruption.

Reliable 24/7 Emergency Availability

Emergencies do not follow business hours.

Management teams help Boards maintain systems for rapid response to true emergencies — whether water issues, storm damage, or safety concerns. This support protects both property and homeowner confidence while distinguishing genuine emergencies from matters that can wait until morning.

Efficient Board Meeting Preparation and Execution

Board meetings are where progress either happens or stalls.

Experienced management helps Boards prepare clear agendas, organized financials, vendor updates, and defined decision points. This preparation assists meetings in staying focused and productive, respecting everyone’s time while advancing important business.

Conflict De-escalation and Community Building

Communities are made of people with strong opinions, emotions, and expectations. Conflict is inevitable.

Management assists Boards with de-escalation by helping maintain a calm, listening-oriented approach that acknowledges concerns without taking sides. Over time, this support helps foster an environment where issues can be addressed constructively before they divide the community.

How These Services Come Together

Each area is important on its own. The real difference comes from how they interconnect.

Communication supports enforcement. Financial clarity supports better decisions. Vendor oversight supports successful projects.

When one area is weak, the others feel the impact. Strong management helps Boards maintain alignment across all these responsibilities.

Boards seeking additional perspective may find value in resources like www.amgworld.com or the Lessons from the Neighborhood series LINK.

Paul’s Key Guidance

Do not evaluate management services in isolation.

Ask how communication connects to financial reporting. Ask how vendor performance is tracked and documented. Pay close attention to consistency — not just promises.

Most importantly, observe how potential partners help Boards navigate real problems. That will reveal far more about their value than any checklist.

The right management relationship functions as a true extension of the Board — assisting with anticipation, protection of community resources, and preservation of community harmony.

About the Author

Paul Mengert is a premier educator and strategist with over 30 years of expertise in community association management. As CEO of Association Management Group (AMG), an AAMC®-accredited firm, he is a CAI Educator of the Year and a PCAM® designee dedicated to elevating professional and volunteer leadership.

A governance advisor and decision-making strategist, Paul teaches at Wake Forest University School of Law and a Harvard Business School alumni program. His global influence includes advising the U.S. Department of State on housing initiatives in the former Soviet Union and chairing the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority, earning him the “Most Admired CEO” title from the Triad Business Journal. Through his book series, Lessons from the Neighborhood, and his work at AMG, Paul provides community leaders with practical frameworks at the intersection of finance, law, and human dynamics.

Investors, Rentals, and the Battle for Community Character: A Carolina Manager’s View

There is a quiet transformation happening in neighborhoods across North Carolina and South Carolina. What starts as a single home purchase by an out-of-state institutional investor can, over time, shift the entire “feel” of a community.

A recent analysis by Jim Slaughter highlights how potential federal legislation may begin shaping the role of large institutional investors. You can read his full perspective here: Law Firm Carolinas

From a manager’s perspective, that legal framework is important—but for the boards we work with every day in Charlotte and Greensboro, this isn’t theoretical. It’s happening in real time, in real neighborhoods.

Where Policy Becomes Personal

On paper, rental restrictions are a governance issue. In practice, they’re about property values, expectations, and long-term community stability.

I recall a community outside Charlotte that initially paid little attention to investor activity. The first few rental homes didn’t raise concern. But as turnover increased and maintenance standards became inconsistent, long-time homeowners began to notice a shift.

The board responded quickly—proposing strict rental caps almost overnight.

The result was predictable. Some owners felt blindsided, especially those relying on rental income. Others believed the restrictions didn’t go far enough. What began as a manageable trend turned into a divided community.

The lesson is one I’ve seen repeatedly: policy without preparation often leads to polarization.

The Stability Secret: Data Over Drama

A similar situation unfolded in a Winston Salem -area community—but with a different outcome.

Instead of reacting immediately, the board paused. They invested in Board Training & Education, worked with legal counsel to understand their options, and gathered clear data on rental percentages before proposing any changes. Most importantly, they communicated early and openly with homeowners.

The final policy didn’t satisfy everyone—but it was understood, supported, and enforceable.

That’s the difference between escalation and stability.

What’s Changing (and What Isn’t)

As Jim outlines, proposed legislation like the “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act” could eventually influence how large institutional investors operate. But for most HOA boards in the Carolinas, the immediate reality remains grounded in day-to-day governance.

Three principles continue to hold true:

• Documents Are Destiny: Your governing documents remain your primary authority

• Legal Clarity Is Non-Negotiable: Work with qualified counsel before making changes

• Proactive Governance Wins: Waiting for a tipping point almost always creates bigger challenges

Guidance from Community Associations Institute continues to reinforce that proactive leadership and informed decision-making are essential when navigating evolving issues like rental restrictions.

The Manager’s Role: Navigating the Middle

This is where strong HOA management becomes critical—not to replace legal guidance, but to help boards apply it effectively.

At Association Management Group (AMG), we work alongside boards as an experienced HOA management company in North Carolina and South Carolina, helping translate strategy into action. With Local Carolina Expertise and Proven Results for 40+ Years, our role is to bring structure and clarity to complex decisions.

That includes:

• Legal Liaison Services to align board goals with legal requirements

• Conflict Resolution Support to navigate homeowner concerns constructively

• Transparent Financial Reporting to ground decisions in real data

• Vendor Oversight & Accountability to maintain consistent community standards

Through a Dedicated Board Liaison and a strong Reputation for Responsiveness, we help boards move from reactive decisions to proactive planning.

The Bottom Line

Institutional investors and rental restrictions are not going away—but how they impact your community is still within your control.

The strongest associations aren’t defined by having the strictest rules. They’re defined by having the best processes, the clearest communication, and the discipline to act before small issues become major challenges.

As always, boards should rely on qualified legal counsel and their governing documents when making decisions. But the broader takeaway is consistent: communities that plan, communicate, and lead with intention are the ones that maintain stability over time.

For more practical strategies on governance and real-world HOA leadership, visit www.lessonsfromtheneighborhood.com and www.amgworld.com.

About the Author

Paul Mengert is a nationally recognized educator and speaker in community association management with more than 30 years of experience. Founder and CEO of Association Management Group—an AAMC®-accredited firm—he was named Educator of the Year by Community Associations Institute and holds the PCAM® designation.

Paul teaches governance and decision-making at Wake Forest University School of Law and in a Harvard Business School alumni program. His work has included advising the U.S. Department of State, and he has served as chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. He was also named a Most Admired CEO by the Triad Business Journal.

Through Lessons from the Neighborhood, his speaking engagements, and his partnership with CAI, Paul helps community leaders make better decisions under pressure—where governance, finance, and human dynamics intersect.

Rising HOA Fees: What Carolinas Homebuyers and Boards Need to Face Head-On

If you’re buying a home in North Carolina or South Carolina right now, the sticker price and mortgage rate aren’t the full story. There’s another number that can quietly reshape your budget for years: the HOA or condo association fee.

Recent reporting from MoneyWise confirms what many HOA boards and homeowners across the Carolinas are already experiencing—monthly dues are rising steadily. In fast-growing markets like Charlotte, Greensboro, and Raleigh, fees in the $400 to $500+ range are becoming increasingly common. When combined with rising insurance premiums and overall cost-of-living increases, these fees can significantly impact long-term affordability.

The Carolinas Reality Behind the Increases

The rapid growth of HOA and condo communities throughout North Carolina and South Carolina means more volunteer boards are managing increasingly complex responsibilities—from infrastructure and amenities to long-term capital planning.

At the same time, they’re facing real financial pressure:

Rising labor and material costs

Increasing insurance premiums

Aging infrastructure in communities reaching major repair cycles

These pressures are not temporary. They are structural—and they require proactive planning.

The Most Dangerous Risk: Underfunded Reserves

One of the most common challenges in HOA management is underfunded reserves. Boards often delay necessary maintenance to keep dues low, but that decision rarely holds up over time.

In one Greensboro townhome community, exterior repairs were postponed for several years to avoid increasing fees. What began as a manageable project eventually led to significant structural damage and a large special assessment that impacted every homeowner at once.

This pattern is not unique. As highlighted by Community Associations Institute, reserve studies and long-term financial planning are essential to avoiding sudden financial burdens. Communities that prioritize Transparent Financial Reporting and Proactive Maintenance Planning are far better positioned to maintain stability.

What Smart Boards and Homeowners Are Doing Differently

Boards that are navigating rising costs successfully tend to focus on a few key practices:

Clear, consistent financial communication with homeowners

Professional reserve studies and realistic budgeting

Early engagement when difficult financial decisions arise

For buyers, due diligence is critical. Review HOA financials, reserve studies, and any planned capital projects before closing. For current homeowners, engagement matters—attending meetings and asking informed questions can make a meaningful difference.

In one Charlotte community, a group of homeowners worked with their board and management team to review vendor contracts and long-term maintenance plans. With improved Vendor Oversight & Accountability, the association was able to stabilize costs while maintaining service levels—demonstrating how collaboration can lead to better outcomes.

A Proactive Approach to HOA Management in the Carolinas

This is where Association Management Group (AMG) provides measurable value. As a trusted HOA management company in North Carolina and South Carolina, AMG brings Local Carolina Expertise and Proven Results for 40+ Years to communities facing rising financial pressures.

Through Budget Optimization, Transparent Financial Reporting, and Proactive Maintenance Planning, AMG helps boards plan ahead rather than react. Their Dedicated Board Liaison model, combined with a strong Reputation for Responsiveness, ensures that communication remains clear and consistent.

Backed by CAI-Accredited Management (AAMC®, PCAM®) and recognized for maintaining some of the Highest Google Ratings in the region, AMG delivers Customized HOA & Condo Solutions designed to support long-term financial stability and community success.

Bottom Line

Rising HOA fees are not a sign of failure—they are a reflection of the real costs required to maintain well-run communities. What separates strong associations from struggling ones is how proactively they address those costs.

As always, boards and homeowners should consult qualified financial and legal professionals and rely on their governing documents and state statutes. But the broader lesson is clear: successful communities don’t just react to financial pressure—they plan for it, communicate about it, and manage it with discipline.

For more practical insights on governance, reserves, and community leadership, visit www.lessonsfromtheneighborhood.com.

About the Author

Paul Mengert is a nationally recognized educator and speaker in community association management with more than 30 years of experience. Founder and CEO of Association Management Group—an AAMC®-accredited firm—he was named Educator of the Year by Community Associations Institute and holds the PCAM® designation.

Paul teaches governance and decision-making at Wake Forest University School of Law and in a Harvard Business School alumni program. His work has included advising the U.S. Department of State, and he has served as chair of the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority. He was also named a Most Admired CEO by the Triad Business Journal.

Through Lessons from the Neighborhood, his speaking engagements, and his partnership with CAI, Paul helps community leaders make better decisions under pressure—where governance, finance, and human dynamics intersect.

When Communication Breaks Down: What the Florida HOA Case Should Teach Us

The news out of Florida — where a 77-year-old attorney was recently jailed for contempt of court in an ongoing dispute with his homeowners association — is the kind of headline that makes everyone in our industry pause. It’s an extreme example, certainly, but it offers a sobering look at how quickly neighborhood governance can break down when communication and process give way to confrontation and litigation.

You can read the original coverage here: ClickOrlando

While the full legal details are still unfolding in Orange County, the core issue is one that resonates with HOA boards and homeowners across North Carolina and South Carolina. In more than three decades working in community association management, one truth continues to stand out: communities rarely struggle because of a single disagreement. They struggle when neighbors begin to see each other as adversaries rather than partners in a shared investment.

The Problem Isn’t the Conflict — It’s How We Handle It

A central theme in Lessons from the Neighborhood is that well-managed communities are not defined by the absence of conflict, but by how effectively they manage it. When transparency fades or communication channels feel ineffective, frustration can quickly escalate into formal disputes.

Guidance from Community Associations Institute consistently emphasizes that Board Training & Education, proactive governance, and clear communication are essential to avoiding escalation. Without those elements, even routine concerns—budgets, maintenance, or rule enforcement—can evolve into costly legal challenges.

A Higher Standard for Governance

For board members, transparency remains one of the most effective tools for maintaining trust. In growing Carolina communities, Transparent Financial Reporting, consistent rule enforcement, and detailed documentation are critical to long-term stability. When residents feel uncertain or uninformed, trust can erode quickly—often leading to unnecessary conflict.

For homeowners, understanding governing documents and using established communication channels is equally important. Escalating concerns too quickly can make resolution more difficult and more expensive. In many cases, early dialogue supported by Conflict Resolution Support can prevent disputes from reaching the legal stage.

The Lesson That Stays With Me

At Association Management Group (AMG), the focus has always been on keeping issues at the neighborhood level—where they can be resolved constructively. With Local Carolina Expertise, Dedicated Board Liaison support, and Customized HOA & Condo Solutions, AMG partners with communities throughout North Carolina and South Carolina to strengthen governance and communication.

Through Proactive Maintenance Planning, Vendor Oversight & Accountability, and a strong Reputation for Responsiveness, AMG helps boards and homeowners address concerns early—before they escalate into larger challenges.

Every association must follow its governing documents and applicable state laws, and legal matters should always be handled by qualified attorneys. However, the broader takeaway remains: you cannot litigate your way to a thriving community. Proactive management, structured communication, and a shared commitment to transparency remain the foundation of successful HOA living.

These are the real-world moments explored in Lessons from the Neighborhood. If your board is looking for practical ways to strengthen governance and avoid the cycle of escalation, additional resources are available at www.lessonsfromtheneighborhood.com.

About the Author

Paul Mengert is a nationally recognized educator and speaker in community association management with more than 30 years of experience. As Founder and CEO of Association Management Group—an AAMC®-accredited firm—he has earned distinctions including Educator of the Year from Community Associations Institute and holds the PCAM® designation.

He teaches governance and decision-making at Wake Forest University School of Law and contributes to a Harvard Business School alumni program. Through Lessons from the Neighborhood, his speaking engagements, and his work with community leaders, he focuses on improving decision-making where governance, finance, and human dynamics intersect.

Lessons from the Neighborhood: Why This Series Matters More Than Ever

If you’ve spent any time around a community association boardroom, you already know this:

Leading a community isn’t simple.

It looks simple from the outside. A few meetings. A budget. Some rules. Maybe a landscaping contract and an annual meeting.

Then reality shows up.

A roof fails earlier than expected. An owner challenges a rule. Costs go up faster than anyone planned. A decision that seemed small at the time starts to echo through the community months later.

And suddenly, what felt like volunteer service starts to feel like real governance. Because it is.

That’s exactly why Lessons from the Neighborhood was written.

Where This Series Came From

In many cases, community associations don’t struggle because people don’t care.

They struggle because people care… without having a clear framework for the decisions in front of them.

Over decades working with boards, managers, and communities across different markets, one pattern shows up again and again:

Problems rarely start with bad intent.

They start with hesitation.

A board delays a reserve increase to avoid pushback.

A maintenance issue gets “monitored” instead of addressed.

A rule is enforced inconsistently because no one wants conflict.

A budget is built around comfort instead of reality.

None of those decisions feel dramatic in the moment.

Over time, they compound.

That’s the gap this series is designed to fill. Not theory. Not legal language for the sake of it. Practical guidance rooted in how decisions actually get made in communities where people see each other at the mailbox.

What Makes Lessons from the Neighborhood Different

There are plenty of resources that explain what the rules are.

Fewer explain how those rules play out in real life.

Here’s the distinction. On paper, governance looks clean. Structured. Predictable.

In practice, it’s not.

It’s shaped by human behavior. By competing priorities. By financial pressure. By the natural tendency to avoid difficult conversations.

In my experience, governance failure doesn’t usually begin with misunderstanding the law.

It begins with avoiding reality.

This series is built around that truth.

Each pocketbook focuses on a core area of responsibility, but always through the same lens: how real boards make decisions under real pressure.

A Practical Roadmap for Community Leadership

The series is organized into five focused pocketbooks, each addressing a different dimension of community governance.

1. Governance and Legal Foundations

This is where everything begins.

Associations are not informal groups. They are corporate entities with defined authority, responsibilities, and limitations.

Understanding governing documents, fiduciary duties, and decision-making structure isn’t optional. It’s foundational.

Because here’s the rub:

Authority in a community does not come from personality.

It comes from documents and law.

Boards that understand that tend to make more consistent, defensible decisions. Those that don’t often find themselves navigating confusion and conflict.

2. Financial Stewardship and Long-Term Stability

This is where many communities quietly drift off course.

Financial issues in associations rarely begin with a crisis.

They begin with optimism.

A delayed increase.

An assumption that costs will stabilize.

A reserve study treated as a suggestion instead of a warning.

Over time, those decisions catch up.

Financial stewardship in a shared community is not just about balancing this year’s budget. It’s about aligning today’s decisions with obligations that may not fully show up for 10 or 20 years.

Handled well, it builds trust.

Handled poorly, it creates surprises. And surprises in community associations are rarely small.

3. Physical Asset Management and Infrastructure Planning

Buildings do not respond to optimism.

They respond to maintenance. Or the lack of it.

Roofs age. Roads deteriorate. Systems fail. Not maybe. Will. 

In many cases, the biggest risks facing a community are not the visible problems.

They are the quiet ones.

The deferred repair.

The delayed replacement.

The report that sits on the table a little too long.

I’ve seen this play out poorly more than once.

The issue usually isn’t that the board didn’t know. It’s that the timing felt inconvenient.

Until timing was no longer a choice.

4. Community Leadership, Communication, and Culture

This is the part no one talks about enough.

Documents define authority. Leadership defines outcomes.

Two boards can face the same issue and create completely different results based on how they communicate, how they manage conflict, and how they set expectations.

In many cases, community tension isn’t caused by the decision itself.

It’s caused by how the decision is handled. Or avoided.

Or explained too late.

Healthy communities are not conflict-free.

They are well-led.

5. Tactical Smarts: Reducing Stress and Improving Decisions

This final piece brings everything together.

Because governance doesn’t happen in ideal conditions.

It happens with incomplete information. Competing priorities. Time pressure. And the reality that the people affected by your decisions are your neighbors.

This pocketbook focuses on judgment.

Not perfect decisions. Better decisions.

Earlier decisions.

Clearer thinking under pressure.

Because in community associations, the difference between manageable and expensive is often one thing:

Timing.

Why This Matters Right Now

Community associations are not getting simpler.

Costs are rising.

Regulatory environments continue to evolve.

Owners are more informed and, in many cases, more vocal.

Infrastructure across the country is aging at the same time boards are trying to keep assessments reasonable.

That combination creates pressure.

And pressure exposes gaps.

Some communities have found that when leadership is grounded in structure, discipline, and communication, those pressures can be managed.

Others discover those gaps the hard way. Through special assessments, deferred maintenance, or loss of trust.

This series exists to help boards land on the first path more often than the second.

A Quick Reality Check

Let me offer one simple observation.

Most board members do not sign up thinking they are about to oversee:

• A multi-million dollar budget

• Long-term capital planning

• Contract negotiations

• Risk management decisions

• And a form of neighborhood-level governance

But that’s exactly what the role becomes.

One director said it best:

“I thought I joined a committee. I didn’t realize I was helping run a small corporation.”

That shift in understanding changes everything.

Who This Series Is For

This series was written for:

• Volunteer board members trying to do the right thing

• Community managers balancing multiple demands

• Developers transitioning control to homeowners

• Industry professionals supporting association governance

But more than anything, it was written for people making decisions that affect where others live.

That responsibility deserves clarity.

Final Thought

Governance done well rarely gets attention.

Governance done poorly almost always does.

Lessons from the Neighborhood is not about perfection. It’s about improving how decisions are made before small issues turn into expensive problems or strained communities.

Because in the end, this isn’t just about budgets, buildings, or bylaws.

It’s about people. Living next to each other. Sharing responsibility for something that matters.

Want a deeper look at the inspiration behind the series and what’s coming next?

www.lessonsfromtheneighborhood.com

And in the spirit of World Book Day, I’ll ask you the same question we’re asking our community:

What are you reading or listening to right now?

About the author:

Paul K. Mengert is a nationally recognized educator in community association management and the Founder and CEO of Association Management Group, Inc., with more than 30 years of experience advising boards and leadership teams across the United States and internationally.

A thought leader within the Community Associations Institute (CAI), he was named CAI Educator of the Year, holds the prestigious PCAM® designation, and teaches governance and decision-making at Wake Forest Law School and in a Harvard Business School alumni program.

He has been named a Most Admired CEO by the Triad Business Journal, served as a housing advisor to the United States Department of State, and chaired the Piedmont Triad International Airport Authority.

His work focuses on helping community leaders make better decisions under pressure, where governance, finance, and human dynamics intersect, and where the consequences are real.