Cases: Homeowner Associations

Homeowner Associations: Occupants Agreeing To Deal With HOA Directly Stung With Substantial Fee Award For Losing CC&R Violation Dispute

Cases: Homeowner Associations

  $88,671 Fee Award Entered Against Both Property Owners and Occupants.      Losing HOA disputes can be costly for homeowners, because Civil Code section 1354 has a mandatory fee-shifting directive in favor of a prevailing party successfully enforcing CC&Rs. It can also extend to non-owner occupants, as the litigants in the next case learned.     

Homeowners Associations: Substantial Attorney’s Fees Awards In Favor Of Adjoining Neighbors and HOA Sustained On Appeal

Cases: Homeowner Associations, Cases: Standard of Review, Cases: Substantiation of Reasonableness of Fees

Almost $500,000 in Total Fees Assessed Against Losing Homeowners.      For all you Olympic watchers out there, this next case will resonate the famous “agony of defeat” line from ABC’s Wide World of Sports.      In Sharp v. Anderson, Case No. B212528 (2d Dist., Div. 1 Feb. 18, 2010) (unpublished), plaintiff neighboring real property owners

Homeowner Associations: Interveners In CC&R Interpretive Dispute Are Entitled To Fee Recovery As Prevailing Parties Under Civil Code Section 1354

Cases: Homeowner Associations

  Fourth District, Division 3 Finds No Contractual Basis For Award, But Does Find a Statutory Basis.      In an interesting first impression issue, the Fourth District, Division 3—in Renezeder v. Emerald Bay Community Assn., Case Nos. G040657 & G041353 (4th Dist., Div. 3 Feb. 8, 2010) (unpublished)—determined that winning interveners in a CC&R dispute

Arbitration: Homeowner Association’s Failure to Show it Requested Homeowner to Arbitrate Under CC&R Provision and that Homeowner Refused to Arbitrate Results in Denial of Petition to Arbitrate and Overturning of Fees Award.

Cases: Arbitration, Cases: Homeowner Associations, Cases: POOF!

Code of Civil Procedure Section 1281.2 Is Interpreted to Require a Party Seeking to Compel Arbitration to Plead and Prove a Prior Demand for Arbitration Under the Parties’ Arbitration Agreement and a Refusal to Arbitrate Thereunder. In the next case, Homeowner Association successfully petitioned to arbitrate a dispute with a homeowner, only to have the

Reasonableness Of Fees: Winning HOA Unit Owners Obtain $238,426 In Attorney’s Fees, But Fail At Obtaining $62,056 More

Cases: Homeowner Associations, Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

Court of Appeal Likes Reasoned Deductions Made by Trial Court.      This next case might be put in the category “quit while you are ahead” as far as challenging the reasonableness of an attorney’s fees award, especially when you are asking for an increase to an already substantial award.      Defendant unit owners in an

Homeowner Associations: Ouch!—Condo Owner Stung With $238,000 Fees/Costs Award After Losing Contentious Battle Over Using Disputed Floor Tile In Unit

Cases: Homeowner Associations, Cases: Reasonableness of Fees

  Fourth District, Division 1 Finds Award Disproportionate At First Glance, But Affirms Based Upon Total Review of the Litigation Below.      Homeowner-homeowner association battles can be very, very contentious and expensive for the losing side—as the next homeowner learned, in a dispute over the floor covering in his condominium unit.      McGuire v. 235

Homeowners Associations: Fourth District, Division 3 Affirms Fee Awards Totaling $188,000 To The Chagrin Of Losing Homeowner

Cases: Homeowner Associations

Presiding Justice Sills Sustains Fee Awards on Behalf of 3-0 Panel.      If one is prone to read lots of appellate opinions (as we are), distinctive styles come through by various appellate justices authoring the cases assigned to them. That happens to be the case in the next decision we review—Presiding Justice Sills, the author,

Homeowner Associations: Two Neighbors Duke It Out—One Neighbor Finally Prevails On Appeal, Meaning A Prior Denial of Fees Was Erroneous

Cases: Homeowner Associations, Cases: Prevailing Party, Cases: Section 1717

Fourth District, Division 3 Remands for Fee Redetermination in “Acrid Dispute Between Neighbors.”      Disputes between homeowner associations and members or neighbors in a common interest subdivision seem to result in overboilings of emotions and (ultimately) litigation resources. Many times, the final result—where both sides seek to recoup hefty attorney’s fees—results in a “wash,” with

Homeowner Associations: Losing Condo Homeowners Associations Not Subject To Fee Exposure When Losing Action Against Past Board Member Defendants

Cases: Estoppel, Cases: Homeowner Associations, Cases: Section 1717

Purchase Agreement Fees Clause Did Not Apply Because Plaintiff Was Not A Condo Buyer.      One of the first rules of fee entitlement is that you need a contractual or statutory basis to trump the American Rule that each sides bears its own attorney’s fees in a case. That principle sunk the winning defendants’ request

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