Homeowners Groups a Love-Hate Affair : Communities: In increasing numbers, associations are forming to help deal with neighborhood issues. But the organizations can trigger problems as well as solve them.

John Drews’ life has never been quite the same since he took the Harbor Ridge Assn. to court eight years ago.

A Newport Beach heart surgeon, Drews sued the homeowners association when it refused to allow him to trim the trees that had grown to obstruct his panoramic view of Newport Harbor.

As the resulting legal battle heated up, Drews took leave from his medical practice to give the case his complete attention.

“I think our case went longer than the Iran-Contra trial of (former President Reagan’s National Security Adviser) John Poindexter,” he said. “And it was all over a bunch of trees.”

After running up legal bills that topped $150,000, Drews prevailed in court. As soon as the trees were trimmed, he sold the $950,000 house.

But it all left such scars--”I felt so wronged”--that Drews, 52, decided to chuck a lucrative medical career to enroll in law school.

The history of homeowners’ associations in Southern California is full of such stories.

Over the past two decades, these “residential governments” have multiplied dramatically and now number an estimated 150,000 nationally and 20,000 in California, covering communities where some 5 million people live.

The attraction can be one of simple economics. Residents pay monthly fees to maintain attractive neighborhood landscaping or for access to common recreational amenities such as golf courses, parks, clubhouses, lakes, tennis courts and swimming pools.

But growth has not come without problems. Courthouses are full of association disputes, some of which have grown from a tiny neighborhood battle to a legal cause celebre.

Two weeks ago, the California Supreme Court gave more clout to homeowner groups throughout the state when it ruled that associations could ban cats and other pets from homes.

“It’s just unbelievable,” said attorney Joel Tamray, who represented a woman seeking to keep her three cats, Boo-Boo, Dockers and Tulip. “Anybody buying a condo these days really should take a hard look.”

In the higher reaches of homeowners association bureaucracy, however, Debra Bass of the Community Association Institute in Arlington, Va., said decisions in the “Cat Case” and others like it are working to maintain the “sense of order” people expect when they buy into communities governed by their neighbors.

“Homes are the largest investments in people’s lives,” Bass said. “Associations provide people stable and predictable environments. They also give residents access to neighborhood things like swimming pools and tennis courts--amenities that were once the exclusive domain of the wealthy.”

At their best, Bass said, homeowners groups serve the common interests of the residents. In the up-and-down world of the real estate marketplace, for example, rules governing neighborhood neatness and uniformity can help keep property values somewhat stable, even though some residents might gripe about having to cut their grass or weed their gardens according to association schedules.

A united homeowners association can also prove to be a worthy opponent for powerful developers or home builders in disputes over home construction defects and shoddy workmanship. Bass said there were “numerous examples of associations which have won multimillion-dollar judgments against big developers because of problems they have caused in the neighborhoods.”

Then again, people such as state Assemblyman Dan Hauser (D-Arcata) have seen associations at their worst.

“Most people have no idea what they are getting into,” said Hauser, chairman of the Assembly’s Committee on Housing and Community Development. “They thought they were buying a house--their castle--and then find out they can’t paint the house blue; they gotta pull weeds when somebody tells them; and they can’t put a gazebo or hot tub in the back yard because it’s really not your back yard.”

One of the more unusual disputes drove a woman from her Santa Ana condo a couple years ago, when the Townsquare Owners Assn. cited the 51-year-old grandmother for kissing her date good night in the driveway of her complex. Her transgression: “doing bad things for an hour” in a parked car.

And consider the case of Marty Goodman:

When Goodman purchased her Fullerton condo 17 years ago, she also bought into a belief that the local homeowners association would maintain the attractive landscaping and the “delightful” water fountain.

Ever since, the 76-year-old widow has dutifully paid her monthly maintenance fees--now hovering near $200 per month--even though the fountain was turned off years ago and the grounds have long lost their luster.

But last week, Goodman said, her Amberwood-Fullerton Homeowners Assn. went too far when it asked her to dig up her rose bushes.

In its letter, the association stated: “It’s been brought to the attention of the Board of Directors that you have been planting roses outside of your patio area. This is in violation of the Common Area Rules and Regulations of your association. . . .”

Goodman will be able to keep her roses, after all. Amberwood President Mary Lee Todd said the letter was the work of one board member who might have had “a personal thing” against Goodman.

The problems often involve association directors taking their authority too far.

“Too often, in my opinion, you have people in charge of these associations who always wanted to be the fire chief, or the police chief,” Hauser said. “Because nobody wants to take on the responsibility of managing these things, you have these people with all the power and, by God, they are going to enforce the rules.”

In recent years, some relief for residents has come in the form of state legislation that requires homeowner associations, like all other forms of government, to hold their meetings in public.

Moreover, new legislation requires all warring parties in association disputes to first seek some form of mediation before bringing their fights to court.

But with the boom in association living--it is estimated that one in eight Americans lives in a community governed by an association--comes a corresponding increase in problems that require some form of attorney-assisted resolution.

So it is no surprise that some attorneys have tailored their entire practices to deal with the legal vagaries of association living.

In Irvine, for example, the law firm of Fiore, Nordberg, Walker & Racobs has represented about 2,000 associations in Orange, Riverside, Los Angeles and San Diego counties.

Throughout Southern California, San Diego attorney Sandra Brower is known as one of the best advocates in business for the owners of satellite dishes.

Her most-publicized victory involved the Trabuco Canyon community of Portola Hills.

Resident John James said he knew about the association’s ban on satellite dishes, but put one up in his back yard anyway, because he thought the board of directors would be “reasonable.”

Aside from the added entertainment channels it provides, James said the dish was important for capturing weather forecasts from around the world for use in his work as a pilot.

In the end, James said, the $40,000 he spent to keep his $1,000-dish was well worth the effort. As part of the decision, the court ordered the association to pay James’ attorneys fees plus $3,000 in sanctions for bringing a frivolous lawsuit.

Newport Beach attorney Stanley Feldsott has represented about 300 associations in California and some homeowners--including Drews, the heart surgeon.

Obscure legal files involving associations have found their way to his briefcase.

One involved a Palos Verdes man who withheld $500 in association fees, saying the association used an insecticide inside his unit that killed two goldfish.

Representing the Palos Verdes Bay Club Assn., Feldsott said his clients won, and the resident was forced to pay legal fees totaling $20,000 per goldfish.

In Marina del Rey, the attorney has taken the case of a woman who is fighting her association’s rules against the type of bamboo shade she put on her condominium balcony.

The shade in question is a three-piece model. The association prefers a one-piece shade. The legal bills have passed the $100,000 mark.

Still, nothing is quite like the 1992 case involving a couple of overweight dogs named Katie and Kahlua in Corona del Mar.

At the time, Feldsott was representing the Jasmine Park Homeowners Assn., which banned dogs exceeding a 35-pound weight limit, and sued homeowners whose canines tipped the scales.

Gary Roberts, the owner of a 48-pound Labrador retriever, and Tania Allard, who had a 100-pound, partially blind and arthritic Airedale, decided to challenge the regulation.

“At first,” Roberts said, “I thought it was a joke. I laughed. (The association) sent me a letter requesting a certificate of weight from a licensed veterinarian. . . .”

Feldsott said the association eventually changed its policy and the lawsuit was dismissed.

But out-of-court settlements are not always in the cards.

Like Assemblyman Hauser, Feldsott said association residents generally are not interested in the association’s workings and are unaware of the rules until they become involved in disputes.

In their encounters with association management, some residents are likely to meet long-serving directors who are in those positions because nobody else wanted the responsibility.

“They are designed as little democracies, but they start to take on the appearance of malevolent dictatorships after a while,” Feldsott said. “It becomes a dictatorship because no one wants to do anything.”

Bass of the Community Association Institute in Virginia acknowledges that there have been problems, but they are the “ones that tend to make the headlines.”

Part of the institute’s mission, she said, is to educate association directors and homeowners about friendly coexistence.

“Love thy neighbor,” states one of its 116 “tips to ensure a happy community association experience.” Other commandments include: “Curb thy dog, don’t play the stereo too loud, park in your own space and don’t be a six-car family.”

Among the first few “tips” for association board members: “Serve because you care, not because you have a hidden agenda.” And “don’t go on a power trip.”