Home Owner Association at LRE in Aguanga, CA is Acting Discriminately

Lake Riverside Estates, or as property owners have come to call it, LRE, is made up of 2.5 and up, acre parcels of countryside. The natural characteristics of this community draw attention from both the equestrian and the outdoorsman. It is true that it is a beautiful looking community; however, the HOA that exists within its boundaries has turned this environment into something more like a prison without walls.

Lake Riverside Estates touts itself as a peaceful community. Although situated in a valley below Cahuilla Mountain, with a lake and its own private airport, the peacefulness of this community is constantly interrupted with the chaos at the homeowner's association level. Lake Riverside Estates has become a community run by a few dictators who somehow manage to pass rules and regulations that strike most property owners as unreasonable. It has clearly become a community without a democracy.

What started out in good faith as an organization to clean up the area and build property value, has simply gone awry. Property sales have dropped drastically over the last few months and as one agent implied it is due to bad word-of-mouth.

To state that the rules and regulations have gotten out of hand is an understatement. It has clearly become an association so burdened by its own rules, that it cannot manage the compliance of these rules. Some might even argue that LRE has created rules that violate the rights of its property owners.

When it comes to associations and the rules they choose to establish, what is considered reasonable? Well, according to the cases of Nahrstedt v. Lakeside Villageand Liebler v. Point Loma Tennis Club, rules have to be reasonable in order to be enforceable.

"In particular, rules must meet the following test:

1. They must relate to a legitimate objective of the association,

2. They must not violate a public policy (such as discrimination on the basis of sex, race, religion, age, etc.),

3. They must not be enforced in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner, and

4. The burdens on the use of the affected property cannot substantially outweigh the restriction's