When "No Assessment Increase" Is Actually a Warning Sign: HOA Board Negligence Explained

There is a particular kind of pride that HOA board members sometimes feel when they announce, year after year, that dues haven't gone up. Residents cheer. The board gets credit. Nobody wants to be the person who raised costs.

Attorney Lisa Tashjian has a different reaction when clients say this to her.

"The first thing I think of when I hear that," she told host Matthew Holbrook on a recent episode of The Uncommon Area, "is that you must have substantial deferred maintenance. You probably are very underfunded in your reserves."

In Episode 93 of the podcast, Tashjian, an HOA and community association attorney with Beaumont Tashjian in California, walked through one of the most consequential and least-understood risks in community association governance: board member negligence. What it is, what it looks like in practice, and what boards can do to protect themselves and the communities they serve.

Negligence Is About Duty, Not Malice

The legal definition of negligence is straightforward: a party that owes a duty to another falls short of that duty, and harm results. In the context of HOAs and condo associations, boards are fiduciaries. They manage other people's money and other people's property. That creates a high standard of care, and when that standard is not met, liability follows.

Gross negligence takes it a step further. Where ordinary negligence might be an inadvertent mistake, gross negligence is conduct so far outside what a reasonable person would do that a judge or jury would find it outrageous. The distinction matters because consequences for gross negligence can be significantly more severe.

"How I like to explain it to my clients," Tashjian said, "is: what would a judge or jury think? If this was in front of a judge or jury, would they be completely outraged by the conduct?"

The Reserve Trap

One of the most common and genuinely dangerous patterns Tashjian sees is boards that consistently choose not to fund reserves at the levels their reserve study recommends.

The scenario plays out like this: a board receives a reserve study showing significant underfunding. A strong personality on the board convinces the group that current funds are enough to cover immediate needs. Year after year, the same vote happens. Assessments stay flat. Homeowners are happy. Until they are not. When the roof needs replacing, the building needs painting, or a special assessment of significant size becomes unavoidable, the reality of years of underfunding hits all at once.

At that point, the board that voted down reserve funding year after year, in direct contradiction of expert recommendations they had in writing, may face negligence claims. The entire board bears potential responsibility, not just the member who led the charge. And if an individual board member acted unilaterally, instructing management to roll over the budget without a proper vote, that person faces personal liability on top of it.

"Boards have an obligation, no matter where they're located, to raise assessments necessary to defray the cost of operating that association, which includes funding reserves," Tashjian said. "Everything goes up every year. Cost of living goes up."

Documentation Is Your First Line of Defense

Tashjian's most consistent piece of advice across every topic in the episode is also the simplest: document everything.

Not just the final vote. The whole process. Who the board consulted, what they reviewed, what walkthroughs they conducted, what experts they engaged. A board that can demonstrate how it arrived at a decision, even if that decision later turned out to be wrong, is in a fundamentally different position than one that cannot.

"Without that documentation, there is a greater risk of being found negligent," she said.

This applies to deferred maintenance, financial decisions, harassment complaints, and safety concerns alike. The board does not need to make the perfect decision every time. Under the business judgment rule, a board that acts reasonably, relies on expert guidance, and documents its process is protected even when outcomes are imperfect. What erodes that protection is acting without process, or not acting at all.

Opinion Shopping Will Not Save You

When structural concerns arise in a building, it is reasonable for a board to seek multiple engineering opinions. That is due diligence. What crosses into problematic territory is continuing to seek new opinions after several experts have confirmed a serious issue, until finally landing on one who says everything is fine.

"The first or second or third opinion that you get that all confirm that structural issue, they still exist," Tashjian explained. "Should litigation ensue, those documents will come out."

A board that latches on to the outlier favorable opinion while three others confirm a structural problem will not be protected by that outlier. Discovery will surface everything. And the pattern of seeking opinions until receiving a preferred answer will itself be treated as an attempt to avoid responsibility.

Inaction Is a Decision, and It Creates Liability

A theme running through the entire conversation is the danger of treating inaction as a neutral position. It is not.

When a harassment complaint comes in, a board that ignores it entirely creates a different and more serious liability than one that investigates, decides the matter does not require further action, and documents that decision. The end result may look the same on the surface, but the legal exposure is dramatically different.

"Ignoring a complaint is a guarantee you're going to have some liability," Tashjian said. "The decision to take no action is different than taking no action."

This extends to safety concerns. Associations do not guarantee safety and cannot be expected to act as law enforcement. But when there are foreseeable threats, such as escalating crime in an adjacent community or violent incidents nearby, boards that turn a blind eye may face negligence claims if something happens within their own community. Consult legal counsel before communicating, Tashjian advises, but do not simply ignore what is happening around you.

The Social Media Problem Boards Don't See Coming

One of the more surprising insights in the episode comes from a discussion of neighborhood social platforms. When a board member is active on a platform like Nextdoor and reads about crimes or issues in the broader neighborhood, that knowledge may be legally imputed to the entire board.

"If you see something on these blogs that is of an interest to your community and may impact your community, that knowledge is now imputed to the entire board," Tashjian warned.

Her recommendation is simple: board members should avoid engaging on community blogs and neighborhood social platforms. Not because transparency is bad, but because the imputed-knowledge standard creates risk that most board members never anticipate.

Minutes vs. Resolutions: A Distinction Worth Knowing

Near the end of the episode, Tashjian makes a distinction that Holbrook describes as gold, and for good reason, because it is rarely discussed in practical terms.

Meeting minutes, in Tashjian's view, should be brief records of board action: the motion, the second, the vote. They are the historical record. What they should not be is a detailed narrative explaining the reasoning behind complex or unusual decisions. That reasoning belongs in a board resolution, a separate and free-standing document that explains why the board is deviating from standard practice or making a decision that requires context.

Tashjian recommends that every association maintain a book of resolutions, a dedicated and searchable collection of these documents. When litigation arises, the board does not have to comb through years of meeting minutes to find context. It is all in one place.

"What resolutions do is justify or explain the board's deviation from normal practices," she said. "It's a very useful tool."

This is especially relevant for boards navigating vague governing document language, underfunded reserve budgets, and harassment complaints, all situations where documentation of reasoning matters most.

Protect Your Community by Protecting Your Process

The message running through this entire episode is not that boards need to be perfect. It is that boards need to be deliberate. Seek expert advice when decisions require expertise. Document what you reviewed and why you acted as you did. Investigate before deciding not to act. Consult legal counsel when situations carry real risk. Build the administrative infrastructure, resolutions, policies, and documentation practices, that transforms good intentions into legal protection.

"The main reason," Tashjian said, "is common sense. Because boards manage other people's money and assets."

That single sentence is probably the clearest frame for everything in this episode. Boards are stewards. They act for their communities. When that stewardship is intentional, documented, and guided by appropriate expertise, the business judgment rule and the law provide real protection. When it is not, the liability risk is very real and very personal.

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