HOA HELL

In the final part of KNX News reporter Steve Gregory’s 5-part series on California HOAs, California’s most prominent homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, breaks down the serious concerns revolving around Flock cameras and license plate readers now showing up in HOAs across the state. These cameras photograph and log every car that enters and exits, and the real concern isn’t the cameras,...

In part 4 of KNX News reporter Steve Gregory’s 5-part series on California HOAs, California’s most respected homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, explains how far an HOA can go in regulating e-bikes and scooters. E-bike-related accidents and fires are gaining increasing attention across the state as ER visits rise steeply, and HOAs are scrambling to pass rules regulating their use in the...

Is your HOA run by a director who patrols the neighborhood with a clipboard, a tape measure, and a camera? In this episode, attorney Michael Kushner, California’s most experienced homeowner-side HOA attorney, takes on a listener’s complaint about exactly that kind of HOA and names the #1 reason bad HOAs exist and persist. Living in a good HOA can be a good way to live. Living in a bad HOA is HOA H...

In part 3 of KNX News reporter Steve Gregory’s five-part series on California HOAs, California’s #1 homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, takes on a San Diego HOA that banned the American flag. Chris and Amy Cooke have flown their flag on the side of their garage for more than 20 years to honor those who served and died for the country. Then one neighbor’s Padres playoff flag drew a compla...

Is your HOA spending reserve money on things it’s not supposed to? In this episode, attorney Michael Kushner, California’s #1 homeowner-side HOA attorney, breaks down which money has to go into your HOA’s reserve account, the short list of things your HOA can spend it on, and how bad HOAs frequently misuse the reserve account to pay for things like ordinary landscaping, insurance premiums, and lea...

In part 2 of KNX News reporter Steve Gregory’s 5-part series “Behind the Gate” series on California HOAs, California’s most prominent homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, walks him through what homeowners can and can’t say about their HOAs, both online and during open meetings. More than 14 million Californians live under an HOA, and social media has turned into the place where fed-up res...

Bad HOAs all over California are using the emergency exception to push through massive special assessments without an otherwise required homeowner vote, and sometimes even after homeowners voted one down. In this episode, California’s most respected homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, explains how the emergency exception works (including what it is an exception to ) and how homeowners ca...

KFI News reporter Steve Gregory goes behind the gate in this five-part series on California HOAs, and he brings in homeowner-side HOA attorney Michael Kushner, California’s most respected homeowner-side HOA attorneys, to explain how these communities work and why so many of them turn toxic. You've seen the videos on your feed, the shouting matches over mailbox colors and paint shades, the boa...

In this HOA Q&A, California’s most respected homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, explains what happens when a California HOA director sells their home and the board hands the empty seat to a hand-picked replacement instead of holding an election. Most homeowners assume the board can just fill the seat, and most boards assume the same thing. But whether that appointment holds up turns...

Every year before Halloween and Christmas, California homeowners ask whether their HOAs can restrict their holiday decorations, the religious items on their front doors, and the guests who come to trick-or-treat. In this episode, California’s #1 homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, explains how California law treats seasonal holiday decorations differently from religious items on entry do...

In this HOA Q&A, California’s foremost homeowner-side HOA attorney and expert, Michael Kushner, explains what happens when a California HOA installs Flock license plate cameras at the entrance to an HOA-governed community. Once your HOA mounts an automated license plate reader in your community, every trip you take, every guest who comes to see you, every vendor your hire, and every caregiver...

A Torrance HOA hit its owners with a $49,000 special assessment, and a San Clemente HOA hit its members with one for $26,000, stories that both ABC7’s Leanne Suter and KFI AM 640’s Monks & Merrill brought to California’s foremost homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, for his opinion. In this episode, Kushner walks prospective buyers through how to look into an HOA’s financial health be...

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac spent 2026 quietly rewriting the rules that decide whether anyone can get a loan to buy a condo in your community, and one more change hits in January 2027. In this episode, attorney Michael Kushner, California’s most experienced homeowner-side HOA attorney, breaks down what already changed, what’s coming, and why your HOA’s finances now decide whether you can sell your...

In this HOA Q&A, California’s leading homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, explains the amendment to Civil Code § 5200, which took effect on January 1, 2026.    🎯 What You’ll Learn in This HOA Q&A:  ✅ The new amendment to Civil Code § 5200 that put the SB 326 inspection report in every homeowner’s hands, and the tight deadline your HOA has to produce it. ✅ How far back you can...

Weeks after you close on your new home, a letter shows up demanding you pay a fine, cover an unpaid assessment, or fix something the previous owner did. In this episode, attorney Michael Kushner, California’s most experienced homeowner-side HOA attorney, explains which of those charges you actually have to pay and which ones stay the seller’s problem.  What You’ll Learn in this Episode:  ✅ How Ci...

Your HOA says you can’t trash the board online, and it wants a deposit and an insurance policy before you can even meet in the clubhouse to talk about a recall. Both demands are illegal, and a $1,000-an-hour attorney recently told homeowners the opposite, in print. In this episode, attorney Michael Kushner, California’s most experienced homeowner-side HOA attorney, breaks down both halves of Civil...

In this HOA Q&A, California’s #1 homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, explains what qualifies as a health and safety violation under California’s $100 HOA fine cap. Bad HOAs figured out fast that AB 130’s cap has one exception, and they’ve been stretching the words "health and safety" over ordinary violations to reach fines well above $100. That label isn’t the test. Civil C...

In this HOA Q&A, California’s most respected homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, explains loss assessment coverage and how it pays a condo owner’s share of a California HOA special assessment. Such coverage could only be found in your own HO-6 condo policy, but most California condo owners either don’t carry it or carry a token amount that doesn’t help much at all. There’s a specific...

A rare childhood cancer cluster in Ladera Ranch has parents pointing at the pesticides their HOA sprays across the common areas. In this episode, HOA attorney Michael Kushner, California’s most experienced homeowner-side HOA attorney, uses that crisis to dig into the questions every California homeowner should be asking.   How much power does your HOA have to decide what chemicals get sprayed wher...

Many homeowners think that there’s a state agency that they can report their HOAs to when their HOAs break the law. There isn’t. In this episode, HOA attorney Michael Kushner, California’s most respected homeowner-side HOA attorney, explains what homeowners have to do to protect their rights when it comes to their HOAs, and the handful of narrow exceptions where a state agency does exist to help h...

In this HOA Q&A, California’s leading homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, explains whether any state agency regulates California HOAs and where homeowners can turn when their HOA breaks the law.  🎯 What You’ll Learn in This HOA Q&A:  ✅ The handful of HOA complaints that do have somewhere to go, and the agencies that take them. ✅ The Davis-Stirling Act statute that lets a homeo...

In this HOA Q&A, California’s pioneering homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, explains how far California HOAs can go when they move to regulate e-bikes and e-scooters. Suppose your teenager depends on an e-bike or e-scooter to get to school or work, and then your HOA proposes a rule to ban e-bikes and e-scooters from the common areas. Can the board really pass such a rule? And does t...

Your HOA installed Flock cameras (or some  other form of ALPR camera) in your HOA that photograph every car going in and out, log the plate, the date, and the time, and feed it all into a searchable database. Most homeowners assume it’s harmless security. In this episode, HOA attorney Michael Kushner, considered by many in the industry to be the #1 homeowner-side HOA attorney in California, breaks...

In this HOA Q&A, California’s top homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, breaks down the fees California HOAs are permitted to charge sellers for HOA-related resale disclosure documents under the Davis-Stirling Act, including itemized document fees, prohibited bundling, electronic delivery charges, and what a seller must pay for when selling a home located within an HOA.  🎯 What You’ll...

While many questions we receive about HOAs have clean answers, the ones that end up in court rarely do. In this episode, HOA attorney Michael Kushner, California’s most experienced homeowner-side HOA attorney, and co-host Sam Khil, take opposite sides of a real jaw-dropping case out of the Nellie Gail HOA in Orange County. Coyotes cleared a family’s fence again and again, at all hours of the day a...