MBK Chapman PC

09/04/2026

Can My California HOA Spray Pesticides Near My Home?
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A cluster of rare childhood cancers in Ladera Ranch, a large master-planned community in South Orange County, has forced a question thousands of California HOA homeowners never thought to ask. Residents there suspect that years of pesticide and herbicide spraying on HOA-maintained common areas played a role, and their HOA responded by pausing certain applications and reviewing its landscaping practices. No health agency has confirmed a cause, and the science on these cancers remains unsettled. The Ladera Ranch situation exposed how much control HOAs hold over the chemicals sprayed across the places where families live, walk, and let their children play.

09/03/2026

🎯NEW EPISODE ALERT🎯
Can My California HOA Make Me Pay for the Previous Owner’s Violations?
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What You’ll Learn in this Episode:
✅ How Civil Code § 5725 leaves the previous owner’s fines their personal debt, not yours.
✅ The single moment an unpaid assessment stops being the seller’s problem and becomes yours.
✅ What Civil Code § 5673 requires before an HOA can record a lien on your property.
✅ The $1,800 and twelve-month triggers under Civil Code § 5720 that decide whether your HOA can foreclose.

09/02/2026

Can My California HOA Replace a Board Member Who Sold Their House?
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The Davis-Stirling Act requires board members to be members of their HOAs, and membership depends entirely on recorded ownership. Once escrow closes on the sale of a director’s property, that director is no longer a member of the HOA, and thus is no longer qualified to serve on the HOA’s board. Timing controls everything here. Directors who resign before escrow closes leave by resignation, but directors who wait until title transfers lose their seats to disqualification. HOAs create a real problem for themselves when they ignore that distinction, treat every one of these exits as a resignation, and rush to appoint whoever the sitting directors prefer.

09/01/2026

Who Do I Report My California HOA To When It Breaks the Law?
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Homeowners who discover that their HOAs broke the law frequently look for the state agency that they can complain to. Some look for a state office that licenses HOAs or a hotline that takes complaints, and others might look for the state regulator that audits HOA books and voids rigged elections. No such offices exist. California licenses cosmetologists, locksmiths, and pest control operators, but it leaves the governance of roughly 65,000 HOAs to nobody at all. In short, when it comes to 99.9% of all HOA-related wrongdoing, there is no state agency to turn to for answers or solutions.

08/31/2026

🔥 HOT TOPIC ALERT 🔥
California HOA Hits Retired People with $26,000 Special Assessment | Michael Kushner on ABC 7
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An 81-year-old widow and her neighbors in a San Clemente condo community were each hit with a $26,000 HOA emergency assessment for new roofs, and the board is threatening liens on anyone who can't pay. ABC7's 7 On Your Side spoke with the homeowners fighting back, and turned to California’s foremost homeowner-side HOA attorney, Michael Kushner, for a comment.

MBK Chapman PC - Business and real estate litigation and transactions; Homeowner representation in HOA / Davis-Stirling Act disputes.

08/30/2026

Can I Serve on the Board of a California 55+ HOA If I’m Under 55?
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A trending issue in California HOA law involves senior citizens leaving their adult children or grandchildren title to properties inside senior citizen communities (e.g., a 55+ community). California’s senior citizen housing statutes let 55+ communities restrict who lives there. Bad (or just ignorant) HOAs, along with their managers and attorneys, routinely stretch that authority two steps further and tell under-55 owners that they can’t hold title and can’t run for the board. The HOA industry says it, other California HOA law firms publish it, and search engines and AI tools now hand it back to any homeowner who asks. Those HOAs are absolutely wrong on both counts, and both the Davis-Stirling Act and California’s senior citizen housing statutes make that very clear. This Fact Sheet is designed to set the record straight by explaining what California law says on the subject of young people who own properties within senior citizen communities and wish to serve on those communities’ HOA boards.

08/30/2026

Can My California HOA Fine Me for Criticizing It on Social Media?
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Homeowners frustrated with their HOAs increasingly take their complaints online. Unfortunately, a steady stream of really ignorant and really bad advice has told many to shut up or pay the price. The latest example comes from an article that sought the opinion of a purported real estate law expert, the managing partner of a well-known South Orange County law firm. In that article, this “expert” warned homeowners that a critical social media post aimed at the board or individual HOA directors could create a situation where an HOA could use a homeowner’s online criticism of the board against them for breaching their CC&Rs’ non-disparagement provision. According to this attorney’s biography, he’s an expert in “multiple areas of complex litigation, including…real estate…,” who probably bills north of $1,000 an hour.

08/29/2026

Can My California HOA Suspend My Pool, Gym, and Other Privileges?
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Most homeowners picture HOA discipline in terms of monetary fines, which is understandable. Most discipline does take that form. But HOAs in California hold a second, less familiar, and far narrower, power to suspend members’ privileges as a penalty. Many HOAs exercise that power in conjunction with, or instead of, imposing monetary penalties, and such suspensions have far reaching consequences because they can reach a wide range of amenities and courtesies. Whether a given suspension holds up, however, depends on which privilege the HOA is trying to suspend and whether the HOA is affording homeowners the due process required by the Davis-Stirling Act.

08/28/2026

Will California HOA Fee Increases Be Capped at 8%? Inside SB 1007
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As I’ve written and podcasted about on several occasions, under the Davis-Stirling Act, California HOAs can raise regular assessments up to 20% every year without requiring consent from the homeowners. A new law currently wending its way through the Legislature, SB 1007, seeks to cut that ceiling by more than half, lowering the no-vote limit from 20% to roughly 8%. Homeowners squeezed by California’s cost of living tend to see that as overdue protection. HOAs facing insurance spikes, mandated repairs, and underfunded reserves tend to see it as a budget straitjacket. Both positions draw on real facts, and the bill has divided lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.

08/27/2026

Can My California HOA Stop Me From Criticizing or Organizing Against It?
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What You’ll Learn in Today’s Episode:
✅ What Civil Code 4515 does to the non-disparagement clause in your governing documents.
✅ How harshly the law lets you criticize your board and its individual directors online, by name.
✅ The exact line where protected criticism crosses the line into defamation or criminal conduct.
✅ The $1,000-an-hour attorney who got this statute backwards in print.