SC empowers homeowners’ groups

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

CAN a homeowners’ association compel its members to pay fees for basic community services and facilities?

According to a Supreme Court (SC) ruling, which affirmed a lower court decision, monthly dues intended for the promotion of the subdivision’s safety and security, peace, comfort and general welfare cannot be categorized as “unreasonable.”

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In the Bel Air Villages Association Inc. vs. Virgilio V. Dionisio case, the SC’s Third Division threw out the petition of a homeowner from Rizal Province who questioned the legality of the assessment imposed by the homeowners’ association relative to the dues on his property.

Last week, a collector of Grand Pacific Villa Subdivision in Lapu-Lapu City, Cebu shot dead a woman over a car sticker.

Subject to rules, regulations

Police filed homicide charges against subdivision collector Randy Emborong and security guards Rodulfo Cavalida and Elmer Villarba for the death of Rose Ann La Paz.

Emborong shot La Paz after she allegedly provoked him after he demanded that she pay for a new subdivision car sticker.

In the ruling, the High Court affirmed the trial court’s decision, which ruled that annotations stipulated in the transfer certificate of title, which the buyer signs upon purchase of the property, provide that a homeowner automatically becomes a member of the association and is subject to its rules, regulations or resolutions.

“The limitations upon the ownership of the defendant as clearly imposed in the annotations do not contravene provisions of laws, morals, good customs, public order or public policy,” the ruling said.

The constitutional prohibition, the court said, that no person can be compelled to be a member of an association against his will applies only to government acts and not to private transactions.

Take it or leave it

“If he does not desire to comply with the annotation, he can, at any time, exercise his inviolable freedom of disposing of the property and freeing himself from the burden of becoming a member of the plaintiff association,” the ruling said.

The court pointed out that dues imposed by the homeowners’ association are not imposed personally on the homeowner, but upon his ownership of the property.

“Living in this modern, complex society has raised complex problems of security, sanitation, communitarian comfort and convenience, and it is now a recognized necessity that members of the community must organize themselves for the successful solution of these problems,” the ruling said.

Likewise, the implementing rules and regulations of Republic Act 9904, or the Magna Carta for Homeowners and Homeowners Associations, state that a delinquent member of the association may be suspended from availing himself of basic community services and facilities upon declaration of the board.