Brunswick legislator to co-chair committee on HOAs. Here's what we know.

After months of waiting, the North Carolina House of Representatives has finally established its Select Committee on Homeowners’ Associations.

The committee was established just before the Thanksgiving holiday, and it has yet to hold its first meeting. Here’s what we know.

The committee came out of House Bill 311.

Rep. Frank Iler proposed House Bill 311 in March, which sought to establish a division of the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office to provide oversight of the state’s community associations. While the bill did not garner enough support to pass prior to the May crossover deadline, it was transformed into a resolution, which was adopted on May 2 and established a house select committee to study homeowners’ associations.

The committee consists of nine representatives.

Rep. Frank Iler (R-Brunswick) and Rep. Steve Tyson (R-Craven) will co-chair the committee.  Rep. Ya Liu (D-Wake) will serve as vice chair. Other committee members include Rep. Allen Busani (D-Orange), Rep. Laura Budd (D-Mecklenberg), Rep. Carla Cunningham (D-Mecklenberg), Rep. Gray Mills (R-Iredell), Rep. Jason Saine (R-Lincoln), and Rep. Donna White (R-Johnston).

The committee has little time to accomplish its goals.

While the committee members were named about two weeks ago, House Resolution 311 states the committee “shall terminate on March 1, 2024, or upon the filing of its final report, whichever occurs first.” But Iler said he believes this will be sufficient time to work.

“I think we can accomplish a lot in three or four meetings,” he said.

He explained the committee would be meeting before the next session begins in March, and during that time it will convene and hear from those both on both sides of the HOA oversight issue.

“And I’ve had plenty of volunteers to present,” Iler said.

He’s also received a lot of feedback from citizens living in community associations.

“I have a file about two inches thick of complaints from across the state,” he said.

Iler said the committee members will hear the presentations, receive citizen feedback, and assemble that information into a final report. That report will be used to guide proposed legislation in the next session.

This isn’t the first time the state has looked at HOA legislation.

There was a committee in 2011 that produced a report for the General Assembly. The seven-member committee met throughout 2010 and held public hearings to gather input from citizens. They also heard presentations from the North Carolina Real Estate Commission’s Legal Services Division, the North Carolina Chapter of Community Associations Institute (CAI-NC), and the North Carolina Justice Center’s Consumer Action Network.

Iler acknowledged this previous attempt at creating more oversight for the state’s HOAs and POAs but noted the legislation that resulted ended up getting “watered down.”

“It did not have a lot of teeth in it,” he said.

But he’s hoping this time, things will be different. He said the issues people often voice concerns about are access, accountability, arbitrary enforcement, and oversight.

“There are so many issues that need to be mediated,” he said.

The committee is expected to begin meeting in January.

Iler said while little happens around the holidays, he will soon reach out to Tyson and the committee members to establish a time for the first meeting. He expects they will be able to meet “three or four times” before the committee is set dissolve on March 1.

In the meantime, several Wilmington-area HOA legislation advocates are reaching out to make their feelings known. Charles Williams, founder of North Carolina Citizens for HOA Reform, is encouraging citizens to visit a page on the organization’s website (http://www.cfhoar.org/from-the-hoa-trenches) and share their “HOA horror stories.” In a post on the group’s Facebook page, Williams said he intends to share these stories with the committee.

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This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: NC General Assembly committee on HOAs selected, Frank Iler co-chair