Creekmont Community

Please remit your annual dues sooner than later which are due by March 31st.

The county ordinance retention pond and tree removal project has been completed, we, Creekmont, owe GA Tree Masters $13,300 in full under net 30 terms.

The amount due to GA Tree Masters is being funded by a good portion of the 2025 dues without doing a special assessment to all homes to pay for the project outside of our increased dues this year.

As of today, the HOA has received dues from a little less than 30 of our homes a few weeks remaining.

Lower retention pond note: When GA Tree Masters came out to our community to quote the project, I walked all areas of the retention ponds and the lower pond was deplorable behind the fence. MANY MANY poop bags have been discarded over the fence for a long time based on the number of bags found in the dead brush. We as a community can and should have been doing better with deciding to throw your dogs poop bags over a fence that protects the retention ponds which is a major source for drainage and run off in our neighborhood. PLEASE utilize the poop waste station to dispose of your dogs poop bags now that one is available for us to use. PLEASE STOP throwing any kind of trash over any part of the lower cul-de-sac fence line, especially inside the bowl of rhe retention pond.

The POAA is a statute that was adopted by the Georgia legislature in 1994 and contains many benefits for a homeowner’s association. In short, it gives homeowners associations a way to capture many of the statutory powers that condominiums have benefited from for a long time, especially with respect to assessment collection and covenant enforcement issues. A list of some of the specific benefits of the POAA is set out below.

The POAA establishes an automatic statutory lien for unpaid assessments and other charges, thereby eliminating the need to file a paper lien in the courthouse records to protect the Association’s rights if an Owner fails to pay his or her assessments when due.

The POAA creates joint and several liability between a seller and a buyer for unpaid assessments owed on a Lot. This motivates a buyer and the mortgage lender to be sure that all unpaid assessments are paid at or before closing. If unpaid assessments are not paid at or before closing, the Association can proceed against the new owner, who will be personally liable for all amounts owed prior to the closing. The new owner can seek reimbursement from the prior owner, but the Association would not be involved in such dispute.

The POAA clarifies that Owners as well as their tenants must comply with the covenants, rules and regulations of the community.

The POAA provides the Association with the right to (i) charge late fees and interest for delinquent assessments, and (ii) collect actual attorneys' fees reasonably incurred by the Association if assessments are collected through an attorney or if a covenant enforcement action is filed by the Association. This can be helpful as some judges may be reluctant to award these items to the Association even when it is necessary to file suit to collect amounts due.

The POAA allows the Association, in appropriate cases, to assess fines against violators and to suspend violators’ use of common property to enforce compliance with the covenants, rules and restrictions of the community. These statutory powers significantly strengthen the Association’s ability to enforce the covenants and the rules and regulations.

The POAA gives the Association the right to foreclose its assessment lien, subject to superior encumbrances. In certain circumstances, this right can help the Association rid itself of severely delinquent Owners in favor of new Owners who will pay assessments as required and may yield money to pay off the debt due to the Association.

The POAA allows the Association to levy specific assessments against Owners to collect a common expense benefiting less than all of the Lots or that is incurred because of the conduct of an Owner of a particular Lot. For example, if an Owner damages the Common Property, the Association may assess the repair costs against that Owner.

The POAA establishes that the Declaration will have perpetual duration and will never expire.

The POAA gives the Association the ability to successfully defend challenges to the enforceability of restrictions adopted in subsequent amendments to the covenants. Without the POAA, Georgia law states that any change to the covenants that imposes a greater restriction on the use of land is only enforceable against Owners who consent to that change. That means, for example, that if 2/3 of the Owners approved adding new leasing restrictions to the Declaration, those restrictions would only be enforceable against the 2/3 of the Owners who voted to approve that amendment. That obviously defeats the purpose of having restrictive covenants, which need to be uniformly enforceable against everyone in order to be effective. The POAA specifically states that the Georgia law described above does not apply to communities subject to the POAA, meaning that new restrictions adopted by at least 2/3 of the Owners will be enforceable against all property subject to the Declaration.