POLO GOLF AND COUNTRY CLUB HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, INC. v. CUNARD

The Polo Golf and Country Club Homeowners Association sued two Forsyth County officials to stop enforcement of a county rule, Section 4.2.2, that makes homeowners associations responsible for maintaining drainage easements and stormwater facilities throughout their neighborhoods, even on land the association does not own. This is the latest round in nearly a decade of litigation over failing dams and drainage systems in the Polo Fields subdivision, which caused flooding and sinkholes on individual lots. After an earlier Supreme Court of Georgia decision sent the case back, the trial court rejected the association's remaining arguments: that the rule forces it to trespass on homeowners' land, that it amounts to unconstitutional forced labor, and that it goes beyond what the county's own enabling ordinance allows. The association appealed those rulings. The Supreme Court of Georgia agreed with the trial court on all points and affirmed, finding the association has legal tools, like liens and a right of abatement under its own governing documents, to comply with the rule without ever committing a trespass, and that maintaining common stormwater systems for the community's benefit is not involuntary servitude.

Section 4.2.2 does not require the homeowners association to trespass because the association's own governing documents let it use liens, lawsuits, or a right of abatement to comply, the maintenance duty is not involuntary servitude because it serves the community's welfare and the parties consented to it, and the ordinance authorizing the rule permits the county to impose that duty on associations.

Affirmed

1. To win a facial challenge, the association had to show no set of circumstances existed where the rule could validly apply; because the Declaration lets the association use liens or lawsuits without physically entering a lot, and even its right of abatement is not legally a trespass under the Declaration, that challenge failed.
2. For the as-applied challenge, the court found the association actually began exercising its right of abatement in this real dispute over the Wellington Dam, showing it could comply with the county rule without ever entering someone else's property without permission.
3. On involuntary servitude, the court applied Thirteenth Amendment case law holding that the ban on forced labor does not stop governments from requiring citizens to perform civic duties like maintaining property for community welfare; because the association exists specifically to serve the common good of the development and both it and lot owners agreed to the underlying covenants, no forced servitude was shown.
4. On whether the county exceeded its own authorizing ordinance, the court found the association's argument was essentially a repeat of contract and retroactivity arguments already rejected in the prior Polo Golf II decision, and held the association qualified as an 'operator' of the stormwater system covered by the ordinance.

• stormwater management
• homeowners association
• Forsyth County ordinance
• involuntary servitude claim
• dam maintenance dispute