CUMMING, Ga. — The Forsyth County board of commissioners recently expanded some definitions and clarified the language in the county’s solicitation ordinance. The “no soliciting” HOA signs at the entrance to many neighborhoods were never mentioned. However, the sheriff’s office changed their enforcement policies in regard to those signs, and a recent social media post explaining all of this caused confusion across the county.
“The sheriff's department was I think trying to tell the community that they can no longer enforce it from the standpoint of an HOA sign,” District 1 Commissioner Molly Cooper said. “But it was misinterpreted that the board of commissioners was taking away the rights of a homeowners association. It was just a simple miscommunication by the sheriff's department, and it caught fire.”
Just to clarify, the “no soliciting” signs at the entrance to neighborhoods are not enough to keep solicitors off your property. You need to have a sign on your actual property, and even that may not deter solicitors.
“The whole idea, the whole premise, the foundation was to make the ordinance where it is protecting the private property privacy rights,” Cooper said. “So we checked into that and lo and behold an HOA is not a property owner.”
This, she says, is why changes were made to the ordinance.
“What we're trying to do is make it to where a private property, if you don't want someone coming on your property, you can have a sign up that says ‘no soliciting’,” Cooper said. “The quandary that it unintentionally created is the HOAs have got it in their covenants that you can't put signs in your yard. So that becomes a catch-22.”
She went on to say they are still thinking through everything and trying to come up with an idea that works well for everyone.
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