House rules don't spell out procedures for a board to follow if anyone violates a house rule. They are only the rules everyone must follow, but they can state that penalties or fines may be applied.

This year we notified all our SHs by letter that, by board resolution, a $250 fine was established for violation of any house rule. It got to a point where too many people were ignoring too many rules. We revised page 1 of the house rules to include a statement that "a fine/penalty as may exist by notice from the apartment corporation applies for violation or breach of any house rule."

In our letter to SHs we first reminded them that non-compliance with the house rules is a breach of the Proprietary Lease. But we also said that a resident will only receive notice for non-compliance with a house rule for a first incident but the fine will be incurred if the incident occurs more than once. We added that we do not want residents to be burdened with unnecessary charges and we asked for their cooperation in adhering to the house rules for their benefit and that of all their neighbors.

Since we established the fine and since it's $250 which is no small change, we've had many fewer violations of house rules.