Following the Arizona Supreme Court’s rejection of the Village of Oakcreek Association’s short-term rental ban, which upheld the previous rulings of the Yavapai County Superior Court and the Arizona Court of Appeals, the homeowners’ association has announced that it does not intend to abide by the courts’ decisions and will continue to enforce its short-term rental restrictions anyway — except against the one property involved in the lawsuit.

“We consulted with legal counsel and have come to the conclusion that the court’s decision only affects the one property that it singled out in its order,” VOCA Board President Kevin O’Connor stated in the group’s October newsletter. “The short-term rental restrictions [no less than 30-day rentals are allowed] are still in effect, with the one exception.”

After VOCA voted to impose an STR ban in 2016 and 2017, the association subsequently sued property owner Lance Bonham in 2022 in an attempt to force him to cease renting his property as an STR. The Yavapai County Superior Court ruled in Bonham’s favor, relying upon the state Supreme Court’s finding in Kalway v. Calabria Ranch HOA that an HOA could not impose a restriction not foreseen in its original covenants, as allowing associations to do so would infringe on owners’ expectations.

“The 2017 amendment is not tethered to either the original declaration or the declaration [of covenants and restrictions],” Superior Court Judge Linda Wallace wrote in her ruling. “Moreover, the original declaration and declaration do not put the property owners on sufficient notice that residential rentals could be restricted in future amendments … The court finds that, as it relates to defendant, the residential rental restriction of the 2017 amendment is invalid. Because the 2017 rental restriction is invalid as it relates to defendant, that provision is stricken as it [is] severable.”

VOCA appealed the Superior Court’s decision to the Court of Appeals, which upheld the ruling in Bonham’s favor.

Judges David Weinzweig, Michael Catlett and Maria Elena Cruz wrote that “because the [VOCA] declaration did not provide sufficient notice of the possibility of a future rental restriction, the court did not err by granting Bonham’s motion and striking the rental restriction from the amendments.”

On April 2, the Supreme Court denied VOCA’s appeal, allowing the Superior Court order striking VOCA’s short-term rental restrictions to stand.

However, VOCA wasn’t taking no for an answer.

Following the release of the Superior Court’s proposed final judgment on May 16, VOCA filed an objection to that judgment on May 28, claiming that “it is not the property itself that is precluded from the amendment, it is the owner of the property,” and petitioning for the court to amend the wording of its order to specify that the STR ban would not apply to the property only for “so long as Lance E. Bonham is the record owner of the property.”

Bonham’s reply, filed on May 29, did not address VOCA’s attempt to rephrase the court’s findings and instead simply requested a total of $21,706.33 in fees and costs.

Wallace’s final judgment, issued June 11, dismissed VOCA’s request to rephrase the language of the judgment, instead specifying that “the property … is not bound or restricted,” and awarded Bonham fees and costs of $8,824.92.

Two days later, on June 13, VOCA’s attorneys filed another reply to the judgment, claiming that “pursuant to the court’s ruling, the 2016 amendment does not apply to other property owners within the association,” and asked the court to modify the judgment.

The June 13 VOCA filing was followed by a VOCA application for an amended judgment on June 26, in which VOCA’s lawyers again claimed that the judgment “did not accurately reflect the court’s order from Sept. 8, 2022.”

“The association has harassed Bonham for years,” wrote Bonham’s attorney, Mark Bainbridge of the Bainbridge Law Firm, in a reply on July 16. “The association has unsuccessfully continued to dispute this court’s ruling … The judgment is final, consistent with the court’s ruling and must not be modified.”

Wallace denied VOCA’s motion in a two-sentence ruling on Aug. 1, allowing her previous order and phrasing striking the rental restriction from the VOCA amendments to stand.