Cat Fight : State Supreme Court Will Decide Whether No-Pet Rules Have Teeth

Natore Nahrstedt’s cats are her children.

She has three--Boo-Boo, Dockers and Tulip. They eat turkey dinner on Thanksgiving and cakes with their names on them on their birthdays. Nahrstedt, 47, overlooks the fact that they can’t hold a fork and like to lick their plates clean.

But some of Nahrstedt’s neighbors at the Lakeside Village Condominiums in Culver City see cats differently. The homeowner association has a rule limiting pets to birds and fish. Cats are forbidden.

For four years, Nahrstedt and the Lakeside homeowner association have been fighting a legal war, and it appears that the next battleground will be the California Supreme Court. The outcome may affect whether millions of Californians who live in condominiums and planned communities can enforce no-pet rules and other community association regulations.

Nahrstedt, a personal business manager, has already spent $25,000 in legal fees. She said she is willing to risk her home.

“I will not get rid of these cats,” she said. “They’re my babies. I chose to have cats instead of babies. . . . If they were attacking your children, you’d go out and hire an attorney and do the same thing.”

The fight began in 1988 when a neighbor spotted Tulip sunning in Nahrstedt’s window and filed a complaint with management. The homeowner association sent letters demanding that Nahrstedt get rid of the cats. When she did not comply, the association began assessing fines that started at $25 a month and grew to $500 a month.

Nahrstedt refused to pay. In 1990, she sued, saying that the association invaded her privacy and that the fines were illegal. The association countersued.

A trial court threw out Nahrstedt’s suit, saying it had no merit. Nahrstedt appealed.

The 2nd District Court of Appeal reversed the trial court decision in August and reinstated the case, saying it was up to the homeowner association to prove that the no-pet rule was reasonable.

“(Her) condominium home is her castle and her enjoyment of it should be by the least restrictive means possible, conducive with a harmonious communal living arrangement,” the appeals court said in a 2-1 decision.

Lawyers representing community associations immediately appealed to the high court, which is supposed to hear cases with possible statewide impact. The California Supreme Court agreed last month to hear the case.

Leonard Siegel, a Beverly Hills attorney representing the Lakeside homeowner group, argued that the appellate ruling placed “impossible standards” on homeowner associations to enforce any rules, let alone no-pet rules.

“The effect would be that every time a homeowners association wanted to enforce a rule, there would have to be a full court trial,” he said in an interview.

Siegel added that people who buy into developments with homeowner associations have a right to have their contractual expectations fulfilled, whether the rules pertain to pets, architecture or operations.

Nahrstedt’s attorney, Joel Tamraz, counters that people should have a right to challenge unreasonable rules in court. Furthermore, he says, people should be able to do whatever they want inside their own homes as long as it doesn’t bother neighbors.

“A person who owns a home should be entitled to own a reasonable pet,” Tamraz said. “We’re not talking alligators here. . . . There are a lot of lonely people, and pets fill a need.”

It may take a year for the appeal to be heard, Siegel said.

Meanwhile, cat owners at Lakeside continue to live in fear of discovery.

Brad Brown, the manager, said every pet complaint is investigated and acted upon. He receives about two a month, mostly over dogs, but sometimes noisy birds. As long as nobody complains, a homeowner can get away with having an illegal pet.

Management recently posted flyers stating that the no-pet rule is being enforced despite the continuing litigation.

Brown said homeowners sign a contract stating they will abide by the rules when they purchase a condominium. He said Lakeside is too dense to allow for pets. About 1,000 people live in 530 privately owned units on 13 acres.

“The (rules) come with the property,” Brown said. “A lot of people bought property here because we have these pet restrictions.”

One of those people was Ruth Faine. Faine said she is allergic to cat and dog hair and chose Lakeside after looking at many developments because of the no-pet rule.

“I agree people have the right to have pets,” Faine said. “But if that was so important to them, they shouldn’t have moved here, because they knew it was against the rules. There are plenty of condos where you can have as many pets as you want.”

Nahrstedt contends that enforcement of the no-pet rule has been spotty and selective. The real estate agent who sold her the property in 1988 assured her that her cats could live there because the no-pet rule was rarely enforced. At the time, she said, she saw cats sitting in windows of other units.

Nahrstedt got her first citation six months after moving in. She pointed out to management that other cat owners seemed to be exempt from the rules, among them her neighbor Joyce Muskat.

Muskat was cited by the association but was subsequently granted a permit to keep her three cats. She said she was not sure why, but said it might have been because she was on record for having asked the association’s board of directors in 1978 for a waiver from the rule, and the board had not acted on the request.

“If I was the only violator,” Nahrstedt said, “I would have cut my losses and moved. But this is selective enforcement. . . . It is unfair. It really hit a keynote in me.”

Cat owner Mike Griffin is feeling the pinch of the no-pet rule after nine years of living peacefully with his cats, Bingo and Scooter. Griffin was cited recently after appearing on a TV news program with Nahrstedt during which he admitted he has two cats.

He decided to speak out for all the closet cat-owners in the complex, he said. He said he was also told by a real estate agent when he bought his condo that the pet rule was rarely enforced.

Griffin regards his cats as family. He paid for a costly operation to remove one of Bingo’s legs because of a cancerous tumor. The cat recovered and has learned to run on three legs.

“He gives me so much pleasure, I didn’t mind the expense at all,” he said. “Cats eat and sleep. They make little if any noise. I’d like to get that silly rule expunged.”