Obviously the lease will be tailored to match the individual HOA. While it may be a pain in the ass to understand the HOA bylaws and such, any responsible landlord should know them, especially the rules regarding the notifications so that they can protect themselves in the lease. A simple call to the HOA or PM with a question of where in the bylaws or CCRs is/is not the instructions regarding notifications should get an answer. If there is not any notification then the lease should be tailored to account for that. Unfortunately for the original poster, they are going to have to deal with it directly through the HOA or fight it in court unless they had some sort of protection. Kind of a bummer.