Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

tampabay28.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 186 posts

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#11

Post by reactordev »

bearjaws wrote: post #6

There will need to be some sort of carve out for towers, condos, townhomes etc. I cannot imagine running a building without an HOA, or some form of it. Who pays for the external repairs? Who pays for shared staff? AC units for a highrise are $2-5M, who is saving for that? This is just typical lawmaker BS, "oh I am going to do away with it", no real plan. If anything just remove the HOA bylaws that are clearly violati…

Those things are usually rentals here in Florida. HOAs are a real problem here due to the legal protection they have. They can literally take your house because your mailbox is blue.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#13

Post by ocdtrekkie »

bearjaws wrote: post #6

There will need to be some sort of carve out for towers, condos, townhomes etc. I cannot imagine running a building without an HOA, or some form of it. Who pays for the external repairs? Who pays for shared staff? AC units for a highrise are $2-5M, who is saving for that? This is just typical lawmaker BS, "oh I am going to do away with it", no real plan. If anything just remove the HOA bylaws that are clearly violati…

The irony here is I've never found my neighborhood HOA problematic. They plan the block party and take care of the landscaping of the neighborhood signage.

My condo HOA experience was so bad I would never again recommend someone buy a condo. They refused to look at a structural issue until I got a lawyer and then refused to let the residents see the engineering report for the building we legally own. (Note: If you ever experience this, get out. There is no louder signal of an unsafe structure than "the engineering report is privileged".)

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#14

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

next_xibalba wrote: post #7
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #4

The problem is always with the extremes. On one side, you have someone creating a car junkyard in his frontyard with a car tire bonfire behind his house and on the other, you have a random karen neigbor measuring your lawn greenness and soil humidity to see if you're not watering the lawn enough and fine your for that. Take the power from a few powertrippers and make it more democratic and you solve both issues... tu…

I lived next to a guy who would do maintenance and repair on his motorcycle which had “pipes” until nearly midnight. I would’ve killed for an HOA back then.

I live in a neighborhood with an HOA, next to a guy who works on his motorcycle all day, loudly blaring his awful music, and then waking us up at 5 AM every morning when he drives the bike to work.

The HOA will break down my door about grass that is not strictly manicured, or about some algae on my front siding, but you know the one thing they will not lift a finger about? Noise complaints. Funny, that.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#15

Post by bilbo0s »

bearjaws wrote: post #6

There will need to be some sort of carve out for towers, condos, townhomes etc. I cannot imagine running a building without an HOA, or some form of it. Who pays for the external repairs? Who pays for shared staff? AC units for a highrise are $2-5M, who is saving for that? This is just typical lawmaker BS, "oh I am going to do away with it", no real plan. If anything just remove the HOA bylaws that are clearly violati…

This.

And then when more of their towers collapse these same politicians will look around with surprised Pikachu faces.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#16

Post by ajsnigrutin »

mschuster91 wrote: post #9
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #4

The problem is always with the extremes. On one side, you have someone creating a car junkyard in his frontyard with a car tire bonfire behind his house and on the other, you have a random karen neigbor measuring your lawn greenness and soil humidity to see if you're not watering the lawn enough and fine your for that. Take the power from a few powertrippers and make it more democratic and you solve both issues... tu…

> If the issue is so bad, that 70% of your neighbors actually come to a meeting and vote against what you're doing, it must be something really bad. Two dangers with that. First, mandatory votes are ... difficult. They exclude a lot of people, particularly those that gotta work two jobs to make ends meet, thus giving more power to those people who have lots of free time (i.e. pensioners, SAHM busybodies). Second, tyr…

But that's exactly why you need the 70% (example number).

The current situation is, that you have pensoners, SAHM, racists and others bothering with HOA and then bothering the neighbors. The HOA board might be full of them, or consist only of them, but they don't make up the (eg.) 70% of total inhabitants of whatever neighborhood (except maybe in some extreme cases).

To get such a majority, even "the others" would have to be bothered by so much, that they would be willing to go out and vote (voting can be done in a way that even people with two jobs can do it, especially if vote secrecy is not required). If some Karen is bothered by a slighly brownish lawn during a draught, most people wouldn't bother and getting 70% of them to vote would be impossible. If it was a serious issue, then people would bother more.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#17

Post by zug_zug »

reactordev wrote: post #11
bearjaws wrote: post #6

There will need to be some sort of carve out for towers, condos, townhomes etc. I cannot imagine running a building without an HOA, or some form of it. Who pays for the external repairs? Who pays for shared staff? AC units for a highrise are $2-5M, who is saving for that? This is just typical lawmaker BS, "oh I am going to do away with it", no real plan. If anything just remove the HOA bylaws that are clearly violati…

Those things are usually rentals here in Florida. HOAs are a real problem here due to the legal protection they have. They can literally take your house because your mailbox is blue.

Maybe just take away that protection? Where I live nobody is losing a house for having the wrong color mailbox, but there are certain historical protected areas where beauty is an externality — you can’t demolish a historic house in the middle of the beautiful downtown

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#18

Post by RandomBacon »

mschuster91 wrote: post #5

> In Riverview, HOA disputes escalated into arrests and foreclosure threats. One homeowner was jailed for a week over brown grass, while another faced a lien and thousands in legal fees tied to her house paint. What, excuse me, the hell ? I thought "debtor's prison" was outlawed centuries ago?

IIRC, they missed their court appearance and a bench warrant was issued.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#20

Post by 7174n6 »

This is a huge problem in Pennsylvania also, but most of the municipalities have abdicated significant maintenance responsibilities to HOAs. They refuse to take over roads, retention ponds, and common land areas requiring the HOA to cover maintenance. Snow removal from "public" roads and landscaping of "common areas" is a significant cost for HOAs. If the municipalitiies are forced to take these dutues over it's going to be a huge hit to their budgets. I'd think this would be a hard sell to most politicians in PA.
Post reply on HN