In Florida, condominium associations (COA) and homeowners associations (HOA) are not legally the same thing, but in discussions like this people often refer to them interchangeably. There is a big difference between an HOA requiring mowed lawns and paint colors and a COA that maintains roofs, pools, playgrounds, common elements, etc. People will refer to Surfside as a reason HOAs are important but the Champlain Towers was a condo.
Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
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Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
#72I am a BOD and Officer in a HOA. This will be messy - we would have to sell all of our common amenities, parking lots, overflow parking lots, playgrounds, gym, pools etc to the government or a private company if this happens. County would have to take over maintenance of our platted common property and property that we mow (and get paid for) by the County. County would have to step up enforcement of parking on street…
> What do we do with the $500k we have the operating funds and reserves collected over the past 40 years?
Uhm, return it to the property owners?
The real pattern is that HOAs have been abusing their power; or in other cases are required because municipalities don't want to do their job. As a result the lawmakers will, unfortunately, overcorrect.
Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
#73There 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…
Agreed. The logical answer here is to limit the things HOAs can and cannot do rather than ban them outright. But that doesn't make for a good headline.
Logical answer is to get reasonable people to vote when HOA is having vote.
Don’t let Karen and her buddies run the meetings.
People nagging about HOA seems like are not owners or not knowing how HOA works o r supposed to work.
Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
#74As a non-American, I've always been surprised with how common HOAs are, and how over-bearing they seem. I know that I only hear about the crazy ones because blogs about normal/good HOAs aren't going viral, but I've seen enough horror stories that if I ever moved to the US I would do my best to avoid one like the plague.
America hates government and taxes but occasionally someone thinks wow, it’d be nice if we could split the costs of this road and water pipes we all use! But all the existing standards for how to do this basic function of society are terrible!
Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
#75I volunteered to run my HOA in Massachusetts because I was afraid someone would come in and abuse their power and fine everyone for trivial matters.
What I learned was that the town "forces" all new developments to have an HOA because town politics prevents the town from adopting roads from new housing developments. Thus all new neighborhoods in the town have "private" roads.
It's a lot of "BS" work that's pushed on residents simply because of malfunctioning politics.
Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 e…
Is that legal?! I would have thought your lawyer would be salivating at the prospect of raking your HOA over the coals. Or at least of mailing a nastygram with all sorts of colorful threats. I suppose not?
It is most decidedly not legal, but they had the largest condo law firm in the Chicago area on retainer who made the statement they wouldn't provide it. (Literally the lawyer I was recommended to use until it turned out... it was theirs.) Their lawyer's own website basically said the HOA can't hide stuff like this from owners.
Which is to say if I had had the time and money for a protracted court drama, I do think a judge would have literally laughed them out of the courthouse, but everyone involved knew the case wouldn't get that far.
One really fun fact I learned from this is lawyers mostly just email each other polite requests with the vague threat of "this could escalate to court" as the grease that moves things. And if one side doesn't think it'll end up in court they just... say no!
Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
#77As a non-American, I've always been surprised with how common HOAs are, and how over-bearing they seem. I know that I only hear about the crazy ones because blogs about normal/good HOAs aren't going viral, but I've seen enough horror stories that if I ever moved to the US I would do my best to avoid one like the plague.
In some places they act as a kind of local governing authority similar to a town or village council. In much of the US the lowest level of governing body us the county, and those can be pretty huge and diverse areas so HOAs are used to fill that gap.
Sure, I guess I can kind of understand that. It's just not something I've experienced. I've never felt that there was a "gap" that needed to be filled. Especially not by a group that can also tell me that my paint has to be a certain color or whatever.
Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
#78There has to be nuance.
If a community has shared areas then there has to be an organization to maintain and service them and that org. requires funding. This is especially true with Condo style communities. To attempt to shut that management down and replace it with either voluntary fees or some other solution seems destined to fail or to lead to outright war amongst the residents as those that don't contribute continue to use the facilities.
Things start to get a little more complex with SFR communities. I have always intentionally chosen communities where there is no HOA. I have no interest in someone telling me what I can and cannot do with the property I own. This of course means that I have always intentionally purchased in areas with no common spaces. I make sure to drive the area carefully first to see who lives there and the condition of the homes. Of course this could go wrong; nothing stopping someone from selling and the new owner paints his house purple and green and changes his oil in his front yard. Its a price I am open to paying though to ensure that my property is mine fully beside government control.
My MIL has a HOA and they determine what color residents can paint their homes, the type of roof tile, etc. They also have gated entrances though with security that checks Id's for entrance. No way to run that without some sort of HOA like organization. If someone wants to live in this type of community then no reason to stop it, each to their own.
My major personal issue with HOA's is when they mandate the type of fencing you can have, often requiring open fences that provide no privacy. I want tall 6+ foot solid fences and even taller plant life. The more privacy I can implement the better. I am also getting a pool built and its nice knowing that no one else can have input over it except the city permitting office.
I would be good with a law that says an existing community without an HOA cannot create one without 100% of the homeowners agreeing. That seems like something worth considering.
Other than that its a complicated situation that I just don't think a quick law for cudos is going to solve. Simply banning something seems... not well thought out.
Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
#79In Phoenix developers cannot build new communities without HOAs. Even if your HOA is not gated and doesn't have a clubhouse, not a pool, it is the HOA that is responsible for maintaining the streets and parks. But... that is normally paid for by tax money. Yet the home owner's taxes in those communities are not lower. So the city is double dipping.
Typically there is a special tax assessment district when inside city limits - for example, my property in Georgia inside an HOA has a city millage of 0.003, but the streets of the community were indeed deeded to the city. On the other hand, if someone wants to build not actually inside city limits, of course they’ll need to pay for their own roads and utility maintenance since the county isn’t responsible for things like that.
Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash
#80I am a BOD and Officer in a HOA. This will be messy - we would have to sell all of our common amenities, parking lots, overflow parking lots, playgrounds, gym, pools etc to the government or a private company if this happens. County would have to take over maintenance of our platted common property and property that we mow (and get paid for) by the County. County would have to step up enforcement of parking on street…
> What do we do with the $500k we have the operating funds and reserves collected over the past 40 years? Uhm, return it to the property owners? The real pattern is that HOAs have been abusing their power; or in other cases are required because municipalities don't want to do their job. As a result the lawmakers will, unfortunately, overcorrect.
What property owners is my point? Many are long gone and the (now) $175 a quarter we charge goes towards the common amenities.
What would happen is we would have to surrender those funds to the State.
So this would lead to a huge windfall for the State.
States have rules for what happens when a HOA dissolves. That means the money goes right to the State including the sale of the common property.