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Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

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Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#81

Post by tallanvor »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #13
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 e…

I can imagine some scenarios where portions of the report may be privileged - if there are photos of people's apartments or unique information. But the summary with a list of deficiencies and recommended/required actions should certainly be provided!

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#82

Post by wat10000 »

llm_nerd wrote: post #52
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…

No idea why you're being downvoted, as this is 100% correct. HOAs are one of those things that seemingly no one likes, but then people look to buy a house and think it's just some weird coincidence that all of the "nice" neighbourhoods have HOAs. Everyone loves HOAs stopping their neighbours from doing obnoxious things, but are sure that the things they do should be immune from HOA influence. And FWIW, I live in Cana…

The “nice” neighborhoods often have HOAs because the government requires new developments to have HOAs as a condition for approving construction. They do this because it saves money by having the HOA maintain things instead of the government.

I live in a delightful neighborhood with no HOA. There are great non-HOA neighborhoods all over for miles around. You know what the real common denominator is for nice neighborhoods? Wealth. That’s it. If you want a nice place, have money and move somewhere other people have money too.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#83

Post by NegativeK »

scarface_74 wrote: post #62

I lived in an HOA community for eight years and I have mixed feelings. So many things can go wrong without one - old cars in the front yard, political signs (I don’t care what your political persuasion is they are tacky), yard not being kept. HOAs suck. But so do people. As another poster said, there are shared responsibility parts in some neighborhoods like pools, gyms, tennis courts etc

I'd be super happy if the local government managed the infrastructure and shared spaces of our neighborhood. But they can't raise the taxes to do so, so HOAs end up being the smaller government that people say they want but, in practice, get zero participation from the residents and can turn into shit shows.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#84

Post by wonderwonder »

bee_rider wrote: post #70

I wonder if this could be part of the Florida/Disney spat? Are some of Disney’s properties under HOA? Just random speculation, I haven’t been following it too closely. But, always got to be suspicious of a politician who suggests something that seems popular.

That issue was resolved several years ago. Both sides have moved on.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#85

Post by RandomBacon »

firesteelrain wrote: post #80
gwbas1c wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Who are you charging $175?

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#86

Post by judge2020 »

qualeed wrote: post #77
bane wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Things like maintaining a community’s cohesiveness (eg via restricting exterior cosmetic changes, requiring lawn maintenance, etc) are in the HOA contract in an effort to maintain/increase the community’s home values over time. And, of course, people can choose not to buy a home in a community like this if they don’t agree to the provisions of the HOA.

Even before the 2021 surge in home values, homes on city streets almost never saw as much growth in value (except for homes in the heart of metro areas where people will pay for location to work. On suburban city blocks, home values are often stagnant even in good markets)

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#87

Post by LargeWu »

ghaff wrote: post #46
baq wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A HOA for a highrise is a very different beast than a HOA for a suburban neighborhood. That is, I agree - but the suburban SFH HOAs are shitshows.

Probably true in general but, to the degree there are shared areas, someone needs to assess and allocate costs which isn't always obvious. Not really suburban but I have a relative who lives on a private road with other houses and (primarily) plowing and road maintenance needs to be dealt with. I agree that "your lawn isn't neat enough" HOAs are generally a plague at least up to a certain point.

"someone needs to assess and allocate costs which isn't always obvious"

In most places, this is called the city government.

Ultimately this feels like the "low tax area" myth is getting exposed. You still need to pay for all the same things your taxes would otherwise pay for, but for some reason it's different as long as it's not called a tax.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#88

Post by firesteelrain »

RandomBacon wrote: post #85
firesteelrain wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Who are you charging $175?

Existing, current homeowners every quarter

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#89

Post by Zigurd »

NegativeK wrote: post #59
Zigurd wrote: post #8

HOAs are benevolent dictatorships. That's supposed to be better than democracy. What could possibly go wrong?

Every HOA I've lived in had an elected board. And everyone I've ever heard complain about HOAs has never tried to serve on the board. They're not universally volunteer orgs, but a _lot_ of them are -- which means that if you run, you'll probably be elected, because nobody else wants to deal with that. HOAs are small governments, with plenty of the problems of larger governments via unhappy but nonparticipatory voters…

The problem is that they are untethered from other governments. Or at least less tethered. Contracts aren't constitutions or laws. There might be some benefits to that, but the downsides can be pretty outrageous.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#90

Post by [deleted] »

judge2020 wrote: post #86
qualeed wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Things like maintaining a community’s cohesiveness (eg via restricting exterior cosmetic changes, requiring lawn maintenance, etc) are in the HOA contract in an effort to maintain/increase the community’s home values over time. And, of course, people can choose not to buy a home in a community like this if they don’t agree to the provisions of the HOA. Even before the 2021 surge in home values, homes on city streets…

[deleted]
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