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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

#141

Post by LargeWu »

ghaff wrote: post #130
LargeWu wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the absence of an HOA, what you're describing as "shared facilities for a group of private individuals" would be commonly considered a private club. The difference is most private clubs that are not HOA's are not tied to owning specific property. For example, my sister belongs to a private pool club in their neighborhood. They pay membership dues to the club which provides operating revenue for the pool facilities…

Some things like beaches/pools/golf clubs/etc. can generally be policed with tokens/keys and so forth. That is not generally true of all shared facilities in a neighborhood. And I'm not at all sure the local government should be responsible for anything that residents should care to share on a communal basis. Want a playground or dog park? That's the government's responsibility? Maybe. But now that's up to a broader…

>> Want a playground or dog park? That's the government's responsibility? Maybe

Yes, this is how it works pretty much everywhere else. Even my rural hometown with <1500 people has an elected park board that is responsible for parks, the swimming pool, tennis courts, summer rec programs, etc.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#142

Post by fred_is_fred »

OutOfHere wrote: post #104
fred_is_fred wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You hear the bad stories. It all depends on who was elected and who votes. Most HOAs are not the horror stories you hear, just a quiet entity that maintains common property and is a backup solution for problems (when talking to neighbor does not work). Mine is cheap, like $300/year and we have a shared park, community space, and where I live lots of irrigation. They only send out letters for egregious violations and…

What's stopping them from charging you $3000 or even $10000 next year, or escalating progressively to these numbers? What's stopping them from adding ten new ridiculous rules? Nothing. It's about giving up your freedom.

What's stopping my city, county, or state from doing the same?

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#143

Post by ajsnigrutin »

mschuster91 wrote: post #133
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ha…

> 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 Forcing mandatory attendance for HOA votes won't work out, that's the thing. Too many cases of remote landlords, properties stuck in inheritance limbo, or even First Amendment issues (can you be compelled to make speech, aka participate in a vote?). Requiring a "70% of all owner shares" woul…

So, no vote then, no action, same as in every other non-HOA neighborhood.

But if something bothers 70%+ of people enough to come and vote, it gets resolved HOA-style.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#144

Post by OutOfHere »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #142
OutOfHere wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's stopping them from charging you $3000 or even $10000 next year, or escalating progressively to these numbers? What's stopping them from adding ten new ridiculous rules? Nothing. It's about giving up your freedom.

What's stopping my city, county, or state from doing the same?

Exactly, so why would I volunteer to one or a few more of these layers of uncertainty if I can avoid them?

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#145

Post by duxup »

techpineapple wrote: post #137
tallanvor wrote: post #26

The problem you'll run into is when the HOAs are responsible for common areas or shared infrastructure. In some places the HOAs are responsible for the roads and there may be a common pool, gym, or other amenities. You'd be better off preventing HOAs from doing petty things like requiring homes to be painted certain colors and requiring them to have their books audited yearly to ensure there's no fraud or abuse going…

Privatize it. If I want the road in front of my house fixed, I'll pay for it, I can get a pool membership, gym membership, or other amenities ad-hoc. Fuck the HoA.

Good luck if you're the person who is on the lot where there is more traffic than others. Now you're paying for more road reparis than anyone else.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#146

Post by duxup »

propter_hoc wrote: post #105
firesteelrain wrote: post #45

I 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…

I upvoted you despite entirely disagreeing with your premise. Yes - negotiate with the county to take over management of the playgrounds and lawn mowing. Yes - make the clubhouse and parking lots open, fee-based and voluntary, and controlled by a private corporation rather than an imposed, taxed service. Yes - return the excess money to the current homeowners, or use some of it to effectuate these conversions. Honest…

Cities or counties suddenly having to take over lots of road, playgrounds, sidewalks, street lights, and etc is going to be a big drain on their budget. Sure they could run with the HOA's money for a while but eventually they're going to have to pay.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#147

Post by chucksta »

techpineapple wrote: post #137
tallanvor wrote: post #26

The problem you'll run into is when the HOAs are responsible for common areas or shared infrastructure. In some places the HOAs are responsible for the roads and there may be a common pool, gym, or other amenities. You'd be better off preventing HOAs from doing petty things like requiring homes to be painted certain colors and requiring them to have their books audited yearly to ensure there's no fraud or abuse going…

Privatize it. If I want the road in front of my house fixed, I'll pay for it, I can get a pool membership, gym membership, or other amenities ad-hoc. Fuck the HoA.

HoA is literally privatized governance

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#148

Post by [deleted] »

wat10000 wrote: post #34
tallanvor wrote: post #26

The problem you'll run into is when the HOAs are responsible for common areas or shared infrastructure. In some places the HOAs are responsible for the roads and there may be a common pool, gym, or other amenities. You'd be better off preventing HOAs from doing petty things like requiring homes to be painted certain colors and requiring them to have their books audited yearly to ensure there's no fraud or abuse going…

We used to have local governments provide that sort of thing (and still do to an extent). One reason for the prevalence of HOAs is that they have a much easier time keeping out the riffraff with uncomfortably dark skin, but maybe people will just have to put up with them.

[deleted]

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#149

Post by BobaFloutist »

dgrin91 wrote: post #97
RandomBacon wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who are you charging $175?

I think what GP is saying is that if I was a homeowner for 30 years, paid HOA fees all those years, then last year sold to someone else, who gets the HOA reimbursement then? I paid thousands over years and would presumably get nothing, while some other guy who just moved in all of a sudden gets a big check? That seems unfair.

I would assume the sale price of your property would be higher if it's part of a well managed HOA with 500k in reserves than if it's part of a dysfunctional, insolvent HOA, so the previous property owner kinda already got paid out for their contributions.

It's like selling shares of a company with significant cash reserves before/after they choose to liquidate a chunk of them into dividends or stock buy-backs, I would hope you priced the shares accordingly and have nothing to be mad about.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#150

Post by BobaFloutist »

LargeWu wrote: post #87
ghaff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ok, how about "Other people in our city refuse to raise taxes enough to maintain things to our standards, let's make a coalition of neighbors that all donate monthly to pay for additional upkeep for our neighborhood instead of each negotiating individually with different landscapers etc?"

It's popular to shit on HOAs, largely because Americans (of which I am one) are allergic to paying taxes and being told what to do, but if you call it a "Neighborhood co-op" all of a sudden it's not clear why it shouldn't be allowed. Whatever happened to freedom of association?

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