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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

#161

Post by gwbas1c »

danaris wrote: post #120
gwbas1c wrote: post #75

I 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…

Sounds to me like the more effective use of residents' time would be to get several of them together to run for town office and break the deadlocks. Assuming you can contact enough other frustrated HOA members and get them onboard, even if the problem is several town board members (or whatever body it is), it could be possible to replace them with sane people.

I don't want to say too much because it would reveal where I live. But, to be general, my town has a very unique political system where a plurality of voters is the deadlock.

Basically, to break the deadlock, it would require a very large plurality of people to overrule a large group of retirees who have nothing better to do but reject adopting our private roads.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#162

Post by gwbas1c »

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.

You pay the current owners as of the date of dissolution. The current owners bought into the HOA from the past owners, and thus assume future liabilities (or profits) from the HOA.

Edit: If/when it becomes known that there will be some kind of a payout, people selling their homes will need to adjust the price and/or expect some kind of credit from the buyer at closing.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#163

Post by next_xibalba »

olddustytrail wrote: post #154
next_xibalba wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the libertarian dream. Unfortunately, the state has an outrageous monopoly on violence.

Outrageous government overreach. Why can't you just choose the corporation to pay the weregild? It would be far more efficient!

If we can put it on the blockchain and power it with genAI, I’ve got a term sheet for you!

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#164

Post by maxerickson »

nkrisc wrote: post #56
drewg123 wrote: post #43

What I found ironic when I moved to suburban Virginia is that the same Tea Party, "Don't Tread on Me" conservatives that want to dismantle government love HOAs. I lived in a neighborhood full of them, with the most strict and annoying HOA. We were forced to wait several weeks to replace an actively leaking roof b/c the HOA had to sign off on the shingles -- even though they were the same color/size/etc as the shingle…

> "Don't Tread on Me" It's right there in the name: don't tread on me , not us . Rules for thee, not for me.

This sort of glib banality is tiresome.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#166

Post by danaris »

OutOfHere wrote: post #136
danaris wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The answer to that is always "you". Well, collectively. An HOA isn't a separate body with no stake in the properties involved—that would be a property management company or something similar. It's a body made up of the people who actually live there. So while they could potentially charge you $3000 or $10,000 in bullshit fines for something they decided you did, they (usually) can't realistically charge you $3000 for…

They can keep increasing the fees 10% every year which compounds pretty fast, certainly a lot faster than the pay raise offered by an employer.

But, again—it compounds for them, too.

Sometimes, this won't matter, because "they" are making millions a year (or are married to someone who is—often, toxic HOA members are stay-at-home spouses with little else to occupy them), so I'm not saying this doesn't happen, but we're not talking about some third-party management company raising prices so that they make more profit. We're talking about a cooperative raising fees for its own members—including the board members—which go into the common coffers.

Unless, y'know, we're talking about active embezzlement. Which does happen, but is obviously a failure mode and not normal operation.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#167

Post by pwg »

qualeed wrote: post #113
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…

> It all depends on who was elected and who votes. If I had to pick one thing I dislike the most about HOAs, it would be this. There is never a guarantee that your quiet HOA will remain that way in the future. Which, to me , seems like a crazy chance to take. > we have a shared park, community space, and where I live lots of irrigation. This is where my confusion comes in. My local government handles this sort of stu…

> >It all depends on who was elected and who votes.

> If I had to pick one thing I dislike the most about HOAs, it would be this. There is never a guarantee that your quiet HOA will remain that way in the future. Which, to me, seems like a crazy chance to take.

Exactly this. HOA boards have a great tendency to attract the interests of the most busy-body, have to dictate to everyone what they do, Karen's that exist in the area covered by the HOA. Such that, over time, the original HOA that just maintained common areas and only got involved in egregious violations mutates into one that has rules specifying exactly where, by measurement, you are to position your trash container in relation to your garage door when it is not out front for trash pickup day. One of the worst offenders of HOA's near me has exactly that rule (position of trash container in relation to garage door) and the HOA has paid "inspectors" to drive around each trash pickup day after the HOA decreed time that the container should be returned to this location, to look for violations of the position and write folks up.

There was an entire story in the local newspaper about this pettiness on the part of this particular HOA (which is how I learned they had "trash can position relative to garage door" rules and that they had paid "inspectors" to monitor compliance).

And all it takes is for those with "controlling personality disorder" [1] to start running, and getting, elected to the HOA boards for this to happen. And for most HOA areas, the only population group even interested in running for HOA board member are the "controlling personality disorder" types. So no matter who one votes for, the HOA slowly mutates into a "control everyone, everywhere, all the time" one.

[1] I.e., those personality types that want to control everything that someone else is allowed to do.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#168

Post by firesteelrain »

therealpygon wrote: post #156
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 don’t believe this to be entirely the case, having served as President of a HOA for 10 years. HOAs are generally incorporated and hold said property. Should the Mandatory HOA be banned, the corporation could simply switch to private membership and offer access to amenities to those outside the community. If the residents don’t want that, they’d need to pay up. Condos, however, likely have different needs because of…

Check your governing documents. I just checked mine and it says that the assets all become public assets. Not private.

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#169

Post by firesteelrain »

gwbas1c wrote: post #162
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.

You pay the current owners as of the date of dissolution. The current owners bought into the HOA from the past owners, and thus assume future liabilities (or profits) from the HOA. Edit: If/when it becomes known that there will be some kind of a payout, people selling their homes will need to adjust the price and/or expect some kind of credit from the buyer at closing.

I actually went and looked at our governing docs. It says money goes back into the public coffers.

Of course law can be changed

Re: Florida lawmaker floats ban on HOAs amid growing backlash

#170

Post by firesteelrain »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #149
dgrin91 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 woul…

Unfortunately when a home is appraised, the solvency of the HOA is not allowed to be taken into account
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