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An Article |
| Homeowner Association Activist the featured speaker for Young Republicans in Fairfax, Virginia Shu Bartholomew talks about the flaws of common interest developments June 09, 2003 |
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| Fairfax, Virginia -
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Posted on 06/21/2003 3:44:29 PM PDT by Anthem
Sacramento, California -
Down through the centuries, relatively small groups of people have constantly stolen land from others - the Romans, Ghenghis Khan, Hitler and, in this country, the European settlers. As the 21st. century gathers steam, Americans can be forgiven for thinking that these historical atrocities are a thing of the past, at least in their own country. Modern day suburban America with its shopping malls and SUV studded housing tracts may, at first blush, appear to defy history - but a closer look reveals a very different picture.
Across America, an estimated 55 million people live in homeowner associations of one sort or another - more than one in every six citizens. This explosive growth has occurred in the past 40 years, and looks likely to continue unless homeowners band together to stop them.
Very few, if any, people want land for land's sake. People want land for what the land can produce - whether it is crops, animals or homeowner association dues and fines. The means of getting land may change, but the purpose is still the same. Violence has obviously been one of the preferred methods in history, but inducements have also been used.
The European settlers in this country - when they were not using violence - dangled beads and firewater in front of the Native Americans. In the modern day homeowner association, swimming pools, club houses, golf courses are all beguilingly displayed in glossy brochures to entice prospective buyers. The mantra of "Preserving the value of your home" plays persuasively in the background.
The reality of homeowner associations is that they represent the largest grab of land in the U.S. since the European settlers took it all. A coalition of developers, politicians, lawyers, insurance companies and other big money interests have relatively silently placed an economic and cultural stranglehold on one in every six Americans.
The central scenario goes something like this. Developers see that in modern industry, the mass production of products produces mass profits. Hence, they want to apply the techniques of mass production to housing. For this, they need large tracts of land and an infrastructure of roads and schools to support the burgeoning population.
Politicians, always on the prowl for a campaign dollar (and sometimes a bribe) lend a willing ear to the outstretched hand and whispered request of the developer. "You want funding to build the infrastructure, and a law to impose restrictive covenants on all homeowners? No problem!"
Simultaneously, those sharks of the public waterways - lawyers - saw a golden opportunity for more money. Require homeowner associations to be corporations and they will need lawyers. Create bewilderingly complex legislative schemes, and the economic manna will fall from the legislative skies. Build a rapid response defense force of lawyers with almost limitless economic resources in case any homeowner rises in revolt.
The insurance industry - always anxious to ensure its future with new markets - slipped even more money into the already bulging politicians' pockets and asked them to require homeowner associations to purchase large amounts of insurance. Hey presto! - the laws were created.
The hapless homeowner was left with the shell of a house. CCR's (the Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions that govern his property) hemmed him in on every side. He could not put up a basketball hoop for his kids, tree houses were anathema, the type of flowers and bushes were restricted to an "approved list", and he had to get permission for every planting. In essence, the rules and regulations were one big NO - no keeping your garage door open, no flying a flag (one lady in California was forcibly detained in a mental institution for flying the POW-MIA flag in honor of her missing husband).
But this stripping of property rights was a mechanism for stripping homeowners of their money and land. When you live in a homeowners association, you are on an economic treadmill - and you cannot get off it unless you get out of the association.
Monthly dues fund lawyers' fees, management companies, accountants, insurance companies, gardeners and a host of other vendors Those monthly fees can skyrocket if homeowner association boards decide to increase either the regular or special assessment. In Texas, one association went from $2,000 per year to $17,000. In California, one homeowner found his monthly assessment boosted from $200 per month to $900 a month.
But the routine can also become obscene. In many parts of the country, minor fines are imposed on homeowners that mushroom overnight into thousands of dollars.
In California, one homeowner was charged an illegal $5 late charge, which soon became $3,000 - and the association threatened to foreclose on her home. She eventually won that battle after several years of excruciating litigation - but she discovered in the process that the association's management company had a scam going of fining, liening and foreclosing on homes.
In the nationally infamous Blevins case in Texas, an 80 year old woman was evicted from her fully paid home by the sheriff for a few paltry dollars. At foreclosure, lawyers pick up homes for a few thousand dollars.
One association tripled its reserves to $300,000 so that it could sue a homeowner. The homeowner's house had slid 12 inches down a slope, and tilted 12 inches to one side. Despite a city engineering report, an insurance report and a detailed geological report - all stating that watering should be kept to a minimum - the association went to court to get an injunction to keep watering her home. Incredibly, the judge, a former board president of a homeowner's association, granted the request. That legal battle is now entering its fourth year.
These insidious schemes have added fuel to the fire of those who seek to either reform or eradicate homeowner associations. The burgeoning movement, now nationwide, has begun to document the fatal flaws in the homeowner association concept. They see it as the corporatization of the American home, where the tentacles of big money strangle the home in order to produce more money.
They have also come up against the incestuous marriage of politicians and lobbyists. In California, the current governor, Gray Davis, was one of the authors of the Davis-Stirling Act, the legislation that controls homeowner associations in California. (The other author, Larry Stirling, is now a judge in San Diego, and professes that everything is okay with homeowner associations - though he acknowledges that he receives calls from all across the state on the problems that they cause - and even admits that he moved out of one after he and his new wife had problems with his board. )
The Davis-Stirling Act was actually written by the former president of the major lobby group - Community Associations Institute (CAI) - Katherine Rosenberry. This is akin to having the owner of a nuclear power plant write the safety regulations. Davis has been amply rewarded over the years with campaign contributions from CAI lawyers. While his current war chest of $97 million did not come exclusively from CAI lawyers, most of it does come from the same modus operand; - give the lobbyists what they want.
Homeowners repeatedly discover that these lawyers, insurers and management companies form an unholy alliance with the very government enforcement agencies who are supposed to protect the public. In California, the Attorney General's office and the Insurance Commission refuse to enforce consumer protection laws "because it is not one of our priorities". The Department of Real Estate, run by industry insiders and political patron commissions on $150,000 salaries, refuse to support more disclosure in homeowner associations "because it will hurt sales".
All of the above - and more - represents a very disturbing trend among a whole series of very disturbing trends in modern society. The home - historically recognized as central to a person's cultural and psychological well-being - has now become a pawn in the machinations of lawyers, politicians, developers and the like.
Once bastion of a person's liberty, it has now been reduced to 4 walls and a roof that are hemmed in on every side, and that are a cash register for the new type of land grabbers. In our cyber world, brute physical force has often been replaced by the sword of law, the prisons of unjust institutions, legalized thievery embodied in statutes.
Physical force is always available to the new invaders, but they realized long ago, that the legal and economic nets that you throw over a society may be even more effective.
So as we begin the first few years of the 21st. century, homeowner associations careen down a road that leads us away from the fundamental vision of a home as being the place where a homeowner grows and has his being. A home is essentially a spiritual place - a place where the human spirit lives in peace. The home fostered by Davis and others invades the very sanctity of a person's existence.
Whatever wisdom is, it is certainly not wise to so damage a person's existence in such a radical way. History has shown that such actions reap terrible harvests. Until those of wisdom and courage take over the seats of power, human beings will simply be passengers in the back seats of vehicles driven by deranged and crooked minds. As such vehicles are certainly assured of coming to a horrible accident, you should either get out of the vehicle or replace the driver.
BTW, I'm looking for an attorney to sue my HOA (King County, WA). Maybe just an advisor to a pro se suit. Thanks.
With Zoning, a board of politicians can destroy your property values at the whim of a campaign contributor.
Even were Zoning Boards honest, it is still a terrible idea to give that power to the government.
Despite all the whining, Homeowners Associations are agreed to voluntarily.
You decide whether or not you want to buy a home that is subject to one. No one can impose one on you at a later time without your consent. You are given a copy of the Association Rules, and of the procedures by which the rules can be changed.
If you don't like what your homeowners Assn is doing to you, you didn't read the papers before you signed them.
I would suggest that you visit that site and take a look at what can happen to your agreement at the hands of the HOA board. Look at how minor violations and late dues payments can be very quickly be turned into huge legal fees. Its a racket for lawyers and real estate predators.
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An Article |
| Homeowner Association Activist the featured speaker for Young Republicans in Fairfax, Virginia Shu Bartholomew talks about the flaws of common interest developments June 09, 2003 |
|
| Fairfax, Virginia -
|
I lived in Houston for 45 years. It is the only major city in the US without Zoning.
I was dragooned onto an association board at one time, and as a paralegal doing primarilly real estate work read the association rules of hundreds of subdivisions.
I kept up with the serious outrages, those involving real money or outrageous rulings. There were never more than a handful of legitimate outrages a year.
I now live in a much smaller city in North Carolina and scarcely a week goes by without someone being ruined by one of the local Zoning Boards.
The people who have to live next door are considerably less likely to screw you over than some politician who never heard of you and in the event they do, they are a lot easier to sue.
So9
Don't hold your breath! When have you ever seen large numbers of people "wise up" spontaneously?
You might be better off with one of those"fixer uppers" you've found. Even if they require $40K to $50K to fix up, your resulting increase in value will likely be MUCH more. This is a tried and true technique that has made many people lots of money over the years.
I would not like being subject to a homeowners Assn and to a Zoning Board.
Homeowners Assn Rules should be few, unambiguous and very difficult to modify.
You can't generalize that all are bad. Association rules vary from reasonable and unchangeable to a simple majorities ability to do anything.
So9
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