Posted on 02/08/2015 9:27:33 AM PST by Oldpuppymax
Committees are now drafting bills to be presented in the March session of the Florida legislature. If enough citizen input is received demanding regulation of single family residences in Florida’s gated communities and regulation of drug-re-hab centers now being located in private neighborhoods (which may or may not be gated), relief just may be coming for oppressed homeowners, their families, their children!
About ten years ago, the Flower Pots bill was successfully passed which regulated only residents of condo communities. However, the State of Florida was reluctant to do anything about giving protection to those of us who own and maintain our own homes in gated communities; protection, that is, from the same Condo Commando mentality that made life miserable for condo dwellers. Hopefully, Florida lawmakers will draft and pass legislation that can exemplify for the entire country just what is needed to protect long suffering homeowners from heavy handed tactics of Home Owner Association (HOA) boards of trustees, the legal firms they hire and the management services they engage to “control” residents, many of whom are elderly, sick, or too beaten down to fight back.
We all become aware of the tensions bubbling just beneath the surface of these Potemkin villages when some sick veteran is put through the HOA meat grinder when he tries to fly the American flag in front of a home he fought and sacrificed to make safe. But here are important issues Florida’s lawmakers need to address first: 1. TERM LIMITS now are vital to stop the ingrained and perhaps, self-serving mindset of HOA board members who are returned to office by select cliques which they accommodate in a quid-pro-quo of political nastiness that shuts out other homeowners. One HOA just had their lawyers deem it perfectly acceptable to hold another election when...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
Within a few months pretty much the only people that showed up at the meetings were the board members and a few real estate agents who had bought properties in the complex to make it easier to buy and sell other properties in the complex.
Most residents are apathetic. It's not about being sheepish. It's about being self-absorbed. They somehow find time to write long complaint letters, but can't manage to show up for meetings or hearings.
I've only lived in one HOA and ours happens to be run fine. The members are volunteers who have jobs so they don't go out of their way looking for things to do.
Maybe the worst horror stories are from those places run by retirees with more time on their hands than they know what to do with.
Thank you for your reasoned and professional comments. Replies like yours is why I love FReeRepublic.
Class O' 98.
No I can't. If I chose to live in a HOA I'd obey the parking rules. I wouldn't park in someone else's spot and I wouldn't put my car up on cinder blocks.
People who move into HOAs and then think they're exempt from the rules are idiots.
Why would you buy a house in a HOA without having a copy of the regulations, reading it over carefully and maybe having your lawyer look at it?
Thanks for the sanity post.
It seems that what is happening in places like Florida is similar to what happened with the "deregulation" of the energy industry and the ENRON fiasco. The "deregulation" was only a partial one and it basically allowed specific corporations to gouge their customers. The government could sit back and say "Hey we're allowing the market to work its magic", but all that was happening was local monopolies were created and exploited by crony capitalists.
It seems that the relationship between HOA's and their members in Florida is similar to the relationship between ENRON and its customers. The government of Florida sits back and says "Hey we don't want to get in the middle between private citizens. We're going to let them settle their own affairs." However, once a person buys into a particular HOA he's sorta stuck. Yes, he can try and sell and find a better HOA, but there are major costs to selling a home and buying a new one. So by Florida standing back and being laissez-faire about HOAs, the HOA's with their larger bankrolls, and lawyers, and management companies can run roughshod over their tenants. Some free market.
No one is suggesting HOAs are good for everyone or even that they would buy into a HOA.
People have a right to sign contracts with all kinds of clauses. Why would you care? Why would you want to restrict other people's freedom?
I would agree with you. Nobody forces anyone to live in a subdivision, and the HOA agreement has to be presented to any buyer before the purchase.
A snowbird senior friend of mine signed on to a Broward county exclusive retirement trailer park deal where seniors would own their trailer but rent the land to a land owner with a HOA arrangement. The owners sold the place.The new owners promptly canceled the HOA arrangement raised the land rental rate $70 to $618 nonthly and eliminated the exclusivity clauses. Is that what this is ?
Ergo, nanny state.
Getting to pay for the privilege of being bossed around by petty tyrants who have the brains and personality of obama.
Something like belonging to a union.
We have right to work, next comes right to live.
If an HOA is made up a small number of homeowners, where everyone is a member of the council and its powers are few and well defined and membership is completely voluntary then you won’t need any contracts.
correction rent the land from the landowner with a HOA attangement.
If I want to buy the house and not join the HOA, that should be my right.
The article I posted wasn’t about someone moving into an HOA and disregarding their rules.
From the article: “On a Friday night last month, Brock pulled his Ford Explorer in front of his home and parked it. Attached to the hitch was a trailer full of sports equipment he uses for his job managing youth sports leagues.
“I’d been home maybe half an hour,” he said, when he came out to get something from the trailer and found a security guard trying to fasten a boot to the trailer wheel.
Brock was confused – and angry. “This is a city-maintained street,” he said, “I was parked legally on a city street.”
Because the HOA doesn’t allow trailers to be parked in front of homes for more than a couple days, Brock drives to his boss’s home in Tijeras every Friday night during league seasons and hauls the trailer to his home in northwest Albuquerque.”
If such a house is on the market, yes.
If it is not on offer you cannot force someone to sell you what you want .... well, unless you are gay and want a gay wedding cake.
It seems you want the government to force someone to sell you something they way you want it.
Ok so you are saying that contracts should not be enforced by the government? You are talking then about no rule of law.
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