Posted on 06/06/2023 5:37:35 PM PDT by simpson96
HOAs ... why is it so many end up being run by jerks?
Because they are control freaks who cannot stand the thought that someone might be doing something they don’t approve of.
IOW, typical democrats/liberals.
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BINGO! Your second sentence perfectly explains why your first sentence is so true. I’m looking at properties on a regular basis and my FIRST instruction to all realtors is to show me absolutely NOTHING that is in an HOA-run community.
Because it's the only thing that allows them to get out their "Inner Hitler".
Not Woody Allen. Groucho.
It's usually the power-mad people who stay on the local boards, where hardly anybody in a 100-unit housing area shows up to vote, so they are elected by the 3 friends who do go to the meeting. It's high school all over again.
Rather than organize block captains, volunteering or fun community events, clean-up days, mulch days, etc., lazy HOAs just keep raising dues so they can pay their friends to do more and more socialist initiatives. Instead of communicating with members and doing their job of ticketing rulebreakers and collecting fines for dog waste and littering violators, they hide their identities and raise everyone's dues so they can pay a board member's brother-in-law to come around 52 times a year to pick up stray trash that should have been billed to the violators.
The worst is the selective targeting. HOA popinjays can really wreck the lives of temporarily vulnerable folks.
See post 24.
HOA presidents are similar to the underachievers who were posted at store entrances to bark at people coming in about masks during those stupid mandates. They’re similar to people who work in HR at companies.
We all know at least one Susan Seman and do our best to avoid them.
There is or was an epic thread on the inter webs about a guy named “Dollyman” who got his Audi booted by Arizona Parking Solutions.
You had to display your parking pass on the rear view mirror but his mirror had fallen off so he put it on the dash where it was plainly visible.
They booted his car so he just rolled it on dollys into the garage to do a bunch of work on it.
APS says he had to pay to have the boot removed. No problem will pay you when I’m done. No you have to pay now to get the boot off. I don’t need it off now. Well we need our boot now. Take it I’m not stopping you. You have to pay. I will when I need to get it off.
Hilarity ensued.
Our HOA had some good folks for a while, but a few years ago, we got one of those power hungry freaks who decided to go after people for nit picky things. She was argumentative. What she did ended up hurting the values of our homes; something she should’ve been interested in.
Instead of working WITH homeowners to resolve problems, she took them to court. It could have been avoided. Few in the neighborhood took kindly to her overreach. It wasn’t long before she started getting harassed, and talked about moving. I wish she had.
One family that she had sent a letter with a fine in it was for grass that was tall. Instead of reaching out to the homeowner first, she sent them a nasty letter. It made a bad situation worse. Turns out there was a death in the family, the husband/father, and they just needed some help. The HOA sending a threatening letter as a first resort is just not helpful. We can do better than that.
Thankfully, after that fiasco, she resigned and several neighbors took up the roles of board members and president. Now when we see something amiss, we approach the neighbor first with, how can we help you?
For the record, I’m not on the board. I wish I didn’t live in an HOA in the first place. We almost got to overturn the rules a few years ago, but guess who counted the ballots, and the rules stay in place for 10 more years? You guessed it. That same woman with the power trip. Funny how the vote was so close, but her side “won” by just a few votes.
Excellent! Glad your neighborhood was able to avert total disaster. Keep after it; talk to people, certainly new people — explain the set-up. Most people don't pay attention to what they are signing on to at settlement.
One good thing done a few years ago here was that a few of us got our board to create and publish a condensed version of the by-laws containing the most important community rules and general info-- what is our board's responsibility, what is the county's, when are the trash and recycling pickups and what are the rules for putting cans out, what are the dog rules and the pool rules, permits for outside renovations, how to be a courteous neighbor, etc.
That "rules" document is one sheet of heavy, colorful paper printed on both sides, distributed to every door, and also appears on the community's web site. During the pandemic so many people were home all day and impinging on others, it had to be reissued—and it has helped a great deal with trespassing, lawn maintenance, trash and dog issues.
I’m glad we have some nice folks on the board, neighborly types. That poor family with the husband/father passing was quite new to the neighborhood, so nobody really knew why all the cars were there one weekend. Then the grass grew in his absence. I don’t think that one woman was the least bit ashamed of herself for sending that letter first. That’s how she handled everything. Oh, yes, this happened during the pandemic, too. He may have even been a covid casualty. Nobody really wanted to pry like that, but it could have been that.
I like your idea of condensing things down to one page front and back. Our documents on the website are almost 20 pages long. I know that’s for legal stuff, but condensing it would be great.
Ours, too—a fat pack of paper in legalese.
Someone on our board was a copywriter with desktop publishing experience, who condensed a draft from the by-laws. It was submitted to the HOA's lawyer who reviewed and added a small piece of boilerplate before it could be finalized in an attractive layout and distributed. It many months of back and forth, but for those of us who really needed relief from several issues, it has worked well.
I’ll pass the suggestion on. Thanks.
First off, an HOA is only as good as the property management company overseeing it and the elected members of the board. In this case, it's West Broward Community Management.
If the president of the HOA was doing her due diligence, those cars would have been towed weeks ago, along with the the other cars with no plates and flat tires. That goes for the two motorcycles that have been parked in the spot reserved for visitors.
Another factoid not mentioned in the video is that each condo is assigned ONE parking spot.
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