Posted on 11/28/2022 7:20:39 AM PST by george76
I own a second home in Pagosa Springs, CO. A couple years ago the HOA for Pagosa Lakes went full dictator and declared war on short term rentals in Pagosa Lakes. We home owners were not able to vote on this; they simply declared it with minimal input from the owners. When I sent a scathing letter that included the “damn” word I was informed of another policy they enacted without input. If they don’t like your correspondence you are subject to a $500 fine for the first offense, $10,000 for the second and $20,000 for the third. Gee, what kind of message is that sending?
You can still offer up your home in Pagosa Lakes for a short term rental, but first you must buy a special expensive permit from the HOA and the county assessor will reassess your home at TRIPLE the market value and you will be taxed accordingly. Mission accomplished: most owners opted out of short term rentals.
When I bought my place five years ago approximately 70% percent of the homes in Pagosa Lakes were second homes for people living elsewhere (mostly Texas, according to our real estate agent), and I doubt that has changed much. This is what is called a resort community. Many of us purchased homes here because we wanted the option of short term rental income. The Board of Directors for the HOA laughably tried to rationalize their decision. The real reason is pure NIMBY; they and their friends can’t stand Texas riff-raff in Pagosa.
The Board says local workers cannot find affordable housing due to the homes being used for AirBNB. Sorry Board, not my problem. You are my HOA, not a social outreach program that I sponsor with my dues. I drove an hour each way to my job for most of my life and I had roommates until I was forty years old. You want to live in a resort community or other desirable place you got to suck it up.
Does the Board REALLY think those AirBNB homes will convert to long term rentals? Of course not! Those idiots know we want to visit our second home frequently and don’t want someone living there full time (whoops, give me a minute while I whip out a check for 500 clams, or am I up to ten grand?).
So how has this played out? No post-Covid recovery for Pagosa. The short term renters used to come in and spend like drunken sailors. It being a vacation they would bring extra money. They’d load up at the pot shops and the liquor stores because you can’t get pot in Texas, and because beer, wine, and liquor costs 30% more in The Lone Star State. They would ski at the nearby resort, because, you know, skiing sucks in Texas and they would enjoy the famous Pagosa hot springs. Imagine the rage this causes the Board. Texans in our hot springs! Gross!
Now the small businesses still surviving are largely up for sale. On top of that, 70% of the homes and businesses going dark in Pagosa attracted the tweakers from Durango, Sante Fe and Taos. Our home was recently broken into by a pair of meth heads from Taos, one of whom is currently in jail there. They lived in our shed for a week or two getting high on hand sanitizer and leaving a pile of cigarette butts and beer cans and broken glass on two doors. The responding sheriff’s deputies said this problem spiked shortly after the Board’s decision to eliminate short term rentals and is a continuing problem throughout Pagosa Lakes.
...
So the geniuses solved the worker rental housing crisis by eliminating many of the jobs. I picture the Board members sitting blissfully on their deck in the pines, wearing their masks, relieved at not having to hear rednecks or local workers living it up next door.
I offered this story to two “newspapers” in Pagosa Springs and received no replies. It probably radiated like nuclear waste from their screens, a veritable Cleveland Steamer. You see, advertising (i.e., survival) for these corndog wrappers comes mostly from the huge number of real estate firms in town. God forbid word gets out to potential buyers that the local HOA is fascist as Hell and does whatever they want with YOUR home and your home is not safe from tweakers.
It distresses me that I cannot ask these town newspapers to pursue important stories that affect their community. Their interests lie elsewhere.
They don't "suddenly own it."
The property goes through a tax foreclosure process. And if you have $400,000 in equity in a property with $10,000 in unpaid taxes, the government doesn't get $400,000 out of the deal.
The person in the story should have been more proactive like joining the Board and/or becoming a Board member. No sympathy is given by me.
Residents where I live do not want to be Board members or attend meetings.
I would add, though, that I would not jump to conclusions and blame the developers for establishing stupid HOA rules. I learned that three general things need to be considered:
1. Developers establish rules based on the legal requirements in the state where the development is located. Those original legal requirements may be completely outdated by the time you get there years later.
2. HOA rules are generally set up to protect the developer until a sizable majority -- maybe at least 75% -- of the units are sold. The last thing a developer wants is to have 40 out of 100 lots sold and then lose control of an HOA board while still trying to sell the remaining 60 lots.
3. The developer's primary goal in setting up HOA rules is to ensure that the homes in the development are appealing to the first generation of owners. The rules that work for the first generation may not be ideal for later generations of owners.
Or maybe the HOA was established with an expectation that additional homes would be included, but they never were?
Check the deed you signed when you bought the property. The only restrictions you are REQUIRED to obey are the ones written on the deed. The HOA cannot enforce anything else.
I use the word "renter" because these people do not actually own their property. The rights and privileges of the HOA and the property management company trump the rights of the nominal owner.
There is no way for someone to leave the "Home Owners Association" while keeping their home. Any group that will not allow you to leave freely is not a free association.
HOA's as they are currently structured are Un-American.
That may be true, but in every case where I've dealt with a property owner in a condominium/HOA, the deed to each individual property has a provision that says something to this effect: "... subject to the Master Deed, Restrictive Covenants, and Bylaws of the ABC Homeowners Association ... (etc.)"
And when you look at those corresponding documents for the HOA, you see that the HOA has not only an existing set of restrictions you are required to obey, but a legal process in place to amend them or add more.
The wife and I were in a HOA here in central Texas for 10 years. Won’t make that choice again but we did sell at almost twice what we paid just 10 years earlier. That was 16 years ago.
You're not kidding. They are a plague.
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