Ah, Bunky.
So you’ve finally gotten that wonderful new job in another city and you’ve gotta put your condo on the market. Well, get ready for some bad news. The boards of Homeowners Associations just love killing real estate transactions. And they’ve got lots ways to do it.
An article in Marketleader.com talks about a few of the ways a Homeowners Association can kill your deal to sell your home to a prospective buyer.
If your HOA has a history of filing liens and lawsuits against homeowners, you might as well donate your property to a charity. You’ll never sell it. And a mortgage company will never let your buyer make the purchase.
If your HOA has any kind of legal history (think Trayvon Martin) then your contract with the new buyer is probably dead.
If there’s any history of discrimination or construction defect litigation, then you may as well kiss your home equity bye-bye.
The mortgage companies are getting wise.
Ladies and Gentlemen: Behold the monster you have created!
HOApologists never explain how perpetual lien rights, and a debt * that can never be paid off, increases the value of a property.
* I don’t use the word “debt” metaphorically. Legally, the assessments owed to the H.O.A. corporation is a “debt”, and the home owenrs are “indebted” as long as they own the property. Like the tax collector, the H.O.A. corporation is never going to say, “That’s it. You’ve paid all the taxes/assessments you’ll ever owe. You can stop paying us now. You will never have to pay us again.”
While the H.O.A. lobby wants home owners to be forever debt slaves, they do not want home owners to have any consumer protections that other debtors are entitled to.
source: Public Policies
Community Associations Institute
2010
ISBN: 0-941301-56-7
page 31
http://www.caionline.org/govt/policies/Documents/public_policies.pdf
Would you describe associations like CAI and ASSOCIA as ‘top predators’ in the human food chain?
I would describe H.O.A. corporations as the face-hugging parasite from the science-fiction movie Alien.
When the crew of the Nostromo attempts to remove the parasite from Kane, they realize that they can’t do so without killing the host. “It’s got a wonderful defense mechanism. You don’t dare kill it.”
That would make C.A.I. and Associa the egg-laying queen from the sequel, Aliens.
Ripley didn’t want to reform the xenomorphs. Her solution was to nuke ’em from orbit. “It’s the only way to be sure”.
Am I reading this correctly? Is the CAI saying they don’t want HOA dues to be considered consumer debt so they can avoid following the laws regarding Fair Debt And Collections? And what about the folks that file bankruptcy and include their HOA dues? I’ve had some neighbors do that. One told me the HOA refuses to remove the lien telling him they will leave it on there until he sells and then they will collect those dues. They were included in a bankruptcy so I can’t figure out how they are able to plan to collect that money when he sells his house.
Yes.
Laws vary from state to state, and details from case to case, but generally, if a home owner has assessments (a.k.a. “H.O.A. dues”) discharged during bankruptcy, the home owner is responsible for any assessments charged after the bankruptcy for as long as he owns the property.
And then there’s this:
After…no, they told this homeowner they will collect the money that was in the bankruptcy when he sells. He also could not get them to release the lien on his property…a practice they never do. Which in the case of a death those who inherit the property have no way of knowing whether the money had been paid or not, so the HOA is in the position to collect twice because the deceased cannot talk. Last I knew of the guy with the bankruptcy he had contacted U.S.Congressman Yoder’s office and they were getting involved. I will give our Kansas legislators and judges credit they don’t mess around with the HOAs. One of them told me “We are good judges of horse flesh, Nila!” These city slicker HOAs and property managers are not going to out smart those farmers turned legislators from rural Kansas!
When I filed a lawsuit to see the financial records I got a call from a homeowner screaming at me to drop the lawsuit. Why? Because she was claiming my lawsuit was keeping her from selling her house. There was no reasoning with this insane woman she was so mad. I called her real estate agent and she explained that it wasn’t my lawsuit that was keeping the sale from happening it was the fact the lender checked the county records and requested the documents. They read the details and saw there was TEN MILLION unaccounted for, the board was refusing to turn over the records by claiming they had none, and the HOA had a countless number of unpaid bills. Based on all that, the lender decided not to write a mortgage. To this day, any time that woman sees me she starts in about how I kept her from selling her house. She refuses to understand that my interest, efforts and expense to pursue records was to her benefit, too. I should add, the board president, under oath, told the judge there were no records….only to be caught a year later shredding them. At that point she claimed they just found them. However, the detective that was working on the case through the District Attorney’s office told me that was lie because she gave him access to those records just weeks after she testified there were no records. And this my fellow HOA sufferers, is the type of lying, insanity, and stress I have dealt with for the past eight years!