$70,000 to $90,000 per condo owner is what’s needed to repair major structural problems since the reserve account is bone dry.
Victor Salcana and his wife saved to purchase in Colina Condominium Complex in South San Francisco. She’s joined the board hoping to become a miracle worker and keep all 144 unit owners from having to write these checks…or go into foreclosure, if they don’t.
Richard Munson, President of the California Association of Homeowners Associations says, “Mismanagement of HOAs is widespread.” And since boards are generally lay people and property managers aren’t required to be licensed it’s the blind leading the blind. Who couldn’t have guessed that?
Once again, listen to the adage…the best day in an HOA is the day you move out!
Now that I’m out of and away from the Colorado flood I’m watching aerial video of the damage. I’ve seen some bad disasters in my life, but nothing like this one. This single cloudburst caused damage across Eastern Colorado from the Wyoming border to the New Mexico border.
Colorado has about 8000 Homeowners Associations, many of them in eastern Colorado, right in the flood ravaged areas. At some point, all those HOA members are going to be told they don’t qualify for disaster relief since the federal government considers Homeowners Associations and co-ops to be non-profit private associations where ‘homeowners’ are actually shareholders or groups of investors in a neighborhood and its common areas. They can still apply for federal loans, but by living in an HOA they have removed themselves from the ability to get federal aid.
Congress could change that, of course, but with the country facing sixteen trillion dollars of debt there’s a huge question as to whether the feds would change the rules. Perhaps China would help us? After all, we’re their biggest customer. All those COSCO container trucks and ships you see on the roads and the seas are owned by the Chinese government. The acronym stands for “China Ocean Shipping Company,” owned by the People’s Republic Of China.
Well, I’m going back to watching video feeds. A pretty good one is being hosted right now by the New York Times.
CalHomeLaw is a subscription-paid site only, and that’s a shame. But I’ll send as many people their direction as I can.
Their latest offering is about SLAPP lawsuits, or Strategic Lawsuits to Stop Public Participation. Thousands, even tens of thousands of these lawsuits are filed each year to intimidate people from exercising their First Amendment rights. People in Homeowners Associations are primary targets.
If you ask to see the HOA’s financial budgets, you’re liable to get SLAPPED. If you question the legality of a board or management company’s actions, believe me, you’ll get SLAPPED.
If you say, “Hey, that’s not fair!” You’ll get SLAPPED. You’ve got to hire a lawyer and go to court.
There’s a California law against SLAPP suits. The law should be federal. And it should have huge sanctions against lawyers who take part.
There’s zero chance of that happening, since most people in Congress are lawyers who benefit from filing SLAPP suits.
Still, there is a God. And we can pray for such a miracle.
Yes, I was one of those trapped in Boulder, Colorado when walls of water streamed out of the canyons and smashed into the town. There’s just no way to describe the terror of trying to escape a flood with walls of water several feet high crashing into your car in virtually every intersection. If the amounts of water that flooded Boulder County were turned into equivalent snow amounts, this storm would have produced a blizzard that amounted to 18 feet of snow! I started trying to get out of town at about 5pm and finally poured myself into bed nine hours later. This is usually a thirty minute drive for me.
But what a blessing the police officers, firemen and emergency workers were. I never saw a speck of anger or frustration with us common folk as they put up the barricades and tried to turn around motorists like me who should never have tried the all night drive.
The pictures on the news just don’t give the real drama and scope of this flood. Whole hillsides were washed down, thousands, even tens of thousands of homes will have some kind of water damage. Thousands of roads will need major repairs. A major sewage plant was ruined and there were at least three dams that either broke or were predicted to break. Some homeowners who thought they were safe building higher on the mountain did exactly the wrong thing, because raging torrents of water and boulders the size of bowling balls were running right through their living rooms. It seemed the higher I climbed on the mountain the more raging the torrents became.
A five-hundred year flood they’re calling this one. I kept looking for Noah, but I guess the Ark had filled up fast and floated on out of town.
But if you’ve ever dreamed of owning a house in Boulder, now’s the time. A ton of people want to move out and never go through this kind of thing again. Offer a bid. You’d be surprised how fast your offer would be taken.
As regular readers of this blog already know, I never recommend books other than my own! But once you read Neighbors At War! The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association, then I heartily recommend another one. I probably read it twenty five years ago, but while packing up books I ran across this oldie but goodie. It’s super short and clever, but it’s a fun read!
29 Reasons Not To Go To Law School, by Ralph Warner & Toni Ihara. Ignore Amazon’s high prices, you can probably pick a used copy up for a buck or two.
