Homeowners Associations can, indeed, wreck your life. So there isn’t much humor in the anti-HOA movement. Still, it’s great to see a homeowners rights advocate in Texas making such a good video and sharing it with the rest of the world.
Turn up the volume, click on the video, sit back and enjoy!
http://www.classclownpictures.com/
http://www.classclownpictures.com/
by the Real Estate Bloggers
It is one of those horrible scenarios, but you may be on the hook for a potentially large assessment from your homeowners association, and not even know it. In fact, your homeowners association may be close to being broke…
When you buy a home that is governed by a homeowners association you sign a long document that gives the association certain powers over your property. Typically you get the bylaws right around closing time as you have 100 plates spinning in the air, and you give it a quick glance at the homeowner bylaws and then sign that you agree to be bound by them.
This could be costly. These agreements govern how the homeowners association can collect their dues, including potentially foreclosing on your house to do so, how you must maintain your home, and assess special fees if the association needs to make upgrades or create new amenities.
So you may wake up one day to hear about a $10,000 assessment because the association feels the need to fix a problem or add an amenity and it will be coming out of your bank account.
Now here is the scariest part, a majority of the homeowners associations in the United States are underfunded. The housing crisis has put incredible pressure on the associations as people just can not pay their dues, or the homes in their neighborhoods are in foreclosure.
Foreclosures on delinquent properties by homeowners associations were almost unheard of before the financial crisis of 2008. Now lawyers and real estate researchers say they are becoming more common as association funding bases shrink because of previously foreclosed homes’ standing empty. About 70 percent of association-governed communities are underfunded, up 12.5 percent from 10 years ago, according to Association Reserves. The average association has financial reserve accounts — the amount required to maintain infrastructure and common areas — that are only funded at 52 percent, down from 60 percent a decade ago, its research shows. via AOL Real Estate
This is not to scare you from buying a home with a homeowners association, but do read the documents when looking at the neighborhoods and ask about potential assessments in the future, or common maintenance issues that you see. It may save you from an expensive mistake.
(link to The Real Estate Bloggers)
http://www.therealestatebloggers.com/is-your-homeowners-association-underfunded/
I still think I’m right on target in predicting a coming housing and HOA bubble that will make the 2008-2009 implosion look like child’s play. And this one is aimed EXACTLY at the country’s Homeowners Associations. This is a crisis to be very afraid of.
The New York Post story linked below discusses it, not as a housing crisis, but as a lack of spending crisis.
Demographics show our population is aging. Older people have already paid for their cars, their homes, their toys. If we follow Japan’s financial implosion in the 1980s people will suddenly have no money to spend. That means a disaster for aging Homeowners Associations.
More folks will be moving out, deflation means home prices will start dropping like a rock. HOA budgets will be crushed. As evidenced by their behavior over the past eight or nine years, HOA lawyers will be filing more liens, lawsuits and foreclosures over increasingly minor infractions.
As you read this New York Post story, keep thinking about the potential impact on your HOA investment or the real value of your vacation home!
One of our blog members in Tennessee says the CAI appears to be the only group spending its lobbying money on a Homeowners Association bill now before the legislature.
The proposed bill would make important changes to protect private homeowners in that state.
But the crows at CAI have billions of dollars at their disposal.They make sure that Tennessee lawyers have guaranteed employment as they dip deeply into the pockets of homeowners.
The bill actually sounds like a pretty good one. But in HOA Amerika logic and justice are not really compatible concepts.
The following is an exact copy of what a CAI bigwig is telling his minions to lobby:
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To: All Community Association Board Members
From: Scott Ghertner
Date: February 6, 2014 Subject: Urgent legislative call to action – HB 2060 and SB 2098
As Chairman of the Tennessee CAI Legislative Action Committee and Co-President of Ghertner & Company, I would like to immediately bring to your attention some very disturbing legislation being introduced this month in our Tennessee legislature. Representative Jeremy Durham and Senator Jack Johnson, both of Williamson County, are co-sponsoring a bill (HB 2060 in the House and SB 2098 in the State Senate) that seeks to significantly diminish the authority of condominium and home owner associations in Tennessee.
This bill if passed will:
Eliminate the automatic lien that associations have with regard to delinquent payers , thereby potentially
jeopardizing the financial solvency of associations and the willingness of lenders to make loans to associations and unit owners;
Limit the amount an association can fine for rule violations;
Attempt to insert State rules regarding parking enforcement on public streets within the association; Prohibit associations from enforcing covenant restrictions with regard to political signs.
Please contact these leaders today and inform them that you want them to withdraw this bill immediately!
Senator Jack Johnson at 615-741-2495 or via email at sen.jack.johnson@capitol.tn.gov
Representative Jeremy Durham at 615-741-1864 or via email at rep.jeremy.durham@capitol.tn.gov
You can also contact the following members of the House Business and Utilities Subcommittee who will hear House Bill 2060 and let them know that you do not support this bill. Please remember the committee members listed below did not introduce this bill and will be hearing about this bill for the first time next week. So we ask you only to communicate to them your opposition to this proposed bill.
Chairman Art Swann at 615-741-5481 or via email at rep.art.swann@capitol.tn.gov
Representative Kent Calfee at 615-741-7658 or via email at rep.kent.calfee@capitol.tn.gov
Representative Barry Doss at 615-741-7476 or via email at rep.barry.doss@capitol.tn.gov
Representative Pat Marsh at 615-741-6824 or via email at rep.pat.marsh@capitol.tn.gov
Representative Jason Powell at 615-741-6861 or via email at rep.jason.powell@capitol.tn.gov
Representative Curry Todd at 615-741-1866 or via email at rep.curry.todd@capitol.tn.gov
Representative Tim Wirgau at 615-741-6804 or via email at rep.tim.wirgau@capitol.tn.gov
Thank you for your attention to this very important issue.
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Now that we know exactly how CAI plans to throw its influence around, they’ve provided a list of legislators who they consider weak…so we can now lobby them right back.
