Tag Archives: HOA Hell

This Is How We Treat Our Veterans?!?

Being an injured veteran, back home from fighting our wars abroad, you’d think Americans might be a little more understanding and compassionate. But the tiny-minded Water Oaks neighborhood on Florida’s Emerald Coast apparently feels like it’s a little too good for a lowly former Army NCO.

Sgt. First Class Shane Jernigan is a first class fellow. His neighbors are acting like a bunch of slimy low-lifes. Jernigan has been in one fight after another as his Homeowners Association tries to make him so miserable he’ll leave. But he’s a fighter. This HOA and its law firm (one of the most notoriously litigious in the whole state) is trying to spend him to death.

It’s a strange irony, the name of the town where all this is going on. Niceville. You can’t make these things up!

(link to Daily News story of Jernigan’s fight)

 

 

Huffington Post Gets HOA Stuff Right

I’m not much of a fan of the Huffington Post, but they’re the latest media outlet to try to warn prospective homeowners about the dictatorial power of HOAs. They don’t go deep enough, but at least they touch on a number of the kinds of abuses that all homeowners should be thoroughly educated about.

The main message they don’t hit hard enough is NEVER BUY INTO AN HOA!!!  They also don’t warn you how much your property values can collapse in a poorly run association. Ah, well, I guess that’s what the rest of us are for.

(link to HuffPo warning about Homeowners Associations)

 

Another Red, White and Blue Atrocity!

Strange how violently some Homeowners Associations react to any display of patriotism. But it happens over and over against across the country. Display the flag and risk verbal abuse, neighborhood shaming, fines, liens and foreclosures.

But it’s all about following the money. Give your HOA an excuse, let them believe you’ve got some equity in your home and you’ll be targeted by a rogue board for any reason, even the display of an American flag.

(link to story on a Michigan woman who could lose her home over a flag)

 

Kansas City Star’s Ripples Continue To Spread

Not too much commentary tonight. But a small Washington State newspaper has cited reporter Judy Thomas’s expose’ from a few weeks ago.

Yup. The word’s getting around to all corners of the country.

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FROM THE SUBURBAN TIMES, Pierce County, Washington

Letter: Lakewood’s RIP, a glorified ‘HOA from hell’?

“Home associations that once protected residents now prey on them,” read the August 3, 2016 headline in the Kansas City Star. Author Judy L. Thomas describes some of the highlights – or perhaps more appropriately the lowlights – of home associations gone bad.

From purple playsets (color not appropriate), to window curtains (only blinds allowed), “outlandish rules – from the farcical to the frightening – are being enforced by homes associations,” observed Thomas from her research of HOAs across the country.

Coming to a city near you?

Lakewood’s Rental Inspection Program (RIP) – officially “Rental Housing Safety Program” – is ostensibly built around the premise that the “protection” of Lakewood citizens is paramount.

That’s what the aforementioned HOAs said.

Lakewood’s official statement as found on its website:

“The Rental Housing Safety Program will protect the public health, safety and welfare of tenants by encouraging proper maintenance of residential housing, by identifying and requiring correction of substandard housing conditions, and by preventing conditions of deterioration and blight that could adversely impact the quality of life in Lakewood.”

“Proper maintenance,” as defined by the HOAs in Thomas’ series, meant fining a resident nearly $9,000 for beautifying a 3-by-4-foot common area with 36 planted pansies; “fines for leaving garage doors open”; and “‘unattractive’ flower pots on a front step” to name a few.

Far-fetched for our familiar environs?

Lakewood’s “Rental Housing Safety Program Inspection Checklist” (Draft), Section 1, “Exterior Site Conditions” includes (1.7) as a potential violation: “Property and surrounding landscape properly maintained.”

This is a safety issue?

Truth be told, 1.7 adds “noxious weeds and overgrown vegetation” as anathemas to the more generalized – and subjectively obnoxious – “properly maintained” inspector’s judgement call.

And this of course harkens back to a time in early incorporation history when Lakewood Code Enforcement ran amok through the town seizing property and serving court summons for property violations – so many in fact that due process was jettisoned in favor of expediency.

And this then begs the question, is RIP really about safety or is it about controlling someone’s legacy?

I ‘asked’ Dr. Z (Camillo Zacchia, psychologist and senior advisor at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute) about that.

“Very few kids say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a control freak.’ Yet somehow the world keeps getting populated by them. What’s up with that?”

Dr. Z answers: “If they know what they are doing, control freaks are great to have around, especially when things really matter. In situations that are not so important, however, their insistence on having things their way makes them unpleasant to be around.”

From HOAs to RIPs, it is evidently human nature to be controlling, sometimes freakily so

Comments

  1. David Wilson says

    Rental Housing Safety Program has nothing in common with HOA’s. Keep reaching.

    RHSP not RIP.

    “The Rental Housing Safety Program will protect the public health, safety and welfare of tenants by encouraging proper maintenance of residential housing, by identifying and requiring correction of substandard housing conditions, and by preventing conditions of deterioration and blight that could adversely impact the quality of life in Lakewood.”

    Worth being copied again.

    Yea!

  2. Chris Anderson says

    Whether RHSP is RIP or not isn’t the issue…goverment overreach is, and what Lakewood is doing is just that….how very Orwellian of them.

 

HOAs on Steroids!

I’ve written about this before, but if you want to see what happens when Homeowners Associations take over the reigns of government, you need go no further than what was formerly known as the “Cocaine Capitol of the World,” Aspen, Colorado.

Aspen is sometimes known as ‘Hollywood East.’ All the big movie stars have second homes there. Visit a couple of neighborhood bars and you’re more than likely to spot a half dozen TV and movie celebrities. Millionaires and zillionaires everywhere.

But all of that glitz and glamour has to be supported by an infrastructure of waiters and waitresses, desk clerks, bartenders and room maids. And when every home within spitting distance of Aspen is worth millions, where do these ‘common people’ live? They simply have to find lower income housing dozens of miles and many commute hours away from town.

What to do? What to do?

Well, the glitzy ritzies have come up with a plan. Public housing, subsidized by tax dollars. If you’re a so-called Aspen ‘poor person’ you can apply for subsidized housing. Yes, you can live in a zillion dollar home for pennies on the dollar and the taxpayer foots the bill.

My explanation is admittedly simplistic, but Homeowners Associations in Aspen have discovered that they can make a fortune by sucking at the public teat. Drain money from the taxpayers to make up for million dollar mortgages in homes that are leased to renters who could care less about maintaining property values as long as they get free housing. And property owners are promised their share of the taxpayer pot if they make their winter homes available for occasional use by the city.

Gosh, where have we heard this kind of thing before?

It’s controversial. It’s not exactly what you would call free market capitalism. It’s a complete distortion of Marketing Principles 101. But Aspen sort of lives life its own way. As rich a community as it is, it’s hard to get away without snorting some money out of the community trough.

For the rich and poor, it’s hard to turn down free money.

(link to story in Aspen Times on taxpayer subsidized house)