Tag Archives: Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

Are Cities Exploiting HOA Owners?

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guest blog by Robert Frank, Colonel, USAF (Ret.)

Will Over-Taxing & Under-Maintaining Infrastructures Lead To Disasters?

Many cities claim to promote long-run ‘sustainability objectives’ following U.N. Agenda 21 policies. But, Homeowners Associations, CICs, CIDs, Condo Associations, acting as ‘private, quasi-governments’ wind up being over-taxed and under-maintained by cities.

The predicted results are windfall profits for industry and government, and failed CIDs. Is this yet another reason the HOA industry and local government is so hostile to those who question their policies and frequent overreaches?

We know that cities or counties charge the same property tax rates for all home owners. But, the costs to support HOA/Condo private property is much less than non-CIDs. This is particularly true in gated HOAs.

So, it can be reasonably argued that the local government organizations who dictate the requirements for CIDs and profit from receiving excessive taxes should either refund the surpluses to unit owners, or reserve the surpluses for future bailouts of failed CIDs.

Spending the surpluses for such unjustified things as vastly increased government worker salaries and pensions while the older CIDs are heading towards failure is unwise, selfish and immoral. This failing CID infrastructure situation for developments over 20 years old is well known.

Professor Evan McKenzie and others offer advice on CIDs to local governments and the industry. IMO those who create and highly profit from the terms, conditions and taxes created through the CID’s master plans cannot shed all responsibilities for helping to bail out failing CIDs.

We all want to avoid the kind of urban blight that happened (for somewhat different reasons) in Detroit, Michigan. But, CID common property structures seem to be designed to fail or require major (unaffordable) renovations within 20 to 50 years. This seems particularly true for gated CIDs and Condos. it seems that inventors and profiteers of such CID plans should be held at least partially responsible for enabling CIDs to sustain themselves over the long-run.

Is it not unreasonable, or at least unrealistic, to dump the total costs of common property replacement infrastructure on the backs of future unit owners using the almost unlimited power of CC&Rs during the last decades of structural life? What will that do to unit values in cities during those final decades?

As industry leaders have written, the future of CIDs is a predictable train wreck. If the HOA/Condo market is to be sustained, major changes are needed NOW in the master plans.

And, community planning is required NOW to build a balance of non-CIDs units where owners are individually responsible for their long-range planning?

Where are the better options? Industry and government demands for maintaining the “CID status quo” appears to be a formula for home owner disasters in our lifetimes!

Important Scam Warning, But Not HOA Related

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Here are some crooks who desperately need to be shut down, so spread the word on this scam to everyone you know.

I just had the most incredible scam caller on my private phone line. By his accent, the guy was obviously from India. He said he was from Windows and that my computer and my website were constantly mailing out error messages to the Windows company. I played along and acted dumb as long as I could. The caller eventually hung up, but he was a very gifted scammer. I searched online to see if others had received a similar phone call and I pulled up the following article:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/10/i-am-calling-you-from-windows-a-tech-support-scammer-dials-ars-technica/

My experience was identical to that of the author of this article. This is apparently a huge world wide scam, and it’s quite convincing so avoid it like the plague.

BTW, if you don’t want to click on the link (which is obviously wise) here’s the following search string I ran on Google:     strange call windows event viewer

It will pull up the same article I’ve linked above.

Feel free to send anyone you know the link to tonight’s post on the Neighbors At War site. Heck, it might even generate some new readers for our regular fare.

-Ward

 

My Own Brother!

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One of my brothers is an attorney in Washington State. He and I don’t quite see eye to eye on the national disgrace known as Homeowners Associations.

So I was sort of stunned this afternoon after listening to him being interviewed on a Seattle radio station. I never knew that he was a historian and expert on the American Revolution. And I didn’t realize how articulate he was on the importance of revering and respecting the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

I have a link posted below to his interview. You’ll have to wade through about 13 minutes of babble about restaurants and cuisine. You can quickly skip ahead to the second section to hear my brother’s interview.

But as you listen to Gregory Lucas talk about what led to the American Revolution and the formation of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, try to compare some of that to our current revolution against the abusive and fascist HOA movement.

Our anti-HOA movement is all about the rights our forefathers reserved for us and how in recent years we’ve allowed our homes to be swallowed by massive corporations which don’t have to honor any of our traditional rights.

If you end up listening to this interview, please give me some advice on how to steer my brother over to our side in the HOA fight.

http://thepoliticalbistro.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/the-cuisine-of-liberty/

 

The Case of the Disappearing Water View

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guest blog by Deborah Goonan

Now you see it now you don’t

One of my pet peeves about HOA master planned communities is the sales promotion of retention ponds as “lakes” with adjacent properties sold at a premium price for “water view” lots.

These “lakes” are man made bodies of water excavated during original construction, with the purpose of creating a catchment area for ground water and storm runoff. Most of them have little recreation value (there are a few exceptions with man made lakes large enough for boating and fishing) although they do tend to attract birds and wildlife if the ponds are maintained in healthy condition.

But these ponds are expensive to maintain. Storm water runoff contains all sorts of impurities and contaminants, from automotive fluids and pet feces to lawn fertilizers and pesticides. In fact, the pond serves as a place for impurities to settle or naturally dissipate before flowing downstream to interconnected ponds, streams and rivers, and sensitive wetlands. That’s why your HOA probably prohibits swimming in the water, and fishing is limited to catch and release. Trust me, you do not want to eat those fish.

All of these impurities are bound to throw off the chemical balance of the pond, so “Lake Maintenance” companies are hired to remove floating debris, and treat the water with chemicals in an attempt to keep the water clean and fresh. Periodically, a properly maintained pond needs to be dredged to remove built up muck from the bottom, and regular shoreline repair is needed to prevent erosion of the bank side into the pond. It costs thousands of dollars per year to properly maintain each pond.

Drive around any HOA community in Florida that is more than a decade old, and you will notice that some of these ponds look better than others. When not properly maintained, the water turns foul smelling and cloudy, algae blooms become prevalent (some of it toxic), the fish stocks die off, and water levels begin to fluctuate. What was once a pleasant vista evolves into an eyesore and a public nuisance. Even the birds and animals don’t come around anymore.

But homeowners in Woodland Villages, Ocala, have an even bigger problem: recurring sinkholes have drained their 5-acre pond 3 times in the past year, (five times since 1996) leaving behind a giant mud hole. It seems the ducks knew something was awry, because they started using the community pool instead of the “lake” about a month before two sinkholes opened up in June. The insurance company was contacted, and the pond was repaired, but in late July, the same two sinkholes opened up, larger than ever, and swallowed up the pond once again!

Makes you wonder whether you really want one of those pricey “water view” lots.

Article on sinkholes opening up and draining the pond in July

http://www.ocala.com/article/20140730/ARTICLES/140739971/?p=1HYPERLINK

Article on sinkholes draining the pond in June plus prior history

http://www.ocala.com/article/20140626/ARTICLES/140629775?tc=ar

Article on removal of ducks from the pool a month before the sinkholes

http://www.ocala.com/article/20130510/ARTICLES/130519983?p=1HYPERLINK

 

 

The Hidden Danger To Home Values

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I blogged about this earlier: Homeowners Associations in many parts of the country are seeing property values trashed because cities are taking over water drainage systems that the original developer built incorrectly. But that means ALL homeowners, not just those living in the rarified gated HOA atmosphere, will end up paying the costs. HOA residents will get slaughtered of course, with highly escalated fees. But all non-HOA taxpayers should be angry as well because their taxes will go up because of misfeasance and malfeasance in the HOA system.

The two pictures below are of a beautiful little pond in an HOA near Wichita. Homeowners bought here because the pond was a gorgeous community asset. But when HOA leaders improperly maintained the pond, they inadvertently drained it. Now the beautiful little pond is an overgrown bug-infested swamp. How do you think HOA property values are holding up now?

Wards photo 1A pretty community asset.

Wards photo 2Thanks for our new view!

Yes, Homeowner Association boards and managers can thoughtlessly cause amazing damage to property values. And it happens in city after city. But home buyers are beginning to get wise. Wise Realtors are making sure their clients research the lawsuits and turmoil in a specific neighborhood before buying there. A lot of turmoil means home values are plummeting.