Hey, You Brats! Inside! This Is An HOA!
In my forty years doing investigative reporting for all three major networks, I don’t think I remember even hearing of a Homeowners Association problem more than once a decade. All of a sudden that’s just about all anyone’s talking about.
There are newly proposed bills in Colorado, Texas, Nevada, Florida, North Carolina, California and a half dozen other states I can’t immediately bring to mind. Most of these proposed laws are aimed at curbing the rampant abuse by Homeowners Associations against individual homeowners.
Did you get that? HOA boards abusing homeowners? Individual citizens who theoretically should have certain God-given rights under the Declaration of Independence and the entirety of the U.S. Constitution?
At what point in our history did we lose those rights? Why are we having to go state-by-state, facing down a self-admitted 44 billion dollar HOA management industry in an effort to claw back what was already ours? And how did this 44 billion dollar HOA management industry arise? Why didn’t we see it coming?
Oh there were a few folks hoisting the storm warning flags, Evan McKenzie, George Staropoli, Jan Bergemann, Johnnie and Beanie Adolph and a few others who were just as important. But where the hell were we, just lollygagging in the surf as the hurricanes approached?
I have to admit I was dumber than dirt just a few short years ago. But suddenly I’m finding myself blown away by this evil wind we call supervised living. It was supposed to be so Utopian, so good for our souls to be living in complete peace and harmony with our neighbors, as we occasionally bowed, and scraped and paid homage to the few people who volunteered their time to become leaders of our oh-so-nicely laid out communities.
All of a sudden we saw the nastygrams jammed in our doorways, “Your grass is too long, your dog is too big, you have one too many friends parking his car on the street.” And we suddenly started getting fines if a dog (presumed to be mine) was photographed squatting in the Open Space, or an unsupervised child was playing on the front lawn. The fines led to debt collectors and excessive attorney’s fees and sometimes even the confiscation of a home before the ink had even dried on the original mortgage.
What in Sam Hill happened? Harkening back to another Samuel whose wit and wisdom was far greater than mine, “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe when the Legislature’s in session.” (Sam Clemens)
Instead of all these individual state efforts, how about a single U.S. Supreme Court decision that rules that private non-profit corporations cannot dominate over private homes, or dictate personal behavior?
Our home is our castle. Isn’t it?
What’s difficult to understand about the word ‘accountability’? Texas is one of a number of states where legislation is pending which would reign in the massive power of private HOA management companies. Homeowners in Texas, and elsewhere, are tired of being ripped off by arbitrary fines, punitive social controls, predatory towing of vehicles, confiscatory debt collection practices, abusive lawsuits, and massive embezzlement from the budgets of Homeowners Associations. This is not a hard problem to understand. Your home is your castle. Isn’t it?
But on the other side of the accountability aisle are State Representatives and Senators who’ve made hundreds of millions of dollars for supposedly ‘managing’ planned communities. They hover like birds-of-prey over the neighborhoods they supervise, and the moment any weakness is spotted they swoop down and make a kill strike on a beleaguered homeowner, liening his home and selling it at auction before the homeowner can even catch his breath.
As good as this pending bill is, it doesn’t have a ghost of a chance of passage. The powers that be rake in too much money. An accountability bill would murder their profit margins.
I used to live in Texas. I never thought Texans were stupid.
Maybe they are.
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/04/09/hoa-accountability-bill-stirs-debate-capitol/
There’s just no other way to put this, but the Community Associations Institute, along with its blood brothers including Associa, run by Texas State Senator John Carona, are just ugly institutions. Not illegal. Just ugly. And every American homeowner needs to be educated to avoid the kinds of financial assaults that have victimized thousands of homeowners across the country.
Our American founders, afraid of ending up with the same kind of European monarchy they had just left, wrote a Constitution that forbade our new government from interfering in rights that were bestowed on us, not by government, but by God. In their vision, God given rights could not be subsumed by a Monarchy or a Dictatorship, or even a ‘majority’ of the people. Remember that we do not live in a Democracy. A wild out-of-control mob is a democracy, and that is not our form of government.
No, our rights emanate from God. Remember that. Repeat that. All human rights emanate from God.
With that in mind, I provide you with a page from the CAI playbook as it begins using its vast wealth and power against the Homeowner Association reform bill now percolating in the North Carolina Legislature. I will highlight some sentences that offend me and should outrage you.
Here goes:
Repeal of Foreclosure Option for HOAs and POAs
February 13, 2013: Representatives R. Moore, Alexander and Hamilton introduced an NC House bill to repeal the ability of a HOA/POA to use foreclosure as a tool in the collection of delinquent dues. This bill modifies G.S. §47F-3-116 of the NC Planned Community Act and 47C-3-116 of the Condominium Act to accomplish its goal. The effect of this bill, if passed by the NC House and Senate and signed by the governor would be to remove the option for HOA/POAs to use foreclosure as a method of recovering unpaid dues and force them to use the much more expensive method of bringing a Civil Action in court to accomplish the recovery. The Civil Actions are much more expensive and the courts have not always awarded attorney fees and court costs to the winner of the suit. This can mean that even if the HOA/POA wins the suit, they may lose money because of their costs to bring the suit to trial. Removing the foreclosure option for HOA/POAs could have a devastating impact on the finances of HOA/POAs. The bill has been referred to the House Judiciary A Committee.
The CAI-NC LAC opposes this bill and will use all of its resources to assure that it does not become law. HOA/POA Board members should contact their NC House and Senate members and request that they oppose passage of this bill, referred to as HB-175. For more information and current status of this bill, go to www.ncleg.net and search for HB-175.
= = = = = = = =
Dear Friends, I hope you understand that the CAI is acknowledging that it likes a slanted playing field. It wants the law so biased that this massively wealthy organization acts as judge, jury, king and executioner. Under this system there are no God-given rights. If this law is passed in North Carolina it will amount to a massive restructuring of Society. Look for other states to do the same.
I’m am not trying to oversell this point, but I have read some history books. Adolph Hitler found a way to take control with a minority party behind him. He did not make the world a better place.
No one will say for sure, but the parents of Trayvon Martin have settled their lawsuit against the Retreat at Twin Lakes Homeowners Association, in Sanford, Florida, for more than a million dollars.
Martin was shot to death during a struggle with George Zimmerman who was serving as the neighborhood watch chairman.
It’s unclear whether this HOA was covered by insurance at the time of Martin’s death. It is clear, however, that the Retreat at Twin Lakes board quickly bought a Travelers Casualty insurance policy a few weeks after the incident. But Travelers Casualty has made it clear the insurance company was not a part of this settlement.
So, a big mystery: Was the Retreat at Twin Lakes insured when Trayvon Martin was shot? If so, why did the HOA do such a mad scramble to get insured after-the-fact. If not, then individual homeowners there are going to get hammered with a huge special assessment for legal fees, for the judgment, and for the inevitable hike in their insurance premiums.
Now, for those of you who think a Homeowners Association protects your property values, how do you think that’s working out for the folks who live in the Retreat at Twin Lakes? Home prices there are somewhere at the bottom of the outhouse.
This chart from Zillow.com is fascinating:
Will the last one leaving Sanford please turn out the lights?