Category Archives: Jesus

Don’t be a Christian in a Homeowners Association!

I’ve said it before: If you live in an HOA keep your religion to yourself. The mindless, self-absorbed bullies who rise to the top in a typical Homeowners Association think it’s OK to harass people for their Jewishness, their Christianity, their sexual orientation, their race or age.

Keep in mind that HOA board members and management companies always know exactly how much equity is in your home. The more equity you have, the bigger a target you are.

Here’s a Christian family in Senoia, Georgia, who use their garage to collect Christmas presents and furniture for people living in poverty. They don’t have garage sales, the collected goods are never visible to others, there’s nothing stored on the driveway. But Barbara Walton, the property manager for the Summerfield Homeowners Association, has decided this Christian family is operating an illegal home business. She’s given the family ten days to shut their charity down or else face fines, liens, lawsuits and possible loss of their home.

I’m guessing this family has some equity in their home. And equity attracts sharks like blood in the water.

There’s a reason the phrase ‘lawn Nazis’ came about.

For shame!

(link to story on family ministry & the Summerfield HOA)

 

Committed Christian? Bad Idea To Live In An HOA!

Most HOAs have a regulation about “No Home Businesses.” With so many people working at home on the web that’s an almost meaningless rule…except when Board Bullies want to throw their weight around.

Sure, nobody wants to live next to a neighbor who operates a sawmill in his back yard. But sometimes the local HOA Nazi gets out of control and too full of himself. You’re an author and you write books and magazine articles? That’s an illegal business. You use your computer to fill out medical forms? Illegal home-based business.

The latest outrage comes from Senoia, Georgia, where a Christian family decided to help other families in need. In their garage they collect things like bed sheets, groceries, household goods. Nothing is stored in sight of any annoyed neighbors. Every so often the family delivers the goods to those who desperately need them.

“HOME BUSINESS!” screams the Summerfield HOA. “ILLEGAL!”

When you think about it seriously, Jesus Christ would be unwelcome in the vast majority of America’s Homeowners Associations. Riff raff. Healing cripples without a license. Restoring sight to the blind without permission from the HOA. Claiming to be God, when everyone in the neighborhood knows that only the HOA president is God.

Give me a break.

(link to HOA attempt to shut down family ministry)

 

Child Discrimination in HOAs Illegal!

guest blog by Dave Russell (community association manager)
Last week Minnetonka residents of a condo complex won a massive settlement agreement in a federal lawsuit contending that a ban on playing in the grass illegally discriminated against families with children.The settlement agreement, announced last Friday, by U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger, means that the Greenbrier Village Homeowners’ Association Inc. and Gassen Company Inc. must establish a new nondiscrimination policy and pay a $10,000 penalty to the federal government and $100,000 to six families.  We all know well who is going to foot the bill for this one. Don’t we?
 
Just days after the Minnetonka settlement another HOA in California was making headlines for smacking homeowners with $50 fines for basically the same thing.  It appears that the Agave and Saguaro HOA in Chula Vista , California prohibits a number of kid-friendly activities in their development. This HOA prohibits their resident children from riding skateboards, bicycles, roller-skates or anything with ‘wheels’ on their driveways, common areas, sidewalks or streets. So what gives with these kooky rules?
 
Well the reporters down at ABC 10 News went to Prescott Management (the management company for Agave and Saguaro HOA) to ask that very question. The HOA manager claimed that some of those rules were for the ‘safety of children.’  Are these ‘safety concerns’ really legitimate?
 
While I completely understand the need for kids to be able to play in their communities, what happens if something goes terribly wrong? Hypothetically, let’s say this HOA changes their rules and a child gets mowed down by a car in the driveway. Whose fault is it? Well that’s the question the parents attorneys will be asking.
 
The argument can easily be made that the HOA should have adopted rules restricting children from playing in dangerous areas, such as driveways. One has to remember, attorneys are always searching for the deepest pockets when it comes to lawsuits and settlements. Unfortunately, those deep pockets always belong to the HOA and their insurance carriers.
 
HOAs and community managers seem to be in a real pickle here. If you restrict child-friendly activities, even if they may be dangerous, the HOA could be sued for a fair housing violation. If you don’t have safety rules in place, and a child gets hurt, the HOA still gets sued if something goes ‘terribly wrong.’ When it’s all said and done, and dust settles from the lawsuits,  it’s the homeowners who will foot the bill once again. Well, don’t they always?
 
So what’s the solution to this seemingly new legal issue of Children vs. HOA’s? A large part of this problem was actually created by the developers themselves, who poorly designed these communities, and without children in mind. Very rarely do you see a developer put in a kid-friendly area where kids can just be kids. And for some reason if the developer does build a kid-friendly area, it’s always across a busy road like the development in the Minnesota case.  It’s all about jamming in as many units into one confined space as possible for profit.
 
There’s no doubt we’ll be seeing a magnitude of new lawsuits from homeowners and federal agencies like Fair Housing. These lawsuits are going to cost homeowners billions of dollars and make HOA insurance premiums skyrocket!  In my opinion, the best solution to this newly found problem is to stop building these damn liabilities!
 
If you ever needed another reason not to buy into an HOA……make sure that you add this one to the top of your list!