Posted on 02/29/2008 9:01:49 AM PST by AuntB
No, this isn’t about the subprime housing finance fiasco. It only relates in that some people are happy to let someone else pay for their responsibilities. This is about the dastardly institution known as the homeowners association. Mutual benefit corporations are formed and owners within a subdivision pay a membership fee for their equally shared benefits.
I bought a home in such an association five years ago. Okay, these arrangements are socialistic at best, but I wanted to be a good immigrant and go with the flow, as long as the association was meeting it’s obligations. We have 2 benefits in our association. 1. Use of the common owned recreation areas and 2. road maintenance. The Association claims 42% of our dues go to road maintenance.
So what is the problem, you ask? At our last yearly meeting, many of us were surprised to find out that only some of us actually get road maintenance. We purchased our land with the promise of ‘road maintenance’, often from a realtor who is a board member of the HOA. Half the roads in our rural community are paved and maintained by the county, not the HOA. The HOA only maintains gravel roads. This is a farce that has been perpetrated and kept quiet for decades. The original developer simply set up an HOA in order to force homeowners on county roads to pay for repairs on those on gravel roads, relieving the developer of his obligation. The board members, many with conflicts and on gravel roads have no intention of being fair about this situation.
At our yearly meeting, a motion was made to dissolve the corporation. The board, who by majority vote has the ability to dissolve the HOA, refuses. They also insist it takes 100% of the membership to dissolve the HOA. Not true, and the majority by survey has expressed the desire to dissolve.
NOTE: The law # 1900. (a) Any corporation may elect voluntarily to wind up and dissolve by the vote of shareholders holding shares representing 50 percent or more of the voting power.
(2) If the election [to dissolve] was made by the vote of shareholders, the number of shares voting for the election and that the election was made by shareholders representing at least 50 percent of the voting power. See Calif. Code: http://law.justia.com/california/codes/corp.htm
HOAs are governed by the Attorney General’s office, who refuses to look at this, and by the Davis Sterling act. According to that law,
California code states 7132. (a) The articles of incorporation may set forth any or all of the following provisions, which shall not be effective unless expressly provided in the articles. (3) The classes of members, if any, and if there are two or more classes, the rights, privileges, preferences, restrictions and conditions attaching to each class.
CORPORATIONS CODE SECTION 9330-9332 9330. A corporation may issue memberships having different rights, privileges, preferences, restrictions, or conditions, as authorized by its articles or bylaws.
9331. Except as provided in or authorized by the articles or bylaws, all memberships shall have the same rights, privileges, preferences, restrictions, and conditions.
Clearly, when there is only one class of membership, all members are afforded the same benefits for the same membership dues. This HOA is operating illegally. Our HOA bylaws:
The OA handbook states:
Ar. IV Section 2 Members pg. 18 The Association shall have but ONE class of membership. Members shall be entitled ot one vote for each lot owned in the subdivision as hereinabove stated.
ART III Pg. 18 - The primary purpose of the Association is to own, promote, improve, and maintain the property of the Assoc. for the USE, pleasure, recreation, enjoyment of ALL of the members....In carrying out such purpose, the Assoc. shall be empowered to construct, repair, improve and maintain streets, roadways, and easements......
The mention of road maintenance: Articles of Incorporation 2. (c) To maintain the roadways in said real estate development, including the access road to the main highway. (Note: all access roads are paved & maintained by county)
This ongoing deception is clear. Most of us get no benefit, but are forced to pay for those that do. The board considered dissolving if the owners on paved roads gave up their interest in the common areas in favor of gravel road owners getting the proceeds for future road maintenance, again outside boundaries of law.
As stated in the By Laws on page 31 Dissolution
"In the event of the dissolution of the Association, each member shall receive his pro rata portion of the Association's property and assets after all of its debts and liabilities have been paid or provided for."
THE LAW- 1362.
Unless the declaration otherwise provides, in a condominium project, or in a planned development in which the common areas are owned by the owners of the separate interests, the common areas are owned as tenants in common, in equal shares, one for each unit or lot.
-CORPORATIONS CODE SECTION 9680 (1) Except as provided in Section 6715, all of a corporation's assets shall be disposed of on dissolution in conformity with its articles or bylaws subject to complying with the provisions of any trust under which such assets are held.
If you have never had to deal with one of these associations, count your blessings. Those who have been using the rest of us to pay for maintenance of their property have no intention of letting go of this gravy train peacefully. I am reminded of the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1838, who was dealing with a much more serious subject, but the sentiments are the same. Some property owners need to read Emerson on 'Self Reliance' as well.
" Then is this disaster of Cherokees brought to me by a sad friend to blacken my days & nights.
I can do nothing. Why shriek? Why strike ineffectual blows? .........
It is like dead cats around one's neck.......
It is like School Committees & Sunday School classes and
Teachers' meetings & the Warren Street Chapel & all the other holy hurrahs........
I stir in it for the sad reason that no other mortal will move
& If I do not, why it is left undone.”
PS!! If any of you have any ideas, other than spending a fortune on a private attorney, let us know!
So, I guess I win? Or will the next thing I get be a citation? I'm just waiting now ........
So, half of your neighborhood got nice paved roads at taxpayer expense, while the other half is stuck on crappy gravel roads.
And the response of those who received the largesse of the government is to get mad at the half who did not.
If your entire neighborhood was still gravel, your maintenance costs would be double, driving up your dues. By getting the state to take over some roads, you ALL saved money.
We go through this a lot with our pool. People who don’t have kids, or who don’t use the pool, who have access to other pools, want to pay less in dues because they don’t need the pool.
Last year a developer approached us about adding his small neighborhood into our association. It would essentially have been free money for us, because our pool is underutilized anyway. But his homes were going to have street lights (we don’t), and so a PORTION of the dues from those new houses would have paid for the operation and maintenance of the street lights. We still would have come out ahead.
But there was an outcry because the new homes would have street lights that “we were all paying for”, while the rest of the homes were also stuck paying for their own house lamps on poles.
I think the development fell apart anyway, but we had people ready to give up free money because they perceived an “unfairness”.
i was in the process of purchasing a lake lot when just by chance the president of the homeowners association drove up. This lot was next to a trailer house on one side and a dilapidated house on the other side. At this chance meeting I was informed that the rules said I had to build a three bedroom brick house with a two car garage. Any one already an owner were grandfathered in. So these aholes voted these new standards in which makes their property values sky rocket and forces any new buyers to over build their lots. Needless to say I backed out of that deal.
So, you moved into a neighborhood where they had a rule that your trash can had to be stored out of sight.
But in your case, you can’t do that because you can’t move it past the air conditioning units.
And having explained that to the people you elect to run your community, they agreed with your dilemna and decided to let you be.
And you are upset about it?
BTW, if any of you don’t like what your HOA does, run for election, find others in your community to agree with you and run for election, take over the board, and do what you think is right.
In a lot of neighborhoods, you have to pull teeth to get people to serve on the boards. But you might find that a majority of your neighbors LIKE the government they get from the HOA, and will not support you.
“By getting the state to take over some roads, you ALL saved money.”
No. The county has always maintained the paved roads. It’s simply a sham. It’s the owners choice if he buys on a gravel road, why should I pay for it?
The problem we have with the HOA where we live now is that a lot of the homeowners don’t pay their dues. If they ever go to sell the dues have to be brought up to date but a lot of the people either die or abandon their property and the dues are never paid.
Apparently, you could have bought a house on the gravel road if you wanted to come out “ahead”. I hope though a moment’s thought would allow you to understand that if you moved to a house on a gravel road that you would NOT come out ahead, because you would pay exactly the same money you are paying now, but would have a crappy gravel road instead of a nicely paved road.
The fact is that the people on the paved roads and gravel roads pay the same in taxes, and pay the same in HOA. Those on the paved roads have a nice paved road, and therefore are better off than those in the gravel roads. And if the county didn’t maintain your paved road, you’d still pay the same tax but your HOA dues would go UP to cover the increased cost of maintaining the paved road.
It does not look like those on the paved road are being taken advantage of. It looks like they are better off than their gravel road counterparts.
Apparently your government has a rule that it will maintain private roads if they are paved. By paving parts of the road, the developer managed to lower the overall HOA fees, by passing off work to the government.
That isn’t an inconvenience to those who live on the paved road, it’s a benefit.
Maybe the people on the gravel roads should be insisting that the HOA fees be raised so that they can get the same paved roads as those who already have them. THEN the county will maintain all the roads, and everybody will get the same treatment.
We are having that problem now with foreclosures. I’ve never seen the backlog of dues as high as it is.
But if we manage to maintain our neighborhood, and can keep the remaining homeowners from letting their properties deteriorate, we hope we can eventually get those houses sold and collect the back dues.
In the meantime, we are cutting back on some services, and not replenishing our reserves as much as we would like.
William Wallace: Ay, fight and you may die, run and you'll live. At least a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they'll never take our freedom.
Wow. Not surprising from you. Are you sure you’re not a democrat?
And this is how to deal with a bad neihbor.
Why not buy some astroturf and throw it over the trash can on the side of your house when you're not using it? then it would just look like a part of the yard, or a small shrub.
I've got two old cracked trash cans sitting out by the curb for the last month cause I can't figure out how to get the garbage men to actually take them as trash.
No, I'm not upset about it. I WAS upset that they were bugging me about it when I gave every effort to keep it out of sight and my neighbor kept his in front of his garage and received nothing from them. The issue now seems to be resolved, unless the rep just meant that they wouldn't send more letters but would just fine me.
Get a bigger can, Dave, and put them in that. ;o)
Here’s another irony. This HOA refuses doing any enforcement. Anything goes.
“People who don’t have kids, or who don’t use the pool, who have access to other pools, want to pay less in dues because they don’t need the pool.”
My! What a novel concept. Shame on them!
Split Foyer? Yes, that’s bad, but I’m guessing it’s the developers’ fault.
Bottom line, their property, their right. Too bad for having someone “bring down my property value” next door.
Can’t figure it out?
Take a fat Sharpie and write in big letters all over the side, “TRASH - PLEASE TAKE”.
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