Posted on 02/08/2015 9:27:33 AM PST by Oldpuppymax
Committees are now drafting bills to be presented in the March session of the Florida legislature. If enough citizen input is received demanding regulation of single family residences in Florida’s gated communities and regulation of drug-re-hab centers now being located in private neighborhoods (which may or may not be gated), relief just may be coming for oppressed homeowners, their families, their children!
About ten years ago, the Flower Pots bill was successfully passed which regulated only residents of condo communities. However, the State of Florida was reluctant to do anything about giving protection to those of us who own and maintain our own homes in gated communities; protection, that is, from the same Condo Commando mentality that made life miserable for condo dwellers. Hopefully, Florida lawmakers will draft and pass legislation that can exemplify for the entire country just what is needed to protect long suffering homeowners from heavy handed tactics of Home Owner Association (HOA) boards of trustees, the legal firms they hire and the management services they engage to “control” residents, many of whom are elderly, sick, or too beaten down to fight back.
We all become aware of the tensions bubbling just beneath the surface of these Potemkin villages when some sick veteran is put through the HOA meat grinder when he tries to fly the American flag in front of a home he fought and sacrificed to make safe. But here are important issues Florida’s lawmakers need to address first: 1. TERM LIMITS now are vital to stop the ingrained and perhaps, self-serving mindset of HOA board members who are returned to office by select cliques which they accommodate in a quid-pro-quo of political nastiness that shuts out other homeowners. One HOA just had their lawyers deem it perfectly acceptable to hold another election when...
(Excerpt) Read more at coachisright.com ...
The state is Vermont. It’s not a law (as far as I know) but the HOAs will not show the contract until the closing. We were told essentially “it’s none of your business until you are a member.”
In many areas these housing types are regulated out of existence. They are made illegal:
Live-work housing
Mixed use housing (housing over retail space)
Small houses (minimum house size)
Small lots (minimum lot size, usually 1 acre)
Multi-generational housing
Co-housing (small cottages with separate shared larger space with a kitchen and gathering room).
Dormitory/boarding houses.
Bed and Breakfasts
We used to have all kinds of housing options but today people are forced BY LAW to only be able to build 2 or 3 housing types on their own land. So much for property rights.
The point I am making is that many people (especially here) are all for telling others what they can and can’t do with their own property ... and back it up with laws which they support, but then they complain when they voluntarily sign a contract to allow others to do just that!
I find it hypocritical.
It is a legal contract and often it is on the deed, which is a legal document. So it’s an encumbrance like any other encumbrance on a deed. When you buy any property you have to look at the pre-existing encumbrances attached to its deed and decide if you want those or not.
Sometimes you can get encumbrances legally removed, say an easement for a gas line that is no longer in use. There is a process for that.
Agreed on that being hypocritical! Just had a look at your page. There aren’t many people around this part of the CO Rockies. We are in two very different environments.
There was a great “X Files” episode about an HOA.
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