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 ...
I agree, they are basically communes. They hold area and amenities in common or have common rules and regulations. This is all spelled out in your CONTRACT when you buy into a HOA neighborhood.
However, there is no law against people voluntarily joining communes.
In theory two neighbors can draw up a contract stating what each other can and cannot do with their property. If they both voluntarily sign it, then it’s a valid contract and a mini-HOA. No law preventing and two or more parties from doing this.
He’s not the one here who wishes to restrict other people’s freedom.
There have been HOAs taken over by certain folks who simply write absentee owners or others that are not all that involved and obtain their voting proxies. Say for instance a very active group wants a new multi-million dollar clubhouse. Of course everybody gets assessed for it.
I’ve had the experience of living with an HOA. Never again.
In some areas of the country, it’s not so easy to find properties that are HOA free. Florida is one.
Said or implied no such thing LIAR
You are talking about slavery.
I am not one who likes living so close to others. I’ve lived in a condo and various houses, with property from less than a quarter acre of land to an acre +.
I now live on about five acres, and I’d be even happier with twenty or more. Living with an HOA was a nightmare to me.
We just bought a non-HOA house in a stable neighborhood and looked very closely at the neighbors. Things could change, but probably not anytime soon and an HOA neighborhood could change as well. The seller let me hang around the backyard/shed to get a feel for the place.
Like I said tents are a choice. Here in tampa bay every developer uses them. Even for million dollar homes. Some older developments don’t have them. If your willing to pay 15 to 40 thousand a year in property taxes.
If that is true then that is because they are popular ... they are what the market demands.
If most people didn’t want HOAs there wouldn’t be many of them. It’s still voluntary.
Judging from what I am reading here, if I don’t want to live in a HOA community I should probably not move to Florida.
Please don’t.
Florida state law requires buyers be given the deed restrictions before signing. Buyers don’t know that and it rarely happens.
Everything is a choice. If I want to live in Manhattan or Hawaii or San Francisco I’m going to have to pay a lot of money.
If I want a house with an ocean view I’m not going to move to Montana or Wyoming.
That there are options is a strawman. Developers own the county commissioners.
If you don’t sign a contract then you are not bound by it.
If you sign a contract, you better damn well be prepared to abide by it.
What I’m hearing here is more of the sniveling “woe is me” stuff we heard after the financial crash that people didn’t understand the terms of their mortgage contracts and so they don’t think they have to abide by them.
How profound, gosh you’re smart.
“First the basics: Anybody buying an HOA property gets complete disclosures, including rules, budgets, bylaws, what is paid by the association etc. BEFORE THEY DECIDE to complete the purchase.”
Didn’t happen to me. I bought the house and moved in and lived there a year before they decided to start the HOA. The CC&Rs I received when I bought the place turned out to be old ones.
“Among the pros of an HOA are security, certainty of maintenance, amenities (pools, etc.), degree of conformity, protection of property value etc.”
The HOA I was in had no common property. It maintained nothing. 90% of dues went to pay management fees and file required state forms.
“I have seen associations with problems, get turned around by concerned owners, with the skill and willingness o get involved.”
I was on the BOD twice. But if you didn’t want to get screwed, you needed to attend every meeting.
The happy news is the HOA made itself so unpopular that it was voted out of existence - IAW the rules. 90% voted to eliminate the HOA.
What can I say. I don’t live in Florida so I’m not responsible for how screwed up it sounds like it is there.
If there were a huge market for non-HOA property, developers would fill it (and they’d get the laws changed so they could sell that product). They don’t care ... they just want to sell property. Sounds like there is not much of a market in Florida for non-HOA property.
I do OK. At least I know what a contract is.
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