Posted on 07/07/2009 5:09:33 AM PDT by Badabing Badablonde
While homeowners associations have been a lightning bolt of controversy in Texas, the push for reform has been pushed back by the Texas Legislature.
"The issue isn’t going away,” said Rep. Burt Solomons.
The Carrollton Republican introduced legislation in the last session aimed at reining in HOAs. The bill failed to come up for a vote in the Senate.
“We intend to continue fighting,” he said. “It’s gotten out of control and it’s very hard to rein them in.”
The Dutschke family learned that the hard way.
They bought their home in the Harriet Creek Ranch neighborhood in Justin nearly five years ago and were diligent about paying the quarterly association dues. But, a few months ago, Tera Dutschke lost her job as an administrative assistant and they fell behind on payments.
"I’m going to lose what was my dream as a little girl," Mrs. Dutschke said through tears.
A few weeks ago, the family got a notice that their HOA was going to foreclose on their home and auction it off because of $1,000 in back dues and fees.
(Excerpt) Read more at wfaa.com ...
I've caught this guy two times leading his dog down to dump on the Association owned common area.
Man definitely wants us to file a lein on his house FUR SHUR.
Best bet if you don't want to put up with an HOA is go somewhere else.
Why doesn’t the HOA just work out a payment plan with these people instead of auctioning off their home?
This process seems very excessive.
So the neighborhood is left with a vacant property on every corner that the HOA has to maintain while prospective buyers are house-hunting, wondering why there are so many foreclosures in this neighborhood....honey, I dont like the look of this place.....lets look around some more......all because some guy down on his luck can't pay his anallly-inspired HOA dues.
Don't get me wrong.....HOAs have their usefulness. But to take it to the level of the SS.......wow, talk about unbending principles.
Maybe he already has his legal team lined up and ready for the battle. Make sure he isn’t Melvin Belli’s or Alan Dershowitz’s son.
All they have to do is pay their bill. By NOT paying, they are forcing the rest of the Homeowners to anti up the money to pay the HOA bills. I do not feel sorry for them...
I dont get it either. The last thing I’d want to happen, if I were leading one of these neighborhood-Nazi-parties is to end up responsible for the upkeep of a bunch of properties that I never wanted to begin with.
Its called a neighborhood. The people living in it are neighbors. There was a time when we cared about our neighbors who are down on their luck. Now we seize their homes? No one is asking them to pay their mortgage or send their kids to college........they just need some help paying the stinking wetbacks to do the landscaping on the common grounds until they can get on their feet. I dont feel sorry for the whiney martini drinkers who complain about neighbors who can’t make ends meet.
We’ve run into HOA nazis that wouldn’t let us advertise a house for lease-purchase.
They stated that they’d rather have the house empty than have a “rental” sign at the entrance to the neighborhood.
Pride is one of the easiest, and most self-destructive of sins.
I will never belong to an HOA.
They are evil.
Evil is about right, when they take it to that level.
I dont like my neighbors abandoning cars in the front yard, refusing to do yardwork, or painting their house pepto-bismol-pink, so in those cases an HOA has a purpose. And there have been tmes when I was irritated that the HOA expected to approve the fence we were replacing, or the color we were painting our chimney, but in the end I can still see the usefullness of its purpose.
The craziest point in all this is that the HOA is mainly there to help ensure marketability and home values.
By foreclosing on a home for a mere $1,000, they will cause the appraised values of the entire neighborhood to drop.
We had our home refinanced last February. I was really worried about my home’s current market value and talked to the bank’s appraiser. He said that one of the biggest killers of home values is a foreclosure in your neighborhood. That will really hammer the comparable home sales and thus cause your own home value to be adjusted much lower.
What insanity!
If you move into a new neighborhood in Texas, you HAVE to belong and pay dues! NO CHOICE.
I’m not bagging on you,
but many would say that your choice
was to live in that neighborhood
or one without an HOA.
I stay away from them. Far away.
Agreed! And multuply that times, say, ten per neighborhood in bad times, and you have a house in a neighborhood that isn’t worth squat. These people have no sense.
I’m a former HOA pres. and we would never do this unless the place was abandoned.
Our lawyer used to work out a plan with the homeowner in arrears.
I always thought that was fair and just.
I’m in an HOA right now.
I will never do this again. Ever.
The rest of you have been warned.
That is all.
If I want to control what happens on my neighbor's private property, I will either offer to buy it from them or I will get over it.
First thing I told our agent was "no HOA, period!". She looked at us funny, but she got the message. I guess we're some of the only weirdos who actually demand some freedom...go figure.
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