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Leave your cans out, park your truck: DeSantis signs bill to rein in overbearing HOA fines
The Daytona Beach News-Journal ^ | June 3, 2024 | C.A. Bridges

Posted on 06/05/2024 12:09:23 PM PDT by chickenlips

Florida residents with oppressive and obsessive HOAs, your day of freedom may be at hand.

Homeowner associations (HOAs) were created to maintain standards, uniformity and a sense of community while collecting dues to pay for common areas, services and general neighborhood improvements. But they also tend to attract people with strong opinions about what their neighbors can do.

It seems that everyone who has lived in an HOA has a horror story about petty or arbitrary fines that keep increasing, harassment, inflexible and overly restrictive rules regarding the appearance of homes and lawns, the lack of budget transparency, or just the ongoing grind of living under the watchful eyes of HOA busybodies with tape measures and a lot of free time who care deeply about where you park.

A new bill, signed Friday by Gov, Ron DeSantis, may change all that when it takes effect July 1. Or at least make life a little more manageable.

HB 1203, Homeowners' Association, was just one of several HOA bills introduced in this year's legislative session but it may be the most sweeping one, amounting to essentially a Homeowner's Bill of Rights. Under state law, HOAs will be restricted from some of the most complained-about rules and fines and required to be more transparent. This law comes just after another one forcing HOAs to allow homeowners to harden their homes against hurricanes.

Here's what changed.

(Excerpt) Read more at news-journalonline.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; US: Florida
KEYWORDS: desantis; florida; hoas; tyranny
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Reigning in overzealous HOA's is a good thing. They seem to attract Karens to the boards.

Go to the link for a list of what has changed.

1 posted on 06/05/2024 12:09:23 PM PDT by chickenlips
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To: chickenlips

No more condos for me!


2 posted on 06/05/2024 12:11:13 PM PDT by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
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To: ComputerGuy; Kenny Bania; PROCON; gundog

(No more condos for me!)

I was hoping for Del Boca Vista Phase II


3 posted on 06/05/2024 12:14:38 PM PDT by SaveFerris (Luke 17:28 ... as it was in the Days of Lot; They did Eat, They Drank, They Bought, They Sold ......)
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To: chickenlips

My HOA is wonderful. They do a great job of charging me. They do nothing else but they are efficient at collecting my money


4 posted on 06/05/2024 12:15:41 PM PDT by stanne
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To: chickenlips

Yeah they can be nuts. Depends on the board but usually the most demanding people get on the boards. My dad lived in a Condo and the board was always redecorating the lobby and the carpet and wallpaper on the floors. Drove him nuts. My aunt has a fixed income and any assessment in her building harms her. We lived for a short while in an HOA area home - we had one of those small moving containers for 2 days in the driveway in front of the garage. By the time it was emptied out and taken away we got an HOA letter in the mail “reminding us it needed to be removed within 24 hours of occupancy”. We laughed - it was gone before they could print off and mail the letter.


5 posted on 06/05/2024 12:17:21 PM PDT by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: chickenlips

I’m no fan of most HOAs, but it seems ludicrous to use the authority of a state government to override legally binding real estate contracts.


6 posted on 06/05/2024 12:19:03 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (“Ain't it funny how the night moves … when you just don't seem to have as much to lose.”)
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To: monkeyshine

This is a good first step.

It seems the nosey-est noisiest bully rises to the prez of the HOA then immediately push out all of the other board members. To appoint their gestapo psycophants.

With the aim of punishing and fining all people they don’t like in order to get them to sell and leave.

Or, in some cases, put so many fines and leins on a property that the HOA can take that property or force sale to the HOA.


7 posted on 06/05/2024 12:24:15 PM PDT by uranium penguin
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To: Alberta's Child

Thank GOD DeSantis stepped in as many of these HOA’s and COA’s use vague enough language to gouge the hell out of residents. These associations are often run by full blown tyrants.


8 posted on 06/05/2024 12:24:36 PM PDT by spacejunkie2001
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To: Alberta's Child

“I’m no fan of most HOAs, but it seems ludicrous to use the authority of a state government to override legally binding real estate contracts.”

The HOA documents are not signed by the buyer.

HOA documents can be changed without the owner’s consent.


9 posted on 06/05/2024 12:25:22 PM PDT by TexasGator
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To: chickenlips

It seems to me that people that live in HOAs bind themselves to their own hurt. I really don’t want another layer of government.


10 posted on 06/05/2024 12:26:10 PM PDT by refreshed (But we preach Christ crucified... 1 Corinthians 1:23)
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To: chickenlips

I’m currently embroiled in 3 different issues w/ my HOA, yet this is sort of stupid.

Private property in most cases. They can do what they want. At Lost Tree in NPB if you drive a pickup to play golf (as a guest) you park in the employee lot.


11 posted on 06/05/2024 12:27:35 PM PDT by FLNittany (Autotune is jealous of Karen Carpenter)
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To: chickenlips

Ron DeSantis cures cancer.

DDS posters complain about the negative effect on the funeral industry.


12 posted on 06/05/2024 12:28:05 PM PDT by Engraved-on-His-hands
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To: chickenlips

What Florida HOAs can't do to homeowners anymore

As of July 1, 2024, HOAs will be prohibited from:


13 posted on 06/05/2024 12:29:17 PM PDT by Heartlander
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To: uranium penguin
If you have an HOA with abusive board members, I can almost guarantee you that the biggest problem is not the board itself, but lazy, apathetic homeowners.

I’ve worked in the past for clients who were dealing with HOA issues on major real estate projects. One of them was represented by an attorney who was one of the top condominium law specialists in that state. I’ll never forget what he told me about one of the legal issues they were dealing with at the time: “The easiest and least expensive way to deal with @ssholes on a condo board is to get your fellow owners together and throw the bastards off the board.”

14 posted on 06/05/2024 12:33:44 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (“Ain't it funny how the night moves … when you just don't seem to have as much to lose.”)
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To: chickenlips
DeSantis signs bill to rein in overbearing HOA fines

Excellent!

15 posted on 06/05/2024 12:34:32 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (Celebrate Decivilization)
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To: TexasGator

A lot of things aren’t signed by a homeowner. An easement on the property that existed before you moved in, for example. Or the local zoning code.


16 posted on 06/05/2024 12:36:17 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (“Ain't it funny how the night moves … when you just don't seem to have as much to lose.”)
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To: chickenlips
...they also tend to attract people with strong opinions about what their neighbors can do.

And therein lies the problem..

17 posted on 06/05/2024 12:38:29 PM PDT by Menehune56 ("Let them hate so long as they fear" (Oderint Dum Metuant), Lucius Accius (170 BC - 86 BC)
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To: chickenlips

My own HOA diatribe:

2 years ago moved into a FL HOA community on an acre of land that backs up to an HOA “lake”. Really just a big pond.

Large male gator (~10 ft) since day one was curious but never came onto the property. 2 years later a “smaller” (9’) female moves in and regularly comes out onto my lawn and my kitty-corner neighbor’s. I have a dog and adult kids/grandkids who visit us on a regular basis.

I call FL fish and game and they send out a contractor to bait and remove the gators. The way it works in FL is the state bids out the job to gator hunters, who pay the state a stipend then then profit from the gator carcass anyway they can.

Gatgor guy shows up in his marked pickup and starts telling me how he’s gonna get the gators. This guys is about 60, knows his stuff, and has killed more gators than I’ve ever seen.

Not 3 minutes later, one of the HOA director’s wives pedals her little beach cruiser down to my lot and asks what’s going on. 5 minutes later her husband rolls up in his pickup.

Within 10 minutes all 4 of the HOA directors are on the street in front of my house asking on whose authority I’m having the gators removed, it’s not my lake, I don’t own the shoreline, etc...

To his credit, the gator hunter has seen this a thousand times, and quickly schools the HOA types on liability, FL law, and my rights.

The HOA busy bodies give me a few more stern warnings, tell me maybe I should move out of the neighborhood, and lecture me on the HOA covenants (which, strangely, aren’t applied to their friends in the neighborhood) before I tell them I have to get back to work, take it easy.

2 hours later I get an email from a member of the HOA board telling me they’ve “approved the removal of the gators” from the lake and I should keep them advised of what happens.

My guess is they had a quick call with an attorney and realized they were playing with a liability nightmare.

Bunch of know-nothing busybodies with an inflated sense of worth.

As my favorite author Patrick McManus once wrote: “There’s nothing worse than an ignorant individual smugly exercising authority far in excess of their intelligence.”


18 posted on 06/05/2024 12:41:04 PM PDT by ConservativeWarrior (Fall down seven times, stand up eight. - Japanese proverb)
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To: chickenlips

HOAs suck.

I left a fancy neighborhood in part because of them.

Years ago people didn’t give it a lot of thought. The idea of owning a home overshadowed this small extra cost and organization empowered to tell you what you may do on and with your property.

Today people think twice when they hear HOA and even government is getting involved in controlling them. Good-

Two things to remember when you hear HOA and especially if it’s a new development:

The developer is usually helping finance this HOA, not to scare away prospective buyers with high fees. Once the developer finishes, expect your rates to skyrocket.

No matter what the rules are today, tomorrow those can change and once the developer is gone (who normally has a disproportionate say) you often get people coming up with a lot of great new ideas, and who feel empowered in telling others what they may do.


19 posted on 06/05/2024 12:42:09 PM PDT by Red6
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To: Heartlander

Those are improvements. I think HOA can be good, just need to reign in the extremes.


20 posted on 06/05/2024 12:48:03 PM PDT by Reno89519 (Build the Wall, Deport Them All. No amnesty for anyone.)
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