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

[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.

[chickenlips]

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.

[ComputerGuy]

No more condos for me!

[SaveFerris]

(No more condos for me!)

I was hoping for Del Boca Vista Phase II

[stanne]

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

[monkeyshine]

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.

[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.

[uranium penguin]

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.

[spacejunkie2001]

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.

[TexasGator]

“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.

[refreshed]

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.

[FLNittany]

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.

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

Ron DeSantis cures cancer.

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

[Heartlander]

What Florida HOAs can't do to homeowners anymore

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

• Enforcing rules on some residents but not others
• Banning homeowners or their invited guests from parking personal, business or first responder vehicles (including pickup trucks) that are not commercial vehicles in their driveways or any other area where they have a right to park per state, county and municipal regulations
• Banning contractors or workers from the homeowner's property
• Fining residents for leaving garbage cans at the curb or the end of their driveway within 24 hours of a scheduled trash collection
• Fining residents for leaving up holiday lights or decorations past the HOA's rules without prior notice, after which the homeowner will have one week to take them down
• Limiting or creating rules for the inside of a structure that isn't visible from the street, a neighbor's property, an adjacent common area or a community golf course
• Banning vegetable gardens or clotheslines, if they can't be seen from the street, a neighbor's property, an adjacent common area or a community golf course
• Require review and approval of plans for central air conditioning, refrigeration, heating or ventilation system that isn't visible from the street, a neighbor's property, an adjacent common area or a community golf course and is similar to previously approved systems

[Alberta's Child]

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.”

[Navy Patriot]

DeSantis signs bill to rein in overbearing HOA fines

Excellent!

[Alberta's Child]

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.

[Menehune56]

...they also tend to attract people with strong opinions about what their neighbors can do.

And therein lies the problem..

[ConservativeWarrior]

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.”

[Red6]

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.

[Reno89519]

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