Private communities come apart
When homeowners associations run short of cash, maintenance falls by the wayside

By Jim Wasserman, Associated Press


...What started 35 years ago as a pleasant community run by a private homeowners association has become an object lesson in the worst that can happen when such a neighborhood starts to unravel. Its original owners moved out, new owners failed to maintain the property, neglect accelerated into falling property values, then crime and eventual collapse. Now, state and local taxpayers are paying $80 million to turn it into a nonprofit housing complex called Phoenix Park. While extreme, it could be the fate of thousands of privately run communities throughout the nation, which are flirting with declines by failing to spend adequately on upkeep, even as owning a home in private communities has become the nation's fastest-growing lifestyle. Amid more than 260,000 private communities nationally and 36,000 in California, at least one third have steadily put off raising necessary assessments for fear of political conflict, and now need repairs and facelifts for which they significantly lack money, say those who monitor homeowner association finances.

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I'd suggest you read the whole article. Jim Wasserman has been doing HOA stories for some time and knows his stuff. This is an issue I've been harping on for about fifteen years and I have yet to see much legislative interest in it. I guess they are waiting for a full blown meltdown. Can you say "savings and loan industry," boys and girls?