Philip K. Howard: How Modern Law Makes Us Powerless - WSJ.com: "But there's a threshold problem for our new president. Americans don't feel free to reach inside themselves and make a difference. The growth of litigation and regulation has injected a paralyzing uncertainty into everyday choices. All around us are warnings and legal risks. The modern credo is not 'Yes We Can' but 'No You Can't.' Our sense of powerlessness is pervasive."
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Think about this essay in the context of HOAs and condos. A form of housing that deprives people of control over their property has become the norm in new construction. How's that for creating a sense of powerlessness?
4 comments:
The article is brilliant, and CID housing was the first thing to come to my mind to back up the contentions it makes.
I like to refer to this phenomenon as legalism. Legalism is the vile civic cancer that pervades the American culture, and in no place is this cancer more virulent than in CID housing. The vicious legalism of CID housing not only robs residents of their freedom, but guts the very perquisites of ownership such that these "owners" are little more than glorified tenants.
In fact, being a tenant at an apartment complex is preferable to "owning" a unit in a CID. The tenant, if not treated well by the apartment management, has the option of moving without incurring much more than actual moving expenses. In addition, the tenant doesn't have to put up with and fund the HOA beast and its multitudes of petty rules and doesn't have his money held hostage by the HOA.
Why buy into an HOA controlled development? Not only do you have to put up with an HOA and its ridiculous rules, you have to pay them so they have the resources to sue you! Not only that, the value of "your" home is at the mercy of the corporate HOA board, which in far too many cases, is at best incompetent, and at worst just plain stupid and/or dictatorial! The propaganda of the CAI notwithstanding, the existence of the HOA is more likely to be a detriment rather than an asset in preserving the value of a given home. For this dubious benefit, the owner gives up both his freedom and his ownership rights.
Anonymous Above,
Very well said. It appears very few purchasing within these groups thinks about the reality of what is fact!
In my opinion, the press will not report on the true victims and what has been done to them for money and power.
The vulnerable populations have suffered tremendously and the number made homeless continues to grow. Real estate agents claim stupidity and lack of knowledge, but they know only too well the dangers of any CID group at this point and time in our history.
Every lawsuit filed in an HOA/COA/POA/CID should be front page news and any prospective buyer not convinced, should do their homework and research the association, prior to purchasing.
In today's world, I would not take the word of anyone associated with these groups!
HOAs are a form of private local government, not housing.
Condos are a form of housing managed by an HOA.
"HOAs are a form of private local government, not housing.
Condos are a form of housing managed by an HOA."
My perception is that this is just so much lawyerly hair splitting and an attempt to distract attention away from the deficiencies of the entire CID concept. There can be no doubt about the huge difference between owning one's own home without an HOA there to micromanage and the pseudo ownership of a "unit" under an HOA.
This points up another contradiction about CIDs. It is interesting to see this admission that an HOA is a government. It is a government when exerting its powers but is a contractual arrangement when it comes to constitutional rights of its residents and accountability for its actions. Private local government is a civic bastard in which the government is unaccountable to its residents (victims) for its actions and in which the residents have no recourse other than expensive litigation for redress of grievances.
As for the problem with the press and the media in general is that they are afraid to offend the real estate industry, which is huge revenue source for newspapers and radio and TV stations. If the CID industry received the media scrutiny it truly deserves, it would be facing an insurmountable political steamroller for its abolition.
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