Thursday, November 12, 2009

Griffin Lake residents continue to argue over weed assessment | davisonindex.mihomepaper.com | The Davison Index

Griffin Lake residents continue to argue over weed assessment | davisonindex.mihomepaper.com | The Davison Index: "At issue is a $379.86 special assessment per parcel on 14 parcels around Griffin Lake, a private lake off M-15, just south of I-69.

A majority of residents got together more than a year ago and petitioned the township to handle the collection of the special assessment so all parcels paid their fair share of weed control treatments on the lake. Before the township took over collection of the assessment, some residents said they were footing the bill for the entire lake and not every homeowner there was paying.

But some residents object, saying they are being represented by a mysterious home owners association they are not a part of, who has made all the decisions regarding who is contracted to do the weed control on the 15 acre lake."

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So the township is collecting the private HOA special assessment. How nice. And now the township wishes they had never gotten involved.
Thanks to Fred Pilot for this.

2 comments:

Fred Pilot said...

I believe we will continue to see situations like this arise, particularly in the current difficult economic environment.

It's only natural for HOAs to look to local governments due to the very nature of the double property taxation scheme put in place by local governments encouraging and often mandating the formation of CIDs. People figure that since some of their money is going to the HOA in the form of HOA assessments and some is going to the local governments in the form of property taxes, it's only natural to call on the local governments for assistance.

Anonymous said...

Except that...there wasn't an HOA at all here. There is an alleged association created by a couple of property owners that claims to act on behalf of all property owners. Consider the following statements from the article:

"Residents Brian Balaze and Jim Shepherd both spoke up and indicated they were part of the homeowners association and that they are not attempting to exclude anyone from decisions made about the lake.

'Everyone is invited,' said Shepherd. “We just haven’t had a meeting since we formed the association."

This is not a mandatory association, has no ownership over the lake and no authority from the other homeowners to act on their behalf. You have to "like" the part where the officers claim "everyone is invited, we just haven't had a meeting since we formed the association". Who is "we"? Certainly not the other homeowners.