San Diego Reader | Home Owner Association Horror Stories: "In a way, the whole HOA is a sucker’s game set up by a collusion of developers and local governments. Unpaid HOA boards use HOA assessment fees to pay for what should be the municipality’s responsibility, such basics as roads, electricity, sewage, and water. Developers create high-profit, high-density housing and then hand it over, lock, stock, and all financial and legal responsibilities to these amateur boards not only to run what often amount to million-dollar businesses, but also to keep on paying property taxes to local government for the infrastructure services those authorities didn’t actually have to provide or keep up. No wonder cities love them just as much as developers. No wonder HOA-run condo complexes have mushroomed sixfold, from 7000 in California 20 years ago to about 43,000 today, housing around 10 million, maybe a quarter of the state’s entire population."
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The San Diego Reader's Bill Manson lays down the smack on HOAs. Quite a story. Thanks to Fred Pilot for this link.
5 comments:
Interesting comments by Ms. Medina about the ratio of owners vs. renters in a community.
My HOA is using that argument to push for changes limiting the number of renters in my townhouse complex.
The hypocrisy that the president and treasurer are both investment owners, and not residents, seems lost on the board of directors.
Of course, when an owner needs permission from the HOA Board of Directors to rent out his property, the opportunities for corruption and graft increase.
And the opportunities to sell and move out of the HOA decrease, if you have to turn away 1/3 to 1/2 of the potential buyers of your HOA property.
Well, as this comment by "bombshell" proves, everything we know about HOAs is just wrong.
The boards, management companies, and attorneys are luminous beings of light. It's the people who don't take pride in following the rules that are the problem.
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I work in the property mgmt business and quickly assume the same role as the "a-hole cops" or "mean judges" and "sucky parents".
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It is so disheartening to see seemingly capable adults be allowed to own property and then not take pride in following the rules that they sign into governing them. Their failure to comply with the requests of the Association shine a negative light on homeowners who are trying. Who are complying. The only thing worse than that is the attitude, rude remarks, immature behavior, and tanturms homeowners throw when they are held at the same regard as everyone else in their community. And at the same regard for the rules in which were in place when you signed acceptance of the CC&R's for your community.
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I can assure you there are no kangaroo courts, nazi camps, children haters, or people who sit around coming up with ways to ruin your life. There are however amazing communities out there, with wonderful, well educated Boards of volunteer homeowners, professional management companies, and hard working vendors that get it.
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I like the rhetorical device of including "nazi camps," which obviously is an over-the-top term often used to describe HOAs, to distract from the "kangaroo courts," "child haters," and "people who sit around coming up with ways to ruin your life" that do in fact exist.
You think we imprison people on a whim? If you think our humanistic system capable of such a thing, that alone would justify your arrest.
Shamelessly paraphrased and stolen from "refriedgringo," in the comments section to the San Diego Reader story:
In an HOA, private property is not a right, it's a privilege.
A possible slogan for homeowners' rights activists? I think it sums up, in one sentence, what's wrong with the HOA system in America today.
Some possible variations:
In an HOA, owning your home is a privilege, not a right.
or
In an HOA, being a homeowner is a privilege, not a right.
It's certainly catchier than the property manager's suggestion to "take pride in following the rules." That sounds like something a Communist aparatchik would have written.
"I like the rhetorical device of including "nazi camps," which obviously is an over-the-top term often used to describe HOAs, to distract from the "kangaroo courts," "child haters," and "people who sit around coming up with ways to ruin your life" that do in fact exist."
Oh, yes they do exist! Without question! I am a former baord president and have heard and seen it firsthand! You have no idea of what is done/planned to to to unsuspecting homeowners, who have no idea. If the property is a rental unit, the "superior people" on the board have a way of dealing with those in this class below them.
Renters become angry, frustrated and agitated. They take out their frustrations on the decent board members who stand up for the rights of all in the community. They don't even want to go to their own landlords to complain.
Many of these groups are homeowner hell and their are numbers homeless, due to no fault of their own, but due to fraud, extortion, greed and KANGAROO COURTS!
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