AZ Supreme Court accepts advocate’s amicus brief in challenge to HOA statute « HOA Constitutional Government: "The Arizona Supreme Court has accepted my amicus curiae brief in support of constitutionality of the DFBLS/OAH due process statutes (Gelb v. DFBLS, CV 10-0371-PR). The Court has yet to decide if it will hear the Petition from the homeowner. Neither party objected to my brief, not even the CAI HOA law firm that received harsh treatment. I had presented background facts and arguments in an effort to assist the Court in understanding the disgraceful state of affairs with HOAs."
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Interesting--let's see what effect it has on the court.
10 comments:
My purpose is to try to avoid the narrow considerations by the Court as found in the NJ Supreme Court decision in the Twin Rivers free speech appeal.
IN most HOA'S the units members can control the budgets and the mamagement companys; ( if the home owners attend the meetings, vote for the executive board members who are quilified to hold the positions make sure the HOA only hires a financial manager,AND read the budget, We can reject the budgets. IF we stand together WE have the majority votes.
IN most HOA'S the units members can control the budgets and the mamagement companys; ( if the home owners attend the meetings, vote for the executive board members who are quilified to hold the positions make sure the HOA only hires a financial manager,AND read the budget, We can reject the budgets. IF we stand together WE have the majority votes.
Anonymous before said …“IF we stand together WE have the majority votes.” It sounds real good and if practiced it can work accept its doomed not to happen.
•Apathy – This issue is among the top two reasons why housing associations struggle and operate poorly. Members don’t understand that they are partners with their neighbors in the operation and care of their housing. In my own HOA we have over 900 properties and only one member regularly attends the meetings, guess who ?
•Absentee owners – Members who don’t live on site typically don’t vote because they believe they won’t be affected directly or don’t plan to keep the property for long or can simply sell it off.
•Voting requirements – Supermajority standards of over 65% are typical and between the apathy of so many members and number of absentee owners, it serves primarily to assure that nothing can be and overwhelmingly in practice won’t be changed through member voting.
•Voting corruption – This is not so uncommon and was the bases why Arizona a few years ago eliminated HOAs use of voting proxy’s. Among other issues include finding ways to take away members voting rights and refusing to place member’s names on ballots and on and on.
•Bad Boards – Board members have refused access to association minuets and records, illegally change Cc&R’s, filed false or threatened injunctions against members, sometimes blatantly violate State statutes and laws, don’t always respect and obey the rules and procedures, allow multiple family members or relatives on Boards along with some members serving to long and on and on.
You've described the symptoms of a failed form of governance. People don't participate in HOA governance because they don't accept its legitimacy in the first place. The negative outcomes you delineate only reinforce that circumstance.
This even occurs in condos where it behooves owners to be involved with the owners association to maximize their investment. Typically they are not and condos often end up in Tyler Berding's condo death spiral.
> Apathy
While this is often cited as the cause for the association's problems, it cannot be emphasized enough that the association -- in the form of the board of directors, the professional property managers, and the HOA law firms -- does everything it can to create apathy, by demoralizing and disenfranchising and frustrating and marginalizing the homeowners to the maximum extent possible.
The association triumvirate then turns around and claims it needs more power, blaming homeowner apathy for all of the problems.
The profit motive ensures that the cycle will be repeated.
Conservatives/libertarians/Ayn Randians who claim to possess an understanding of the economic behavior of people are blind to the real world consequences of their theories of privatized government. They are as clueless as your typical college campus communist wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt, driving around in a Prius sporting a "Hope And Change" bumper sticker.
I would LOVE to have a supermajority requirement. My HOA in MA has the documents changed by the BOD alone.
They just allowed themselves the ability to fine..something that would have been a deal breaker for me when I bought here.
I think an elegant solution would be to strip the BOD of any legislative or judicial powers at all.
But OH MY GOD the violent response to that suggestion here.
These HOAs are third world nations in microcosm, and has given me an entirely new respect for the wisdom of James Madison....and George Orwell too!
PS I have just filed suit against my HOA the Falmouth Airpark HOA.
I created a blog as well
http://falmouthairparkhoa.blogspot.com/
Oh, and I am stealing the comment above mine and posting it to my blog!
The AZ House GOV committee passed a bill that would impose a 1/3 vote of the membership to change the CC&Rs. With the faithful few loyalists to the board, operating under HOA lawyer threats of "If you don't take expert opinion, then you may face personal liability" threats the attorneys control the HOA.
Furthermore, it should be plain for all to see that CAI has misrepresented itslf before the legislatures with its "we represent HOAs and member", a violation of its tax-exempt status. As a trade organziation, it must represent the interests of its members, and HOAs are not members, and neither are those consumer "volunteers", non-buisness entities," used to deceive the legislatures.
But, the legislators see "no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil."
The Arizona Supreme Court will decide whether to hear the Petition on Tuesday, April 19th. This week, the Legislature will decide on SB 1148, a bill that overcomes the court's objections to the statute.
Staropoli amicus curiae brief: http://pvtgov.org/pvtgov/downloads/gelb-gks-brief.pdf
CAI/Smith amicus response:
http://pvtgov.org/pvtgov/downloads/gelb-cai-briefresp.pdf
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