Homeowner’s association puts end to family’s ministry - The Newnan Times-Herald
This nice Christian family started a volunteer project to collect and distribute household items to needy families, and eventually they incorporated it as a not-for-profit. That's when the HOA struck:
“We started, literally, out of our garage, collecting items. We got a P.O. box, we rented a storage unit which filled up rather quickly,” he said. They have storage space at their church, Vineyard, for linens, a food pantry at Turin United Methodist, and mattresses and beds in the storage unit.
Everything else went into their garage. But not anymore. The Novaks were recently cited by their homeowner’s association for conducting a business out of their home.
The citation, issued April 9, said, “Please do not conduct a business out of your home.”
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The Novaks were recently cited by their homeowner’s association for conducting a business out of their home. The citation, issued April 9, said, “Please do not conduct a business out of your home.”
This is just another demonstration of what a bunch of hypocritical *bleep* *bleep*s pieces of *bleep* the *bleep*s in the H.O.A. industry are, making a profit by feeding off of American home owners. "Your home is our business" should be the C.A.I.'s motto.
As regular readers of this blog are aware. the H.O.A. corporation itself is a business. Even the Community Associations Institute — the national H.O.A. lobby and trade group — admits this:
- ”It's a community, but it has to be run like a business,” says spokesman Frank Rathbun.
Reuters, January 08 2014. emphasis added
Robert Metcalf, when he was the Treasurer of the Concord Crossing H.O.A. corporation in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, became extremely critical of the idea that the domestic lives of Americans should be treated as a business.
ref, "Position Statement on Common Interest Developments", 2007 :
- The CID Industry claims that first and foremost a HOA is a corporation, and therefore should conduct itself as one. . . .The CAI doesn’t even try to disguise it. Their mantra, and this is verbatim, is “The HOA is a business, run it like one”. (p. 3)
- While operating under the “Business Judgment Rule” is appropriate and necessary in the working world; it has no place in one’s personal life. (pp. 1- 2)
- In the end you can have a corporation or you can have a community, but you cannot have both. (p. 10)
- It is my firm belief that someday, after enough people have lost their homes to over zealous and unscrupulous law firms, after enough people have been forced to suffer the indignity of a self-righteous, self-absorbed, BOD spouting endless edicts of minutia about “rules and regs” and “fiduciary responsibility”, all wrapped up in the mythology of “maintaining property values”, this fraud will be seen for exactly what it is; a systematic infusion of corporate culture and governance into the domestic lives of an ever larger share of the American population. Who wants to live at work? (p. 9. emphasis in original)
I’m sure that some HOApologist will respond by saying that if malcontents like Mr. Metcalf would only Become Educated ™ and Get Involved ™ in his community, he would see that H.O.A. corporations aren’t the dysfunctional heartless organizations that the few isolated incidents reported in the media make them out to be.
The Novaks were recently cited by their homeowner’s association for conducting a business out of their home. The citation, issued April 9, said, “Please do not conduct a business out of your home.”
The May 12 2006 “Dilbert” comic strip featured the titular character telling his canine companion that “I’m going to start a high tech company in the garage. Some of the most successful companies started in garages,” only to be frustrated by “homeowner rules about not parking in the driveway”.
Speaking of home based businesses, Inc. has a list of “Six $25 Billion Companies That Started In A Garage” (July 24,2014):
- Google
- Apple
- Microsoft
- Amazon
- Disney
- Hewlett-Packard (HP)
I have used the services of physical therapists who run their business from their homes. I have used the services of landscapers who run their business from their home. I myself used to be a home-based federally licensed firearms dealer. Although I never turned it into a successful business, I have a friend who did — he moved into a commercial retail space 20 years ago, and is one of the largest suppliers to law enforcement in the state. I know people who make their living selling goods on eBay. I have a friend who runs a CNC machine shop out of his garage — he even has at least one larger, more established shop sourcing extra work to him. What is the value of all of this activity?
The H.O.A. industry’s propagandists repeatedly make unsubstantiated claims about “preserving property values” (a lie which needs to be killed). Yet how much opportunity and potential has the H.O.A. industry cost the U.S. economy? Politicians love to preach about “small business” and “entrepreneurship” being vital to America. Yet think about what would have happened if the modern H.O.A. industry existed 50 or 100 years ago. America would be a very different place today. Our future already will be. God knows how many entrepreneurs have been discouraged, business ventures have been strangled in their infancy, and damage has been done by H.O.A. corporations, so that C.A.I. managers and attorneys can make a profit by feeding off of American home owners. This explains why libertarians and Republicans are so enamored with H.O.A. corporations.
In H.O.A. America, we will all be working for somebody else, because most Americans will not be allowed to start our own businesses. But unlike regular employees, who are paid to do what they are told to do while they are at work, involuntary members of H.O.A. corporations pay for the privilege of being told what to do at home. I’m sure there’s an idea for a “Dilbert” cartoon in this somewhere.
And in other “H.O.A. corporation bans business at home” news from this week, if you are the star of a T.V. show, and invite your friends over to watch that show, the H.O.A. corporation will claim it’s a prohibited “business-related event”.
’Intervention' Star Battles HOA Over Watch-Parties
Joe Galli, News Channel 3 & CBS Local 2
posted: 06:05 PM PDT May 20, 2015
PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - Ken Seeley is one of the stars of the hit A&E show 'Intervention' and now he wants someone to intervene in the battle he's having with his home owner's association.
"I have to hire a lawyer just so I can have dinner parties at my house and invite my friends over to watch a TV show," said Seeley, who lives with his husband Eric McLaughlin in a home in the Monte Sereno Community in Palm Springs.
They have been hosting watch parities of Seeley's show at their home. Seeley in an Interventionist on the show.
Now, their community's home owner's association says they can't have these parties because residents are not allowed to conduct business in their homes.
"Our lawyer is 100 percent convinced that these events are business-related events, and these events are labeled 'Intervention episodes'," and our lawyer is confident that these are business-related events," said Skip Rutzick, president of the Monte Seereno HOA.
"It is not work-related, only my peers are coming over to watch the show. We were sent a letter from an attorney that if we didn't cancel the party then they will get a restraining order against us and they will file a lawsuit against us for having friends come to our home to watch a television show," said Seeley.
Read the rest of the article at www.kesq.com/news/intervention-star-battles-hoa-over-watchparties/33135308 . Via Ward Lucas, who alleges that the home owners are being targeted because they are a gay couple, although the KESQ reporter doesn't bring up the subject.
Maybe somebody will be inspired to do a reality TV series about life in corporate controlled communities. It would have to be a reality show, because you just can't make this stuff up.
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