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Homeowner Association Blocks Guests When Fees Go Unpaid
The Stoneybrook West homeowners association in Orlando, Florida is serious about collecting its fees. So serious in fact that the association will not let anyone coming to see Melissa Solis in the gated community. Solis has fallen behind on her association fees and now guards at the gated entrance to her neighborhood prevent her friends, family, babysitter and even the pizza man from going in to see her. Even Melissa's mother-in-law was banned from coming inside when she came for a family birthday party. Association lawyer Jim Gustino says, "We have to bring whatever lawful pressure that we have to bear on these folks. No one feels good about it, but it does result in collecting money. Many folks will, by some miracle, come up with the money they couldn't come up with before, because they don't want their family members to be denied entry."
So if she still fails to pay the HOA fees, will the association next block her from entering her own neighborhood?
I have a bad feeling about this...
Deny service, sure. But allowing guests in isn't a 'service'. Mowing your lawn: service. Plowing your driveway: service. Blocking your family from coming to a birthday party: DIS-service.
HOAs don't supply any service. You plow your own driveway and mow your own lawn. HOAs just tell you what you can't do, like you can't have a pink mailbox because it looks like ass and lowers everyone else's property value because they live too close to a house with an ugly pink mailbox.
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I believe that depends on your HOA. Around where I live, those fees also go for neighborhood cleanup (plowing/etc). I tend to agree that HOAs are evil. I looked at a few of them and decided "I'm buying this house, I'll do what I want with it." and avoided the HOA trap.
The HOA does 2 things 1) Maintain any "common areas", and 2) Enforce the CC&Rs you agreed to when you bought into that neighborhood. My HOA has a rule against external television antennnas; every house in the neighborhood (except mine) has a satellite dish. However, the HOA doesn't consider it worth paying a lawyer to enforce this (stupid) rule. They are there to discourage egregious violations which actually do lower everyone else's property values, not to nitpick about you parking your boat in your driveway for a few days.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
They can't enforce that rule because it's illegal due to the telecommunications act. Any satellite dish up to 1m in size can be used.
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The route from the community entrance to the driveway is presumably the HOA's property (as a "common area"). Permitting access to this property is a service which the HOA is within its rights to withhold. The means by which you and your guests approach your property is one of the things you have to think about before making a purchase. It's also something most people recklessly take for granted. If you don't have a clear property right (e.g. easement) in the ground you must cover to access your property, you'd best remain on good terms with those who do.
If you want to talk about the issues with HOAs, let's start with the way the terms supposedly attach to the property rather than the owner; i.e. the way that you—as the sole owner of the house and the land on which it's built—aren't permitted to sell your own property to anyone who doesn't also contract with the HOA. Of course, the new owner might end up needing a helicopter to get to their new home, but limited access shouldn't prevent you from selling it to them.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
HOAs don't supply any service. You plow your own driveway and mow your own lawn. HOAs just tell you what you can't do, like you can't have a pink mailbox because it looks like ass and lowers everyone else's property value because they live too close to a house with an ugly pink mailbox.
My HOA plows the court, mows my lawn, tends the shrubbery, etc. They have no real rules that I know of, other than not painting your house pink and such.
I realize this is the exception rather than the rule.
I have a bad feeling about this...
HOA's are voluntary communism. I'm amazed to see folks who rant about freedom and liberty only to choose to live in one of these distopian cookie cutter "communities" full of conformist rules. Thanks to private security, they are like mini police states.
I made a conscious decision to buy a place where I could paint my house without getting approval from a committee. I have not regretted it, despite having one dirtbag neighbor with a bunch of dead and dying cars. It is worth it.
They don't supply any services except telling everyone else to not let their yard look like ass.
And, the problem is that if you buy in a nice enough area, everyone keeps their yards and houses looking nice anyway.
When I was shopping for a house after four years of living in a townhouse with an HOA, I told my realtor that any houses that were in a Homeowners' Association were unacceptable.
I bought a nice house in a nicer part of town - and because I'm not paying those fees I could afford a better house than if I had bought in an HOA development. The townhouse HOA fees were aproaching $200 a month, for what basically amounted to (albeit very professional) grass cutting. They didn't even do any of the much overdue building maintenance until the management company was bought out by someone who knew what they were doing, in the last year I was there.
Putting moderation advice in your
My HOA goes one step further. - Maintain common areas (pool, etc.) - Mow grass - shovel/plow streets (and driveways/sidewalks) when it snows - Insurance on the structure. I do live in a community where the majority of the houses are attached in some fashion so having a third party in charge of exterior maintenance is beneficial to all. I live alone and the yard is too small to do much with anyways. Basically, the tradeoff for me is that I don't have to worry about the outside of the house which is good since maintaining the interior on my own is about all I care to do. As other posters have said (and this holds true for everything), read what you are signing and determine if the benefits outweigh the costs. Whether $80 a month to the insurance company or $110 to the HOA for the same insurance plus the maintenance is worth it to you or not, your decision, but don't gripe when you are in violation of contract and don't like the consequences.
Why on earth did you feel the need to restrain yourself from spelling out bad words like “fuck” and “dick” when you were in the process of posting that rant?
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
Siege engines?
Boiling oil?
Invaders at the Gate?
This is the result of rampant competitiveness; you end up with a country filled with a small handful of Winners and a ton of Slaves.
Nice. What a great way to live.
Or you could move to Canada where neighbors treat each other with a modicum of respect and compassion and you don't need to own a gun because you're not terrified of getting attacked.
Of course, Canada has been sliding, but at least it has a bit more of that bedrock of sanity upon which its brand of Snow Hobbit happens to breed.
-FL
I am living in the first house I ever bought. When I bought it, I didn't realize what idiots HMAs are. If I ever buy another house, I am going to tell my realtor that I specifically want a house in a neighborhood in which there is no HMA, period.
About once every three or four months, I get nastygrams for stupid-ass made-up stuff. My shrubs are too high. (They aren't.) My mailbox pole is leaning. (It's not.) I need new pine straw around my house. (I don't.)
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that no matter how much I spend, no matter how well-kept my house is, I'm still going to get a nastygram for something. After all, the HMA management company must send these things out periodically to prove that they're worth being paid. So now, whenever I get a letter from them, I simply throw it away, sight unseen. I don't give a rat's ass what they have to say.
Every once in a blue moon, I actually consider running for president of our HMA. It's a job that no one really wants, and I'm pretty sure that if I made half an effort to convince my neighborhood that I want the job, I could get it. And then once I win, my first formal action would be to fire our HMA management company and tell everyone else that unless someone tries to do something like pave over their yard or put a jalopy up on blocks in the driveway, leave everyone the hell alone.
Dunno what planet you are from, but here on Earth in a place called the U.S.A. when we buy a house it involves an agreement with more pages that Stephen Kings " The Stand" with print so small, ants can't read it and details that make Microsoft EULAs look fair and friendly. Nobody reads these, crap, it takes an hour and a half just to sign the damn thing,just flippin through the pages. HOAs can appear just about anywhere, even in my neighborhood. It's just as bad as the way we let politicians take away our rights with legislation and start an income tax over the last century. Just like boiling a frog, turn up the temp slooowly, froggy won't even notice till his eyes explode. Best advice, infiltrate and subvert an HOA from within and eventually dispose of it. It's an unamerican institution as the modern Democratic party, hellbent on ressurecting the old USSR business model (anyone notice that failed a while back?) Failing infiltration, open tactical warfare and thermonuclear intervention may be required to rid your neighborhood of these cockroaches.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I agree, and a bit of chloroform or a needlefull of anaesthetic will take care of the guard at the gate, so Suzy can have a happy 8th birthday party. Droppin' a match in the guard shack isn't a bad idea either.( pull the guard out first unless you want barbeque at the B-day party.)
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
I can't help recalling the episode of the X-Files where Mulder and Scully investigate an HOA. Perhaps this woman should consider a koi pond...
I just moved from a condo with a COA to a free-standing house with no HOA and I couldn't be happier. I really won't miss dealing with would-be dictators and arbitrarily applied rules while paying $300/month in association dues for the privilege. But on the other hand, one reason our dues were so high was because of neighbors not paying their share. Some places were foreclosed or abandoned (and banks won't pay the dues) and then there were assholes who just stopped paying dues --yet were able to buy luxury cars and display other conspicuous consumption. I think there needs to be some compassion in HOAs, but I can't stomach paying for scumbags (and banks) that are perfectly capable, but taking advantage of others instead.
Ask me about my sig!
If that. The HOA at one of the houses I rented once was only visible when someone parked a car in their driveway for more than 2 days in a row (pink sticker, $10 fine) or on the roadside overnight (blue sticker, $20 fine) or washed their car on a Sunday ($10 fine) or mowed their lawn before 8AM ($10 fine).
Other than that, the roads were never maintained, snowplowing (when applicable) was done by the city, and all maintenance was done by the homeowner and if the HOA noticed a problem before you did there was a $10 daily fine until whatever it was got fixed "to their satisfaction" which was legalese for "by them, at very inflated prices, which doubled if you DARED have another company do the work".
My house was owned by the developer, who also managed the HOA. He tried to fine me once for a stress crack in the sidewalk he built improperly on the property he owned. I don't recall my exact response, but it was really short, and contained the words "hell" and "no" in that order.
I'm not entirely sure what the $50/year HOA fee bought, other than the right to be fined. The common areas were full of construction debris and weeds. The roads had constant potholes, and the sidewalks were constantly cracking, and the only rules that were ever enforced were cosmetic ones that involved a fine or a forced repair with their affiliated repair company.
I vividly recall an X-Files episode that very accurately portrays HOAs in my mind. :)
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
Works that way here too. The problem is the HOA currently has an armed guard working for it. Eventually, they'll lose in court, but there's not going to be any penalty for their bad behavior in the meantime.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
That is what I did with a small group of friends from the neighborhood. We have 112 townhome units and a board with 4 officers. Three of us ran for the board and won our respective elections, and now we live in a more free neighborhood. We tore out the childrens playground and installed a dog park. We got rid of the swimming pool that cost $30K/year to maintain and was only used by the illegal daycare facility that one of the residents was running (which we also got rid of). We got rid of all the slimy backroom deals the former board had cut with their various family members' businesses (landscaping, snow removal, garbage, etc). We cut the cost of operating the property by 50% in the first year just by getting rid of the kickbacks.