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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."
HOAs are pure evil.
And it amazes me that a country full of people that supposedly care about their freedoms and whatnot, will gleefully hand over their rights to boards governed by petty backyard Napoleons just so they can buy in an area where someone else mows the grass.
Freedom isn't free; its price is the well-being of others.
It supposedly keeps the rabble out.
The theory is that you can force people to keep their homes maintained, which makes the area look prettier and thus raises your property value. This also keeps the crime out, and the gangs and rabble and unshaven unwashed masses.
The reality is the guy next door is still running a crack house. It's easy to force him out because you can go to the bank and get a lien on his house for his owed fees. Then when he doesn't pay further, you foreclose his house. But if he pays his fees or pays his lien, and you can't get enough evidence to get a police raid done (and the cops find stuff), you're still living with a drug dealer next door.
They don't supply any services except telling everyone else to not let their yard look like ass.
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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