The state’s homeowners’ associations (HOAs) are notorious for petty bureaucracy – including threats of eviction for the wrong kind of dog or decorative garage door hinges
If you had to name the state where a Vietnam war veteran almost lost his apartment for owning the wrong kind of dog; in which a ring of thieves made off with millions of dollars of residents’ money they were obligated to look after; and where a family was threatened with legal action over decorative garage door hinges, intuition would lead you to Florida.
Such absurdities from homeowners’ associations (HOAs) abound where the nation’s highest concentration of condominium developments, gated communities and upmarket resorts blend seamlessly with an abundance of petty bureaucracy and outright crookedness.
This is too good to be true:
“There are professional firms that have taken over the governance of HOAs, lawyers, and others, and I think this will basically speed up that process and make it more likely you’ll have these tasks no longer performed by amateurs.”
Corporate HOAs have been the worst HOAs.
Fast forward to 12:26 https://youtu.be/qrizmAo17Os
Edit: in other words. Get ready for massively bigger fines and more people being foreclosed upon for stupid bullshit.
As a SC resident stuck with an HOA, I can confirm this is 1000% true
My point is that HOAs are going to get a lot worse because more for profit HOA companies are coming in. And HOA companies don’t just give people annoying fines, they charge people expensive legal fees and often try to foreclose on properties for pennies on the dollar.
Yes, I concurred with you
Ahh, sorry. Got confused with the “too good to be true” / “1000% true” juxtaposition. Still waking up and on my first cup of coffee over here.
Everyone is confused about Florida going against HOAs while I’m much more confused about ‘Karen’ now being mainstream enough of a term for The Guardian.
You know what’s a better idea than more corpo HOAs? Getting rid of HOAs.
HOA’s 🤝 My garbage bin
being filled with trashBut I can see your garbage bin. That’s a $1/hr fine since it was first noticed. Unfortunately you won’t get the official correspondence for another few days. Also you need to account for what the fine will total at the time we process payment. Any overages are considered a charitable donation. Any underpayment is subject to fees and fines per the fee schedule located in the bylaws section 897.56.3.a.i.3.22b and the fine schedule in the pamphlet you got when you first moved in and probably threw away.
Love, Your friendly neighborhood HOA.
Easy there, Hitler!
Pittman, meanwhile, expects a backlash to the law once its effects become apparent.
“There’ll be complaints. This neighbor had these workmen parking in his driveway, and we can’t have that here. That guy’s hedges are too high and it’s spoiling the view. And they’ll be told, ‘I’m sorry, state law says we can’t regulate them any more,’” he said.
“You’ll see them complaining to their legislators, and slowly they’ll start chipping away at it. I’m predicting within five years people will be saying the law went too far, all this stuff’s lowering our property values, and we need to make the pendulum swing back the other way.”
If we aren’t careful Karen’s will take over the world.
Wait, I don’t understand. Is the state of Florida trying to do something productive? Is that even allowed?
It kind of looks like a push to have for-profit HOAs replacing not-for-profit community led HOAs.
People hate the Karen’s so much that they’re ignoring the fact that they’re seeding control to companies that charge people massive legal fees and have a track record of foreclosing and displacing people for HOA violations.
Ceding. Same pronunciation, much stupider spelling :)
[Exit stage left pursued by bear]
I’m confused… Aren’t HOA reps elected by the people living in the HOA? And generally, democracy should work better on a local level where people know each other, not worse… So why do they fail so bad?
In my area, the representatives aren’t the people who live there. There’s a large renters population and the owners are focused only in property values not on the practicalities of actually living. They are not subject to their own rules.
In other areas, it can be because the kind of person who ascends to that position is exactly the kind of person who shouldn’t have those powers.
Because much like in government, they like to hold meetings and elections at inconvenient times when most people are at work, so it’s retired and anger-motivated people that show up. And those are not the people you want doing it.
