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As far as the law allows. Condo laws are spelled out in each state. If you can't pay your fees, you are putting the onus of paying bills for the Assoc. on the other members, that is not their job or responsibilty. They have their own obligations and should not take on a deliquent homeowner's. Homeowners need to face up to their responsibility. Most Associations don't have a choice, they must do as their bylaws and the law require. You can't start judging which deliequent homeowner can get by without paying depending on the circumstances.
That said, there is no need to try to shame anyone. It is a process and no editorial comments are needed by Board members. The Board needs to be discreet about it rather than risk a personal lawsuit which the Director's and Officer's Ins. may not cover.
I was just wondering who would walk into a purchase as big as a house without doing their homework on the HOA?
Unfortunately a lot of people. HOA's are not for everyone. People like the way they look and they look that way due to the extent their rules are regs. are enforced.
I wasn't given a copy of the HOA rules and regulations book (all six hundred and nineteen pages of it) until after I had the keys to the house. The contract stated something about deed restrictions and an HoA, but my previous encounters with HoA's were limited to a very basic subset of rules regarding keeping your house maintained.
I am sorry. That is on you. You agreed to join a group and follow their rules and didn't bother to find out those rules until after you joined? Then you go around and call them Nazis (which is a horribly disrespectful thing to do).
No matter how you look at this issue Xanathos, you bear responsibility.
I've had a year's experience with an HOA in a condo setting, and I gotta say this...the sweetest sound in all of nature is somebody else mowing your lawn. I don't have a ladder, or hedge clippers, or a shovel or a trowel or a weed whipper--and I love having a meticulously maintained pool with zero effort on my part. I'm not denying the misery that the HOA nazis have caused other posters, but the concept is fabulous when it works like it is supposed to.
How far should the homeowners association be able to go if you're a member and legitimately lose the ability to pay your fees because of job loss?
Public Shaming?
Last year, he took matters into his own hands. Near the mailbox of each condo building he posted a list of residents delinquent on their maintenance fees, with the message "Pay up or move out" and the same in Spanish, Pague O Mudese. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to get the cable company to cut off service to nonpayers.
Loss of Services?
The condo complex Mr. Schulman and Ms. Garcia share, called International Village, has installed a fingerprint-scanning device at its central clubhouse, to keep residents who are more than 90 days behind on their maintenance fees from swimming in the pools, playing on the racquetball courts and using the game room, where canasta and mah-jongg competitions are held.
Involuntary Relinquishing of Title?
In a particularly stark example of housing tensions found in many places to varying degrees, the International Village homeowners association responded to the banks' slowdown in foreclosures with an aggressive step: It began its own foreclosure process. Florida law permits that under certain circumstances. A nonprofit homeowners association can take temporary title of residential units from people who aren't paying monthly fees they agreed to pay.
You can't get blood out of a turnip. The people in arrears can't pay until they find another job.
On the other hand, the association is short a million dollars in delinquent fees that help pay for upkeep for everybody who IS current in paying their fees.
Honestly, the world would be a better place if more people were shamed. I don't know why anyone things of that as a bad thing. Not being shamed by anything is why we have so many problems in the world. Some people SHOULD be ashamed.
I'd buy into an HOA in a heartbeat if I liked what I got in return. If I didn't like it I would go elsewhere. I would go to meetings and vote too. Oh, and I wouldn't complain about "the rules". I guess I'm smarter than the average home buyer? That's another reason there are so many problems...people buying who shouldn't.
On behalf of the rest of the world, let me talk with you first. When you fail to meet your obligations, particularly in a way that creates hardship for those around you, there are negative consequences.
I think that i pretty much acknowledged this point...didn't i? I said that if you can establish that a person is simply not paying just for the heck of it and not because they're having a hard time, then you gotta do what you gotta do.
Still, my point is the same. I'm not the person you want to attempt to publicly embarrass in ANY circumstance, but definitely if you didn't talk to me first about the situation.
HoA's started out as a great idea: Just make sure everybody keeps their law mowed, doesn't have a bunch of cars on cinder blocks in the front yard, and chip in to pay for the maintenance of the public areas.
But, as with most things, Hitler-esque little home-nazis inevitably ascended to power and decided to use the Associations and deed restrictions to create their own private idea of utopia, with an ever-expanding list of rules and regulations and fees and rights that have to be sacrificed in order to be a "homeowner".
When I lived in Austin, the house I purchased had deed restrictions. The HoA in that complex actually had rules that stated you HAD to have a 3 foot tall white picket fence, that you had to have 2 trees between your house and the sidewalk, had to have 1 tree between the sidewalk and the street, could only paint your house one of 7 colors, could only place political signs in your yard 45 days before an election, and had to remove them within 10 days after an election, and a million other stupid rules. It was absolutely ridiculous and, had I known about it at the time, I would have never purchased the house. The monthly fees were also more than it cost to insure the damn house.
I'll never own a house with deed restrictions again. Sorry, but the concept of home ownership is that I OWN the home and the land - not that I have a right to live in it so long as I pay some association "protection money", and if I don't, they can come take it.
I agree 1000% with this post.
Like anything else, some people get on a power trip. I think HOA's started out innocently enough. Lawns, cars, general maintenence....stuff like that. Things that are generally expected from homeowners.
But soon enough, owning homes became more about property values than just having a nice domicile for your family....and the HOA's acted accordingly in many places. Some of them are so draconian that you wonder why anyone would live there. My sister lives in Irvine, California, and she's regretted the move ever since. Little "Nazi's" is right on the money. The whole cast is there...Himmler, Goebbels, Heydrich...right there in her neighborhood. I'm surprised that they don't regulate the temperature in her damn house.
I live in a condo in New Hampshire because it is relatively inexpensive and, given my long commute into Boston, I do not have the time for maintaining the building, walks and grounds by myself. I pay a fee to have other people do the work.
Out next door neighbor failed to pay both his condo fee and mortgage after borrowing against the home to speculate in the housing market. Now the place is empty but still requires maintenance. Our condo fees went up to make up for several unoccupied units.
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