Homeowner Association Blocks Guests When Fees Go Unpaid 54
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."
Re:What's Next? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:HOAs may be evil, but she agreed to it (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:What's Next? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:HOAs may be evil, but she agreed to it (Score:3, Insightful)
Communists (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:What's Next? (Score:1, Insightful)
They're not tenants though. It's a Home Owner's Association. They're supposed to be peer organizations. In reality, I'm pretty sure most of them are just scams by the land developers to continue extracting money from people after they've sold them the property.
Re:What's Next? (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't even get my lawn mowed. I live in a middle class neighborhood that you couldn't tell from the next one. There is an HOA who dropped by a list of "suggestions" and guidelines for landscaping, lawnmowing, parking, placement of trash dumpsters, etc. It woulda been a real downer too, because I wanted to plant lots of fruit trees and berry bushes on my open property( a no no since it attracts birds who eat berries and sh*t purple on the cars), but then I caught the association head getting head from what appeared to be a youthful teen in his car in the driveway.I suggested that his wife may not be amused. Now I fortify my homebrew with 4 different types of raspberries, 2 kinds of blackberries, 3 kinds of grapes grow on my fences, apples, peaches and cherries are still 5or 6 years away. I can keep my old untagged broken truck in my drive till I get around to fixing it, guarded by at least a dozen pink flamingoes that line my driveway. I burn "free" mixed firewood in my shop, which smokes a little harsh and I mow my lawn when I get around to it. Napoleon wound up at Waterloo too.( Water + loo= flushable toilet) See there is Slack out there for Subgenii who have paid their small fee.