DREAM ON , Mr. Spears!

In defense of HOA boards?

An Opinion By Jan Bergemann 
President, Cyber Citizens For Justice, Inc. 

August 8, 2006

During the last couple of years more and more homeowners and condo-owners are finding out that the people who are supposed to have a fiduciary duty to serve their neighbors have caused lots of problems.  The very same people have endangered the financial welfare of these owners.

Many board members are not rocket scientists, as shown by the way they mishandled hurricane damages to association property all over Florida.  Expensive mistakes were made  --  more mistakes than their neighbors’ wallets could stand.

But it's not only incompetence that creates the problems. Total lack of enforcement of the existing laws and lack of accountability has attracted quite a lot of scam artists to run for these board positions. Helped by managers with financial interests and attorneys, who are interested in money not in justice, they are fleecing associations to the detriment of the owners. Here in Florida board members are not prosecuted, even though they embezzled association funds!  Association funds disappear, are used for board members' pet projects -- and nobody cares, except the owners whose money is wasted.

In his letter below, Richard Spears makes some random comments.  If Spears would be finally willing to face the truth, he would have to admit that the majority of complaints and lawsuits are not directed against the "disgruntled" homeowners, but against the board members for failure to follow the laws and the governing documents!

A huge number of complaints are about elections -- and it is obvious that some Banana Republics have fairer elections than some of Florida's associations. 

Spears is proud to have "founded" the Coalition Of Community Associations (COCA). Founded? It's actually just another name for the same players we have seen before! Just check the list of board members of COCA -- it's the Who’s Who of Community Associations Institute (CAI) of Central Florida and the Orange County Homeowners' Association (OCHA).  See all of the attorneys and service providers – Spears’ buddies for many years. 

Add a few wanna-be community leaders -- like Robert Schulbaum, president of the Delray Alliance, who was all gung-ho for association bill HB 391, but then declared that he was thrilled that the Governor vetoed the bill, because (quote) "it would add nothing to the management of associations." I am sure these kinds of statements add to the "credibility" of an organization that's just another cover-up to push the interests of attorneys, service providers and power-hungry board members!

Whether Spears likes it or not, the trend all over the nation goes in the direction of protecting the people -- the taxpaying citizens. 

He suggests in his letter that imaginary communities deserve protection, but the fact is that taxpaying citizens deserve to live in harmony with their neighbors in pleasant communities.   

No system can function without the rules being enforced and the people in charge being accountable for their actions. The demand for reforms goes towards easy enforcement of the rules and accountability of the people in charge! You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand this!

FAIRNESS IN ASSOCIATIONS is the goal of much needed reforms! 

Homeowners have suffered long enough from greedy attorneys, incompetent community managers, and power-hungry and/or dishonest board members!

Owners want PRO-OWNER reforms, not the PRO-COMMUNITY reforms that Spears is asking for!

We care about the total welfare of the human beings who reside in community associations -- not the financial welfare of the ones who make a killing at our expense!


 In defense of HOA boards

Courtesy of the Sun Sentinel

By Richard L. Spears 
Posted August 7 2006 


In the last couple of years or so, we've heard much from those who see mandatory homeowners associations as a bureaucracy imposed upon their freedoms. They complain about having to follow rules -- to which they have previously agreed -- and wail about the seeming abuses by dictatorial officers and directors acting under their charter as being abusive and unfair. They are usually dissidents who have had a run-in with covenant enforcement in their neighborhoods and lost. And lately they have become more strident.

Managing a homeowners association is not exactly rocket science. Boards are elected by the vote of each homeowner and usually officers are elected from among their number. 

Once elected (if not before) it is incumbent upon officers and directors (board members) to read and understand the community's most important document, its declarations of covenants and restrictions. It is from this document that all the development's rules spring and which establishes an association to enforce them. 

Developers record such declarations with the appropriate authority as a sales tool for the purpose of being able to assure buyers that there are enforceable rules in place aimed at maintaining a development's good looks and property values after they have sold all homes and departed. The buyer of each home agrees to the rules by virtue of a line usually found in his/her deed. 

Those restrictions create a mandatory homeowners association meant to enforce all the other restrictions and they run with the land, meaning that the property remains a member of the association no matter who owns it. Obviously, it's equally important that each homeowner read and understand the covenants and restrictions as well.

Once this is understood by all, harmony is usually the result. Usually, but not always.

Some board members see themselves as dictators instead of elected executives and directors, there to enforce regulations diplomatically. Some homeowners see themselves as exempt from the recorded restrictions on the use of their property and obligation to pay dues and assessments in a timely way. This latter group far outnumbers the former. 

However, once the homeowner fully understands his or her obligations, rules violations are most often resolved amicably. Still, a minuscule minority have lately become a "squeaky wheel," causing disruption in neighborhoods and some bad state legislation in 2004.

If there ever was any momentum to that movement, it was stopped in the 2005 legislative session and reversed in the 2006 session.

There's a reasonable expectation that the positive "pro community" legislators, who are the actual majority in Tallahassee, will amend some of the bad 2004 language on the books and offer bills of positive impact in terms of neighborhood stability, tranquility and enhanced property values in 2007. There's much more to be written before this story reaches its last chapter.


Richard L. Spears is founder of the Coalition of Community Associations Florida.

 


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