Residents now have a powerful ally in the growing movement to reform homeowner associations.

The Fair Housing Center of the Greater Palm Beaches said this week it had formed a partnership with the statewide homeowners advocacy group, Cyber Citizens for Justice. Group leaders hope the venture will help residents learn about their rights and raise awareness of the need for state regulation.

For eight years, the Fair Housing Center has helped enforce state and federal housing laws that protect buyers from discrimination based on race, gender, marital status, disability, age and sexual orientation. 

While homeowners fighting boards over draconian rules don't often fall under fair housing laws, the agency will use its muscle to publicize the cause of Cyber Citizens through a referral service, publicity campaigns and educational workshops for homebuyers.

"We're always getting calls from homeowners being run through the ringer by unscrupulous heads of associations," said Fair Housing director Vince Larkins. 

Since its 1995 inception, the agency has fielded thousands of calls from beleaguered homeowners whose complaints do not cross the threshold of discrimination, Larkins said. The agency now will refer callers to Cyber Citizens and include the group in its information fairs and seminars. 

`Warlord powers'

"Our common goal is to help people within the housing sector," Larkins said. "There are boards out there that have warlord powers. People are having liens put on their homes for things that make no sense." 

By some estimates, 2 million homes in Florida belong to regulated communities, including homeowner associations, condominiums and cooperatives. About 50 million Americans nationwide live in them, according to the Community Associations Institute of Alexandria, Va.

Boards have the power to enforce rules that were written by developers to maintain a community's homogenized look, including the color of homes, the appearance of lawns, weights of pets, types of vehicles parked in driveways and heights of hedges.

Advocacy groups say problems arise when zealous board members seek to micromanage residents' lives or raise money through unreasonable fines.

No state oversight

In Florida, the problem is exacerbated by the absence of state oversight of homeowner association boards. Condominium association members can file complaints with the Department of Business Regulation and Professional Development.

Cyber Citizens for Justice hopes the alliance with the Housing Center will help publicize its campaign to overhaul the state's loosely written homeowner association laws. An effort to introduce a bill in this year's legislative session failed.

"You need everybody and then some to convince legislators that there's a problem," Cyber Citizens president Jan Bergemann said. "This will be a good cooperation. We'll go together to the communities and talk to residents. We have a lot in common."

The group, which has a partnership with the Consumer Advocacy Network, says it hopes the state will create a mediating body for homeowner disputes, similar to the Ombudsman Office created in Nevada in 1997.

"We can't let this state be a caveat emptor [buyer beware] state," said Karen Gottlieb, a member of Cyber Citizens who lives in Dania Beach. 

Gottlieb has spent $21,000 fighting a $1 million slander lawsuit filed by a developer after she passed out leaflets alleging that he was stripping residents of their waterway rights. The community's board changed its covenants to allow the project, Gottlieb says, failing to protect residents' rights.

In Palm Beach County, residents have challenged boards for hiring private security guards to stop drivers and issue tickets; fining thousands of dollars for the display of a flag; monitoring residents' speech at a clubhouse and trying to eject a dog for being too fat. 

But board presidents and industry experts say the real problem lies with homeowners who fail to educate themselves before joining an association by reading its bylaws. 

"There's no such thing as utopia. You need to learn all you can before you move in," said Frank Rathbun of the Community Association Institute. 

Educating clients

The institute recently launched a campaign to educate potential buyers about homeowner associations, sending brochures to real estate agencies around the country in an effort to involve agents in the education of their clients.

"It's murder when [homeowners] don't know what they're getting into because then they become the renegade," said Joe Jaffe, president of Fairfield, a 428-home community in Boca Raton. "You've got to know your bylaws inside out. When homeowners move in, a lot of times they don't take the time to read them." 

Yet getting educated is no guarantee a board won't change its rules, Bergemann says, and some lawyers agree that the growing number of disputes warrants mediation.

"[Homeowner associations] are kind of left out there all alone to find their way," said Timothy Horsting, a Coral Springs-based lawyer who has defended homeowners around the state for more than a decade. "The laws relating to HOAs are a lot smaller than the statute for condos, and they leave a lot to interpretation." 

Norman Hanin says lake views and sleek lawns mask festering problems in his Boynton Beach community. He recently challenged his board over a vote that approved a $200,000 project, and hired a lawyer when he was denied information on the vote count. 

"The politics are disruptive and divisive," Hanin said of life in a homeowners association. "If you are refused your rights, you have no place to go except a lawyer. People think they've found a new way to live," he said of prospective homebuyers, "but they don't know what they're getting into."

For more information on the Cyber Citizens for Justice, visit www.ccfj.net.