| Letter to Editor :
RE : Joe Adams, “Don’t let one bad owner spoil meetings: Arm yourself against a Condo Commando,” Real Estate section, Jan. 26. NEWS-PRESS, Ft. Myers, FL |
| While Joe Adams' column on homeowner association
affairs is often insightful and valuable, one must keep in mind that he
is head of the CAI-FL (Community Association Institute) the lobbying group
of the CAI and is therefore not entirely impartial. Name calling
(condo commandos) adhominem attacks, turning serious social and legal problems
into a matter of a few loose cannons can only be counter productive.
Statistics reveal that more than 80% of new housing in this country is being built with CIDs (community interest developments, i.e., condos and homeowners associations (HOAs)) and the professional industries that have grown around them - complete with their own lobbying groups - eager to make sure government oversight remains at a minimum. HOAs are here to stay. They are a slowly developing form of privatized government, a neo-feudalism for those conversant with history. Go the the Cyber Citizens for Justice website to read an almost endless litany of assessments driving the elderly on fixed incomes out of their homes, tyrannical enforcement of nonsense regulations, futile years of expensive lawsuits - tell these people they are "condo commandos" with nothing better to do. According to Prof. Evan McKenzie, author
of the definitive book on the subject PRIVATOPIA, there is now an entire
cottage industry of lawyers and property managers who feed off such liens
and fees.
Most haven't read their covenants; they
don't know what they mean.
|
| BACK |