The state Supreme Court on Thursday issued two rulings bolstering homeowners associations’ ability to sell houses through foreclosure.

Nevada’s highest court unanimously ruled that a 2014 decision upholding HOAs’ ability to foreclose ahead of mortgage lenders can be retroactively applied to foreclosures that took place before that ruling.

Separately, the seven-member panel also unanimously reversed a Clark County District Court’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit by a homebuyer who acquired a property through an HOA foreclosure and sued to wipe out the prior owners’ and lender’s rights to the house.

Collectively, the decisions appear to only boost HOAs’ ability in Nevada to seize homes from owners who fell behind on their association dues and to auction off the properties, at times for a relative pittance.

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INDIANAPOLIS — Some Hoosier homeowners believe the Indiana Attorney General’s office does not have enough authority to intervene when they’re having a problem with their homeowners association, or HOA.

Approximately 960,000 people in Indiana live in a neighborhood with a community association, and these residents pay $1.1 billion a year to maintain their communities, according to the Community Associations Institute.

Homeowners associations do a slew of things including setting rules for fences, and supporters say they help protect and enhance property values.

However, some Hoosiers believe the state of Indiana is not doing enough to intervene when there is a problem with an HOA.  Read more:

Answer: This is a problem that many homeowners have complained about for a very long time. While federal and state laws that clarify citizens’ rights to free speech in public areas and at schools or jobs have existed for years, the issue of freedom of speech within common interest developments is now serious enough that it finally has caught the attention of state lawmakers.

The Legislature is considering a bill written by state Sen. Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) that would amend the common interest development act to directly address this problem. SB 407 would add Civil Code section 4515 to the act to “ensure that members and residents of common interest developments have the ability to exercise their rights under law to peacefully assemble and freely communicate with one another and with others with respect to common interest development living or for social, political, or educational purposes.  Read more:

EMERGENCY MESSAGE to Ashville Area Property Owners/Investors:
Serious problem: a few of the AAPOA board of directors (AAPOA BOD) decided to trash our voting rights by not counting our proxy votes for the annual March election! By doing so — the election results were way different than if proxies had been included in the final counts. Result? Two board members got themselves re-elected, and so did their newbie buddy, Gary Ennis of the airstrip group, who was also “selected” for an empty seat — his first time there. He and the two board members, Michele Staffieri and John Wilson, were also illegally “selected”, not re-elected.

CORRECTION: It was not airstrip guy Gary Ennis who was “selected”. Identification was confusing because only first names or nicknames were writ-ten on the voting cards. The nickname “Waylon” was on it — but no complete name. Our fact checkers said he is Thomas W. Haynes. It is my fault that the correction notes from March were forgotten or misplaced. “Waylon” did not show up for board duty for three meetings in a row – grounds for removal and replacement. To be very clear: Mr. Gary Ennis was properly elected over a year ago. It was Thomas “Waylon” Haynes who was “selected”. (End of correction statement).

The stakes are especially high with this illegal trick as there are huge issues that over the next two years will affect all of us. The “selected ones” values seem pointed towards enriching a few at great expense to the rest of us. Read more:

Louis “Lou” Balestrieri moved his family to Montgomery’s Towne Lake community from New York in October 2011, and he said he began to feel targeted by the community’s Homeowner’s Association in early 2012.

According to Balestrieri, he has been sent notifications that he would be fined $100 for violating HOA covenants on five different occasions. However, he said he has only paid once. The other four fines were canceled after Balestrieri appealed them before the HOA’s Board of Directors at an administrative hearing.

“I’ve only had to pay one of the fines, but each time I had to pay legal fees to have my attorney at the hearing,” Balestrieri said.

He said he has no opposition to the HOA and wants to adhere, but he feels singled out by officers, who said they do not fine people who are regularly in multiple violations of the association’s covenants.

Other than his suspicions about unfair treatment, Balestrieri said he has requested financial information from the association on multiple occasions, as well as surveillance footage captured by cameras the HOA put throughout the neighborhood to help with a burglary case.  He said the association has never granted him access to any of the documents showing where and how funds are spent. An issue, Balestrieri said, because he has never missed or been late on the nearly $600 dues he pays annually as a member.  Read more:

Question: About 17 years ago I inherited my father’s mortgage-free town house in Southern California. I made the five-hour round-trip drive from my home to the townhouse to pick up mail and pay the leftover bills. As the mail and bills eventually stopped there was no need for me to continue making the long drive. For over 13 years I intentionally kept the unit vacant mainly because I didn’t want to deal with tenants. I never received any invoices from the homeowner association saying I owed anything.

Then last week I visited my unit but the locks were changed, and when I peeked through a window it looked occupied! The homeowner association’s manager said she thought the occupants were the new owners because they had been living there, paying the homeowner association fees, attending board meetings and voting. I asked if the association foreclosed on my unit and was told “No” but that the manager received a title change a few years ago.

My neighbors didn’t even bother to tell me or keep me apprised that squatters had taken over my property. I’ve since hired an attorney but shouldn’t someone have told me this?

Answer: Squatting is a significant issue in California, where the law is relatively generous to people who live in homes they do not legally own. There were numerous reports of squatters taking over unoccupied, single-family homes in subdivisions hit hard by last decade’s housing bust. There also have been reports of squatting in upscale coastal communities, so it’s not entirely surprising that a condo unit you left vacant for years was taken over by squatters. Read more:

Article Courtesy of The  Miami Herald

By Rene Rodriguez

Published June 15, 2017

Developer D. R. Horton has reached an $11 million settlement with the Majorca Isles Master Association, the Miami Gardens community that was left in the lurch after the builder pulled the plug on the project during the recession.

Something similar may have happened to you before.

The man thought he had the freedom to fly a flag, just showing support for the Atlanta United soccer team inside his home, but the HOA said no and even threatened a series of fines.

Frank Diaz and his girlfriend are true Atlanta United FC fans and he wanted everyone in his neighborhood to know it.

But Diaz says he didn’t know he couldn’t fly his founding member’s flag inside his house so you could see it through his second story window.

That was until his HOA sent him a notice of violation that the banner wasn’t inline with the architectural harmony of the community.

He’d be fined $25 a day unless he took it down.  Read more:

Article Courtesy of Channel 6 News — Orlando

By Adrianna Iwasinski

Published July 7, 2017

Homeowners associations have all sorts of rules and regulations in their covenants, many of which are backed up by Florida state law.

But one Daytona Beach couple tell News 6 all they want is install a small 4-foot wooden fence to protect their property and their family from strangers cutting through their lawn.

“Absolutely it’s become a safety issue,” Gina Frazier said, “and has been a safety issue since 2013.”

Frazier is beyond frustrated. She says her mom used to own the home and land in the Fountain Lake Subdivision, but she died before the 4-foot fence could be erected around her property.

Now Frazier, who has inherited the house and property, is trying to get permission to finish the fence, so she can keep people from cutting through their yard.

“People cutting through the property– you tell them to stay off the property and they threaten your life,” Frazier said.?

Frazier and her husband even have home surveillance video showing person after person walking, even riding through their yard, including the lawn crews hired by the homeowners association.

“I’ve asked for a meeting with the owner of the lawn care company numerous times and nothing gets done about it,” Frazier said.

Frazier says some trespassers have even threatened to shoot her and her husband when they confronted them. Frazier says they’ve called Daytona Beach police, but it hasn’t helped. Read more: