Category Archives: Uncategorized
FLORIDA – Who gets the rent? Landlord or HOA?
ORANGE PARK, Fla. — Oakleaf Plantation is a community where property owners pay homeowners association dues. But what if the property owner rents his home and fails to pay those dues? “I’m kind of caught in the middle here,” said Kay Ferguson. Ferguson, 54, has been renting the same Orange Park house for two years. A few weeks ago she was hit with a demand of payment letter from the HOA. “The association wants the rent and if I don’t pay them the rent, they want to evict me,” said Ferguson. “At the same time, if I don’t pay the landlord, he wants to evict me.” Ferguson said she doesn’t know what to do and this dilemma has created sleepless nights. “It is stressful and I don’t know what to do,” she said.
What Ferguson doesn’t know is a change in the law protects her. The Florida Legislature changed the law to allow Homeowners Association to collect a tenant’s rent to satisfy delinquent HOA fees. She said the landlord is still insisting she pays him the rent. Read more:
ILLINOIS – Can condo bylaws bans on “noxious or offensive activities” be used to stifle free speech?
Yes, according to attorney Howard Dakoff. So how do you like that?
“A bylaws provision that prohibits noxious or offensive activities that are an annoyance or nuisance to other unit owners or occupants is a common provision. Such provisions are routinely board-enforced and upheld by courts. Unit owners have the right to free speech, but boards have the right to fine unit owners for exercising such speech if it harasses or becomes a nuisance to other owners.”
COLORADO – Golden’s trash program decreases waste, upsets homeowners associations
Golden’s expansion of its pay-as-you-throw trash collection has left some homeowners associations and apartment managers unsure how they will work it into their current contracts.
Pay-as-you-throw offers trash customers volume-based pricing so that they can choose to pay less for a small trash can or more for a larger one. A recycling bin is included, so the idea is that customers will recycle in order to avoid going over their chosen volume.
That incentive, however, is not the same at apartment complexes where everyone puts their trash in the same container and it is hard to track who throws away more.
“Our problem is that it really becomes the landlord educating the tenant,” on why they should recycle, said Nancy Burke, vice president of government affairs for the Apartment Association of Metro Denver. A representative of the association spoke against the program expansion at a Nov. 13 public hearing.
Residents of homeowners associations are often on the same contract, so splitting them up means added administrative work.
Jim Cringler, who manages the Village at Mountain Ridge homeowners association in Golden, said that will lead to an increase in cost. Read more:
CANADA – Alberta Government proposing 50 changes to Alberta’s condo property law
The Alberta government has unveiled an overhaul of its condominium law, but a condo-owners advocate says it doesn’t go far enough to protect consumers.
Bill 9, the Condominium Property Amendment Act tabled in the legislature Monday, proposes 50 changes to the condominium property law to help buyers.
Some of the key amendments:
• Improve consumer protection with broader information disclosure to buyers, including home warranty information, occupancy dates and notice of changes to the purchase agreement.
• Developers must deposit buyers’ deposits with an authorized trustee, pay their fair share of condo fees for unsold units and have a professional building assessment on buildings converted to condos.
• Improve board governance with clear voting procedures, required notice of annual general meetings, owners’ meetings to replace board members and notice of insurance changes.
• Delegate authority to the Real Estate Council of Alberta to regulate and set standards for condo managers. Read more:
NATIONAL – Federal district court bars HOA foreclosure sale of first lien HUD-insured mortgages
MORTGAGE PROFESSIONAL AMERICA: Federal district court bars HOA foreclosure sale of first lien HUD-insured mortgages
By MPA
December 2, 2014
Recently, the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada held that a homeowners association (HOA) foreclosure sale is not valid against HUD-insured loans, but will the ruling be extended to GSE-insured mortgages?
The decision comes shortly after the Nevada Supreme Court upheld a state law that gives HOAs a super-priority lien on a Nevada property for up to nine months of unpaid HOA dues.
In its ruling, the District Court noted that federal rather than state law applies in cases involving FHA-insured mortgages to assure the protection of the federal program against loss, state law notwithstanding. The District Court reasoned that in situations where a mortgage is insured by a federal agency under the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) insurance program, state laws cannot operate to undermine the federal agency’s ability to obtain title after foreclosure and resell the property. Read more:
NORTH CAROLINA – HOA War in North Carolina
North Carolina is certainly a state where the HOA system has gotten way out of control. Fortunately, outspoken advocates like Ole Madsen (HEAR4NC.org) are articulating the insanity that’s disrupting the lives of so many homeowners around the country.
When you buy into an HOA, you’re essentially pledging all your personal assets to a group of partners, most of whom you’ve never met. Your assets become the de facto assets of a non-profit corporation which is potentially subject to liability lawsuits, damage from natural disasters, poor workmanship by developers, frivolous legal actions by overreaching board members, embezzlement by board officers and management companies. That’s a crazy kind of partnership, but it’s one that tens of millions of Americans have blindly accepted. And it’s one where HOA law firms are bathing in the mythical pot-of-gold. Read more:
MISSISSIPPI – Homeowners asked to rat on renters
Paul Tankersley, who serves as President of the Northbay Homeowner’s Association and Vice Chairman of the Madison Organization of Homeowner’s Associations, sent an email earlier this month to residents of all 77 homeowners associations in the city of Madison, asking them to report any rentals in their respective neighborhoods to Barber’s administrative assistant, Leslie Lacour.
“The Tax Assessor’s office in Madison County has requested that MONA solicit help from the HOA’s identifying rentals in their neighborhoods,” Tankersley wrote. “The reason is to help identify possible Homestead fraud which in turn helps to protect everyone’s property values.”
Barber confirmed Monday that his office had reached out to MONA and similar organizations throughout the county for help in cracking down on tax fraud.
“It’s just a perimeter-type thing,” he said. “‘We want to make sure nothing has fallen between the cracks.”
Barber said his office has several ways of discovering fraudulent tax claims. For instance, it gets lists of rental permits issued by the cities (both Madison and Ridgeland require potential landlords to acquire such permits), and checks the listed properties against the renters’ tax filings. Read more:
NORTH CAROLINA – Townhome Owners: ‘It’s just not adding up’
WINNABOW, NC (WWAY) — If you move into a neighborhood in the Cape Fear, you’ll probably be part of a homeowners association. While there are benefits, like a pool or trash removal, there are also downsides, like nit picking and bad decisions. Some townhome owners in Brunswick County think something criminal is going on with their HOA. WWAY investigated. It’s a story that’s only on three.
Sheet after sheet, number after number, month after month, it took a lot of time and work for Tom and Melissa Modafferi to come to this conclusion.”It’s just not adding up. There are no approvals, There are street addresses that aren’t in our neighborhood that we’re paying for. It just looked kind of fishy,” Melissa Modafferi said.
The father and daughter, who each own townhomes at Mallory Creek plantation in Winnabow asked for their homeowners association’s financial records from 2007 through 2013 when they noticed their reserves kept dropping every year. Read more:
NATIONAL – Court rulings in unpaid HOA fees raise risk in RMBS, SFR deals
“The rulings increase the risk of losses on loans secured by homes whose owners fail to pay HOA or condominium fees and the association then files a lien that it later forecloses on,” Moody’s analysts say. “Although the population of Nevada and Washington D.C. loans is a very small proportion of the overall RMBS universe, the risk could extend to properties in other states if more courts or legislatures adopt this legal interpretation.” Read more:
FLORIDA – Another golf course closes, leaving residents wondering what’s next
“Now whenever anybody’s got a golf course in trouble, they call me,” Dello Russo told the Sentinel back in 2005 after he had acquired five courses. Read more:
HOA Reform Coalition 