Article Courtesy of The
TCD
By Jenny Allison
Published March 30, 2024
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After Hurricane Ian, many towns and cities in Florida were left severely
damaged. And while each homeowner was responsible for repairing their own home,
many communities' public spaces were also wrecked.
But one townhome
community HOA refused to act, and no repairs have been made.
A frustrated tenant took to Reddit, asking for advice in r/HOA.
"All community amenities were badly damaged or destroyed
including pools, landscaping, sprinkler system, landscape
lighting, pavers and sidewalks, community drainage and
retention ponds," they wrote. "The association has already
levied significant assessments to all homeowners and has so
far completed no repairs to any of the community."
But the worst part,
they continued, was the HOA's vagueness about how it was
spending time — and residents' money: "Requests for
financial reports, budgets and meeting minutes have been
ignored. The community resembles a war zone and now it
floods when it rains. Property values have been affected."
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In short, they concluded, "It's all very sketchy."
And while the poster has paid for the assessments up to that point, they
asked for opinions on how to avoid paying another obscure fee when they had
seen no improvements. Unfortunately, the answer wasn't what they hoped to
hear.
HOAs are notorious for acting against the very residents they're supposed to
support. Whether they're restricting (or ripping up) home gardens, denying
the use of a simple laundry line, or even going as far as banning indoor
plants, it seems HOAs often try to be antagonistic.
These seemingly backward policies often lead residents to question the
purpose of their HOAs. It didn't surprise the poster that the HOA couldn't
help with individual home repairs. "What IS a surprise is that they had no
insurance to cover any of the common areas or amenities (like the community
pool)," they wrote. "So now rebuilding all the common areas is a huge
assessment cost to the homeowners."
And for residents of hurricane-prone states such as Florida, the formula
isn't a good one. Currently, 30% of Americans live in an HOA community. And
with storms becoming both more common and more intense because of climate
change, millions of people are going to face similar situations. They'll
just have to hope their HOAs took out insurance.
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