Hosted and
produced by Shu Bartholomew, "On The
Commons" is a weekly radio show
dedicated to discussing the many issues
surrounding mandatory homeowner
associations, the fastest growing form of
residential housing in the nation.
This Week's Show
Anyone who has ever spent any time studying the
condition of housing, American style, has to wonder how We the People, took a
fairly simple and straightforward concept of homeownership and turned it into
such a disaster. Oh, we have been fed a lot of platitudes, lied to and with
smoke and mirrors watched as individual private rights were turned into duties
and obligations, making the owner a serf. No matter how one looks at it, the
condition of homeownership in the US today is plain wrong. I will be offered
explanations such as, "You agreed", HOAs protect property values", "It is the
way of the future" "Get used to it, it isn't going away." It is all nonsense.
Not everyone is going to just roll over and accept the status quo. Remember,
heroes are not made of doormats.
Jan Bergemann joins
us "On The Commons". Jan is the founder and president of the
Florida based Cyber
Citizens for Justice a grass roots
organization protecting the rights of individual property owners A hard
working and very active advocate in all the areas affecting Floridians, Jan has
studied the stories, the laws, the cases and the trends for a number of years,
and he has some rather unique insights into what is happening. While his
observations are mostly focused on his state, the issues are definitely more
national in scope. We talk to Jan about the confusion of what an HOA really is.
Proponents and attorneys will tell us it is a "contract" and that we "agreed" to
the provisions of the Declaration. While we can argue that "we agreed" till the
cows come home, the fact is HOAs are contractual in nature. It should,
therefore, be relatively simple to understand, shouldn't it? Why isn't it?
And just what are HOAs, really? Tune in, we'll tell you - well, we'll tell you
what they are not. So, what are they?
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