October 30, 2024: Oh, What a Tangled Web

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Sir Walter Scott, Marmion

Anyone involved in the battle to balance homeowner rights with HOA control is aware of the chaos that has erupted in Florida due to the extensive reforms enacted by HB 919, known as the “Homeowner Bill of Rights,” that was effective as of October 1, 2023.

Even with the help of my dedicated colleagues who share any articles they come across, it is hard to keep up with all of the stories which chronicle the horrors being visited upon property owners as a result of these changes. The most common story being that of homeowners being issued special assessments in the tens of thousands of dollars to bring complexes and common property up to date with requirements established in the legislation. They are unable to pay such outrageous sums and so are forced to sell their homes. Yet because of the structure of the HOA system, they are still liable for those assessments, so the funds come from the sale of their homes, and they are left with little or no money and no home.

I am well aware that most people’s first reactions, particularly from the HOA industry supporters, is to decry the legislation as the cause of these horrible situations, but that is simply not true.

The cause of the horrible situations in Florida is NOT the new legislation, but the HOA system itself, and it only proves that the current system doesn’t work.

The reason these horrors are arising is because this is the result of decades of neglect, poor management, inept and unqualified board members, lack of regulation, lack of recourse for residents to combat abusive or negligent HOAs, resident apathy, lack of resident or community involvement and leadership, and lack of information or knowledge about the HOA system and what homebuyers are really getting into when they buy. One must keep in mind that unless a property is managed only by a property management company with no homeowner leadership group to speak of that HOA board members are suffering these consequences as well. Many of them are also caught holding the bag, so to speak, for bad or negligent actors before them who might not live in the community anymore, or who might not even be alive. Which is yet another significant flaw in this system.

The exceptions are in communities in which there has been consistent competent leadership which has stayed up to date with maintenance and repairs, have maintained a fully funded reserve account, and have good community participation to address and resolve issues of any nature that arise. Those are few and far between.

If all HOA communities (by whatever name they go by) were run in a proper manner, the reform legislation would hardly have been a blip on the radar. It may not have even been necessary in the first place. Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, and particularly for the power-centered personality type given plenary power over their neighbors with no oversight or accountability, it is absolutely necessary that checks and balances be established.

If you think of it, most if not all, persons who are in positions of power and control are held to legal and industry standards to prevent negligent, unethical, or abusive actions. As a university instructor, I have a tremendous amount of responsibility and accountability to be professional, fair, and accountable to my students, my colleagues, and an entire chain of supervisors. And I love it. It allows me to constantly check myself if there is a situation in which there is a chance for me to be unfair, and I can instantly create ways to solve problems while making the situation fair to all. Everyone is capable of mistakes or lapses in judgment, and that’s okay as long as we learn from those errors and amend our behavior to treat all involved fairly. I am not “over” my students; I serve them just as much as I serve the university, my colleagues, and society as a whole. I am morally and ethically obligated to put them all first in whatever I do. And again, I love it.

If people are not held to a system of accountability to all others involved, the odds are that they will become increasingly self-serving according to their personality type and desires. One need only look to the example of the Stanford Prison Experiment of 1971 to see how it works, and it works very quickly. In short, participants in a psychological study were grouped into “guards” and “prisoners.” In the course of just a few days, the behavior of the “guards” became so horrendous that the experiment was terminated (there is much controversy and many details to add, but for the sake of brevity here, I will simply refer you to the link above). Ever since, anyone who works with human subjects in research, even when just issuing surveys and questionnaires, must go through extensive Institutional Review Board training, proposals, approvals, revisions, and report to an overseeing board before, during, and after the research.

I share this to illustrate two things: 1) that humans often (though not always) cannot be fully trusted to self-monitor and restrain themselves when given plenary power over others, and 2) anyone in a position of power must absolutely have oversight and accountability to those over whom they have power and must be overseen in their own right by another authority which can terminate their power if necessary.

The lack of this oversight in the HOA industry has created a web of deceit, neglect, and abuse that has been continually woven for decades upon decades. The industry itself is now caught in its own web, along with its network of supporters, including housing developers, insurance companies, attorneys, property management companies, and its own residents.

The Florida reform legislation did not cause any of these problems. It has exposed them.

I commend Governor DeSantis for signing HB 919 (2023) into law, and I commend Senator Juan Porras and his colleagues for designing, proposing, and getting this legislation through. Other states would do well to observe Florida closely, not to avoid doing what has been done in legislation, but to see it as an exposure of what is happening in their own states. As I stated in my responses to questions posed by Senator Matt Brass at the Georgia Senate Rules Sub-committee meeting on Sept. 24, 2024, each state needs to decide if they wish to take a piecemeal, step-by-step approach or if they wish to enact sweeping reform as Florida did. We do need to learn from the problems that arose in Florida and take actions to prevent or mitigate the negative outcomes while still pursuing the positive ones.

Regardless of the approach, change still needs to happen. To let things continue as they are is to consign millions of Americans, a number increasing every day, to a permanent life in HOA Hell.

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(Any errors and omissions here are unintended. Corrections are always welcome!)

#hoa #HOAabuse #hoahell #hoareform #gapol #FlaPol