Condominium, Fighting Back, Powers of Association

Shelly Marshall

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If people knew what they were getting into, would they still buy in an HOA?  I was convinced that they wouldn’t, but I was wrong. Thirty years ago when I first became aware of HOAs and started to understand what we were dealing with, HOA mandates were already in place in Fairfax County and probably across the country as well.  However, there were still pockets of older neighborhoods so some choices still existed.  Now, even most of those older neighborhoods have been razed to the ground only to be replaced by some new faddish fantasy that will no doubt sound positively utopian but in practice be unworkable.

Shelly Marshall and Michael Marshall, PhD join me On The Commons.  Shelly is an HOA Warrior.  She is a prolific writer of self help books including a book on HOAs, what to look for and how to understand what you are getting into.  Dr. Marshall, Shelly’s brother, is a Psychology Professor and practitioner.  This dynamic duo have combined forces to answer the question; “Why can’t people hear us?”.  Shelly warned Mike about the risks involved in buying a condo and told him to keep looking but that didn’t stop him.  For awhile everything went well until one day when  his utopian dream came crashing down.  So why didn’t he listen?  Why don’t people learn from other people’s stories?  Mike and Shelly, along with Deborah Goonan, are working on a case study, doing some research with the intent of publishing a paper answering this question.  In an easy to understand and simple way, Mike explains the psychology behind human nature.  He and Shelly fill in with facts, stories and typical situations that take place every single day. This is a very exciting piece of research and a fascinating interview.  For all those people who believe that “HOAs are here to stay,” are you listening?

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Rental Restrictions

John Cowherd

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John Cowherd

Over the last few decades American homeowners have gradually lost sovereignty over their property.  With every new law,  every new covenant, every new policy our ability to live in our homes as we see fit has been eroded.  With every new policy there is an acceptance that this is the way of the future.  It is “normal” now to have someone else dictate and approve the colors you choose for your house, the plants and flowers you plant, the decorative elements you use, or in fact even if you are ” allowed” to use them, the structures you buy for your children’s play equipment including the colors you use.  The list is endless.  Sometimes I think it is getting to the point where children in kindergarten have more autonomy over their daily lives than do their parents.  

John Cowherd j oins us On The Commons.  John is a Virginia attorney who represents homeowners against their condominiums and homeowner associations. He hosts and maintains  Words of Conveyance   a blog that focuses on property law.  One of the trends he is seeing more of is the growing restrictions on renting one’s home, or even a room, either short term or long term.  He has a recent blog about this not so new issue of contention in America’s controlled residential associations titled  Rental Restrictions in Virginia Condominiums.   While there may be some genuine concerns about rentals, as usual the problems don’t appear to be quite as awful as some people might have you believe. We’ll talk to John and learn more about it.  We will also talk about how the courts rule in cases where the use of free use of property is inhibited.  Fortunately there is some good news there.

Listen to John Cowherd

Tell us your stories  in  your own words 

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Condominium, Reserves

Julio Robaina

Julio Robaina

Ever since the Surfside condo collapsed in Florida there has been much speculation as to what caused it and what needs to be done to prevent this from happening again.  And predictably, the homeowners themselves were blamed for it.  I have been involved with the policies and politics of HOAs and condos for well over 20 years, but this has always baffled me.  Condos in particular have been sold as “care free living” so why blame the owners who were sold on the idea they didn’t have to do anything?  And they are negligent for not having filled in cracks.  What’s the rationale behind it or were they first in line without a lobby behind them to deflect the accusatory finger pointing at them?  None of the reasons given for the tragedy made any sense to me at all.  I thought we at least needed to know what caused the collapse before we could come up with a way to prevent it from happening again.  Blaming the homeowners because they were not keen on funding repairs on something they no longer owned made no sense to me.  As far as I am concerned it was just more evidence that the HOA and Condo concepts are flawed.  That is a discussion for another time but one we definitely need to have. 

In my experience we never had a vote as to whether we would fund the reserves.  Silly me, I thought all HOAs and condos had to fund the reserves. Apparently that is not the case.  Whoever dreamed this concept up should have ensured that the funds needed to maintain this terrific experiment were always available. 
Julio Robaina joins me On The Commons.  Julio is a former Florida legislator who promised he would always work for the HOA and condo homeowners and he has kept his promise. Even though he is not currently a legislator he is very much involved with drafting legislation to protect the owners from another similar disaster.  I am really excited and impressed with some of the legislation he talked about. Finally some sensible ideas.  I would love to tell you about them but I suggest you tune in and hear Julio explain them.   

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Constitutional Rights

Jonathan Moseley and Carolyn Douglas

Our regular listeners know that we are passionate about protecting our personal rights as well as our property rights. After all, just how free can we be when control of our home is taken away from us? The degree to which we lose personal rights and privileges on a daily basis is staggering. Whoever thought that in the land of the free and the home of the brave that what time you open and close your window blinds is controlled by the neighborhood? Who else in the world has to get permission to park a car on one’s private property? Over the years, we have heard from people who are being fined for decorating their homes for the holidays; Christmas and Easter decorations have come under attack, as have religious symbols of all religions and religious holidays. Flags have grabbed the headlines and been controlled for size, the time they were put up, where they were put and how long they were allowed to stay up. Many of us thought it just could not get worse. Well, ladies and gentlemen, we were wrong. How much worse? Tune in.

Caroline Douglas and Jonathan Moseley join us On The Commons for a lively discussion on the latest. Jonathan is a Virginia attorney licensed in Virginia, the District of Columbia, among other courts. Caroline, a frequent guest On The Commons, has written a book called “The Dark Side a Law Treatise on Judging,” once available on Amazon, but it has been removed and is no longer available because someone apparently at Amazon doesn’t believe you should be able to read it.

Jonathan is representing a Virginia congressional candidate whose FaceBook posts have been censored and removed. Hmm, social media seems to be the latest battleground for our rights. This is something that has to stop and stop right now. We need to be able to communicate and communicate freely. And On The Commons, we do. We talk about social media and the laws protecting tenants from being evicted from their rental properties during the pandemic. The rules designed to protect tenants have expired and have not been renewed YET. They probably will. While this does not apply to home OWNERS, it will affect any HOA homeowner who leases their properties, so you will need to know about it. I learned a lot from these exciting guests. I am looking forward to having them back sometime soon.

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Legislation

Frank Short

It seems that every year legislators nationwide introduce new legislation regulating our lives, including new homeowner association laws, new condo laws, and all other related laws. I suppose it is no wonder we don’t know what the law is on any given day. Well, this year is no exception; Virginia has a whole set of new laws, introduced by several legislators and signed into law by the Governor. David Bulova sponsored HB1816 detailing how homeowner associations will conduct meetings during the Covid 19 pandemic. I am amazed that we need so much detail for something that seems so simple, but my feelings and thoughts aside, we have a new law regulating how to conduct association meetings are conducted, 

Frank Short, an attorney and old friend of On The Commons, joins us and walks us through all the details and intricacies of conducting homeowner association meetings during the pandemic. You will want to tune in and hear this. 

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Going to Court, The Big Picture

Carolyn Douglas

Carolyn Douglas

Is it just me, or do you agree that life would be so much easier if we managed to remember to keep things simple? I hope Constant Contact is reading this because their “improvements” have made things much more complicated for me! But that’s not why you are reading this promo; my message has more to do with your life in your own homes and neighborhoods than my frustrations with getting my promo out.

Caroline George joins us in a brand new show today, On The Commons.  One of the things I love most about my friend, Caroline, is her ability to clearly and succinctly see the big picture and how she manages to fit the insanity that seems so unique to residential associations into everything else going on around us. Caroline explains just how R.A.s fit into the big picture. We also talk about some of the problems we face and some ideas on handling them without going to court. I share some actual stories to support her thoughts. It is always good to learn from those who went before us and succeeded brilliantly. I have some stories that will make you cheer.

Listen to Carolyn Douglas

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Abuse, Stress

Debbie Goonan

Please note that the wrong promo was sent out with this show. We are publishing the same show to this site as is playing on Fairfax Public Access this Saturday.

This show is dedicated to Donie Vanitzian 1950-2017 who was found dead on December 28, 2017.  For 16 years Donie wrote a weekly column for the LA Times answering questions for homeowners who were caught in a web with their homeowner associations. In addition to her column, she wrote several books on HOAs.  She was a great friend to homeowners who had nowhere else to turn and will be greatly missed.  

Over the years we have watched the people in positions of power in residential America come up with some of the dumbest rules and policies governing private property.   If they couldn’t have such potentially tragic consequences, annual awards for the dumbest of them might make for a great comedy show.  However, judging by the headlines, they don’t need any encouragement.  Probably one of the most insane to hit the news lately is the mind bogglingly stupid rule from Auburn Greens Complex HOA in Auburn, California requiring the owners to leave their garage doors open during the day or face a fine of $200.  This should be a hard sell for proponents of fines and protecting property values.

Deborah Goonan joins us On The Commons.  Deborah blogs on  Independent American Communities  where no HOA story misses her attention.  She is a prolific writer and augments all her posts with additional research and more details thus enriching her posts.  She has become a go-to person for all the latest HOA land.  I asked Deborah to help us do a round up of some of the idiotic rules that seem to be adding to the stress levels of American homeowners. She had a string of such stories lined up within minutes.  We talk about some of them, by no means did we scratch the surface of the sheer insanity that is out there.  You will no doubt agree that Condos and HOAs are a failed concept and beyond repair.  

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Condominium, Embezzlement, Infrastructure, Reserves

Julio Robaina

Julio Robaina

Sometimes it takes a tragedy to make us realize we have been ignoring the elephant sitting right in front of us in the middle of a tiny room. For years many of my guests On The Commons have warned us that we are not saving enough in our association reserve accounts. Having served on the board of directors of my HOA and having served briefly on the finance committee, I knew we had a reserve account that was healthy. I did not want to deal with a special assessment. Weren’t we like all other other residential associations across the country? I have always advocated making sure residential associations fund their reserves. Imagine my shock and surprise when my listeners let me know, in no uncertain terms, just how wrong I was. Their concern was that there was no one guarding the cookie jar. Too much money has been embezzled from HOAs. A very valid problem. Some industry members were unaware that this was going on and seemed genuinely shocked when I brought it up. How could they possibly not know?

Julio Robaina, a former Florida Legislator, joins us On The Commons. Julio had promised that he would always protect the rights of home and condo owners and he has kept his promise. When the Surfside condo collapsed, Julio’s former colleagues asked him if this is about what he was warning them? You shouldn’t have to lose so many people to prove you knew what you were talking about. Following the tragic collapse, Julio is working with the legislature, coming up with legislation that would prevent a repeat performance and allay any fears home and condo owners typically have about leaving bags of money on the table, unattended. Julio joins us and explains his new legislation. I LOVE it. I think he has covered all the bases. When Julio’s bill is enacted as written and not stripped of important points, it should serve as a model to be adopted and enacted throughout the rest of the country. Since we will not be able to clone him for every state, we, the home and condo owners, will have to do the heavy lifting. Tune in to today’s show, you will be inspired to have the same bill in your state.

Listen to Julio Robaina

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Infrastructure, Legislation

Julio Robaina

Julio Robaina

I have always felt the HOA and condo models were flawed. Not that I thought there is something sinister built into them. I don’t. I met with Byron Hanke at his home about a year before he died and know, without a doubt, that his intentions were good when he introduced his model for what we know as condo and homeowner associations. But not all good ideas and plans work out as imagined. What is often overlooked and ignored in the planning stages is the human factor. Sadly, we got a wake-up call recently when the Surfside tower collapsed in the middle of the night in Florida, killing many people. We still don’t have a final count. As I write this, the recovery efforts continue. We still don’t know what caused the collapse; there is much speculation but nothing conclusive yet. We need to know the exact cause if we hope to prevent a repeat of this horror. Grasping at straws will not help.

Julio Robaina joins us On The Commons. Julio was a much-loved, tireless legislator in Florida before he was timed out. He spent tireless hours holding open meetings across the state, meeting with homeowners and talking to hundreds of them. Julio heard the stories straight from the Homeowners about the problems, the abuses, and concerns. He brought their thoughts and ideas to the legislature, where he crafted bills based on what was needed. Julio took what the homeowners told him very seriously and listened to how they wanted to be protected. After all, he reasoned, who would know better? Not all his bills passed. His colleagues argued with him, are they second-guessing their votes now?

The question is, could the tragedy at Surfside been averted had some of his warnings been heeded? So what happens now? Julio, who I nicknamed “The Energizer Bunny” many years ago, is still working tirelessly to get legislation enacted to protect condo owners and homeowners. Julio and I worked late in the night to record this show for you. Please tune in and listen to it. Let’s make sure this never happens again, anywhere in the world.

Listen to Julio Robaina

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Fines, Foreclosures

Bill Davis

Regular listeners to On The Commons know that I find the practice of fining a neighbor appalling. However, proponents of this practice will argue that it is the only way to control people’s behavior. I still haven’t figured out why John has the right, authority, or duty to ensure complete and total obedience to stupid rules such as whether or not the grass is mowed correctly? Regardless of how reprehensible, I do have to admit that I find the practice of having someone wandering around with a clipboard in hand, documenting transgressions, no matter how minor, does seem to keep the grass at the approved height and the trashcans out of sight. Perhaps the actual government, state, Federal, and other small governments could adopt the HOA M.O. to prevent car thefts, break-ins, and other real crimes. Maybe if all the real criminals were fined and foreclosed on, they would not have anywhere to stash their loot.

Bill Davis joins us in a brand new show On The Commons this week. Bill takes us behind the scenes and explains how very easily and quickly homeowners find their homes being auctioned off at a foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps. Actual governments should have it so good. Please tune in and listen to Bill explain it all.

Listen to Bill Davis
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News and Views About Homeowner Associations