Your home in an HOA is laden with liability

November 26, 2003

By Ann Roth (View author info)
Copyright Ann Roth

WHAT YOU THOUGHT WAS A QUIET LITTLE BEDROOM COMMUNITY HAS BECOME A CUT THROAT CORPORATE BOARDROOM.

HOA controlled "corporate housing" and everything that comes with it - from boards of neighbors to bored neighbors, from parking police to paint police, from lawn enforcement officers to community coordinators, from greedy lawyers to corrupt managers, from yearly elections to recall elections - creates Risk, Liability, and Divided neighborhoods.

Living with HOA imposed corporate liabilities places your hard earned equity into the hands of handfuls of neighbors you do not know. Background checks are not required.

You will never know from one year to the next, just who is really in charge of your money. Year after year of living in an "HOA Corporation" (let alone working for a corporation) will take wear and tear out of your happiness, life, marriage and wallet.

~~Corporate Corruption Doesn't Stop With the Energy Giants~~

Life in your little corporate home will require spending hours and days attending meetings and special meetings, reviewing minutes and reserve accounts, dissecting budgets and analyzing stranger than fiction accounting methods, wondering if you have adequate liability insurance or if you even have insurance, worrying about kickbacks and embezzlement, participating in divisive neighborhood elections and even uglier recall elections. Oh, and don't forget that all too exciting corporate picnic serving too raw burgers and greasy fried chicken from the market deli.

~~Your Bedroom has Become a Boardroom~~

It would take a novel to get into all the reasons why boards of oft times bored neighbors have been granted such unfettered powers to restrict your paint preferences from boring beige to eggshell white, sic the parking police on you, fine you for flag flying, cloud your title by liening your home or worse, foreclosing on it. A handful of so called "elected" neighbors have essentially been granted police powers to ticket and judicial powers to foreclose on their fellow neighbors. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that something is amiss.

Maybe one of them has a quick buck to make??

Maybe one of them owns a ticketing or towing company??

Or worse, your board president in conjunction with the HOA lawyer owns a foreclosure company just waiting in the wings to snatch up the first home on the HOA foreclosure factory assembly line.

Whatever is amiss, the bottom line is this - your home in an HOA is laden with liability.

The HOA corporation is liable for anything that happens on its common grounds. Translated - that means each and every individual homeowner may be personally liable. We have all heard of the slip and fall accidents in grocery stores. An HOA may not be a grocery store but it is just as ripe a pickins for a sue-happy litigious looney looking for a free ride on the back of a multi-million dollar real estate giant.

You can only hope that an out of control board president doesn't have diarrhea of the mouth and slander somebody. Hey, it has happened. It wasn't long before one HOA ran out of money defending itself against a slander suit. Homeowners were being assessed out the assets, the facilities were shut down and the common grounds became nothing more than a common liability for ALL to share. And we are talking millions.

~~Angrier Than Ever And Now YOU Wanna Sue Who??~~

Think twice before hiring a lawyer and "suing yourself" in your own HOA. The HOA housing bandits will have all the hired guns covered by your dues. Think about it. You sue. Insurance kicks in. They are covered. You aren't. You continue to pay your dues that covers their legal expenses PLUS all of yours. When all the individual homeowners are specially assessed to raise revenue for litigation - YOU will get a bill too. Don't forget, it may eventually be your home that will be the collateral for any liability incurred.

~~And There Ain't Nothin' Pretty About a Courtroom~~

Hundreds of hours and too many days will be spent going from your bedroom, to the boardroom, to the courtroom. While they lie, cheat and steal their way to a victory on your dime, you will be "Sweatin' Bullets on the Bench" - praying that one of those bullets would put an end to your misery.

Every one of their lies that you attempt to defend could cost you thousands. Every "OBJECTION, your Honor!!" could cost you hundreds. There is nothing warm and fuzzy about this room. Your good character and reputation will be laid out on the cold slab of justice for the butchers to assasinate. After being sucked up and spit out by the "HOA litigation vortex", bankruptcy court and another round on the butchers block will be a welcome alternative to losing your home.

Even if you win in the Cirque de Court you may still lose because "Each pays their own fees and costs" seems to be the order of the day. It matters not that the civil code or your "HOA Constitution" says "LOSER PAYS". Tell THAT to the retired snoring judges on a pension with an agenda and accountable to no one.

The only winners of the Cirque de Court are the Court Jesters and well.... we know who they are.

Anyhow folks, if you value even simple freedoms, desire to hang onto your hard earned money, want to protect your equity, cherish the meaning of "Home Sweet Home" and understand what it means to say "A Man's House is His Castle, NOT his HOA's" ....... get the heck out of your HOA controlled corporate bedroom and move yourself into a real home.

~~Remember, home is where the heart is - not where the HOA is.~~