Home Owner Association (HOA) fees exorbitant!?

Question

Our Board just raised the fee by $70 to over $420 a month! I think this is exorbitant, considering we have 1 unheated pool and a single crappy tennis court as our "amenities". Problem is, they don't communicate with the community or let anyone know what's going on, aside from posting a tiny sign no one sees. How can we stop them?

with the mortgage, property taxes, cost of living AND the new HOA fee, we're wondering if we can continue to live here-- but who will want to buy our unit with these rates?

California.

PS- final thought- my husband ran for and won a seat on the board because of these issues, so we ARE involved, they just dismiss everything that doesn't come from their 4 "best friend" members. He's been trying so hard, and even as a board member, they go behind his back, too.

Answer 1

There must be something more going on here!

While there certainly seems to be plenty of crappy HOAs, I just want to say that I much prefer to live with and HOA than without one! At least when you have one you have some sort of recourse against neighbors acting like jerks (barking dogs, crap in the yard, house painted puke green). We are looking to re-locate now and it never ceases to amaze me how even the nicest neighborhoods with no HOAs have at least 2-3 junky yards!

So while this is certainly a bad situation, it can be worse...

Good for you for having hubby get involved. I wish you the best of luck and hopefully you can file a small claims suit or something to stop this from escalating.

Answer 2

What you need to do is crunch the numbers. First, find out how many people are paying this fee, then find out what exactly it is paying for and then go from there.....who is being paid with these fees? A gardener, a pool cleaner, a janitor/handy man and a landscaper. There are also fees that go towards hiring security. After figuring all this out you may want to create flyers that ONLY the other homeowners know about....and remember, some of these homeowners may be on the board, so be careful.... With these flyers you can have your own meetings to figure it out before someone goes before the board or committee or whatever it is.... IE: Be prepared always before you question anything. You won't be able to do anything unprepared and just complaining, you must have the numbers crunched first. Besides, remember, you probably signed something when first moving in that had it in the small print. Look that up as well. Be well, and good luck and email me if you need any help... Jack

Answer 3

Read the HOA rules. I'm 99.9% sure it will spell out the power that the board has. Based on the HOA rules if many different communities I have seen, the board is NOT allowed to change the assessment or limit the use of the property, including limits of rentals, UNLESS the full community has the opportunity to vote on these changes. Maybe the HOA allows the increase without the vote, which I doubt. But I have little doubt that they can limit the rentals without direct owner input. The better way that the board should have handled the cost of rental review would be to impose a application fee to review the paperwork. I'm guessing they already charge a fee for arch review and copies of the current HOA docs which are required to be given to renters and buyers.

Answer 4

The only way to affect the HOA is to change the HOA. Find out when the next meeting is...and go to it. Get the budget for the year and find out how the money is being spent. The HOA has to have a charter and within it there should be a description of how members are elected and what their limitations are. Run for office next time...vote out the members that are currently in office. All in all--you have to do something active. Once the assessment is set...you are going to have to go through these channels (and probably more) to get them changed.

You could also start a petition and get your neighbors (and hopefully a significant portion of the neighborhood) to sign it. That MAY help reduce the assessment...but only if they board hasn't already spent the money.

Answer 5

We just had the same problem in our condo HOA in Phoenix, AZ. They raised the fee after spending all our reserves on "burst pipes" supposedly cost over $60,000 to repair 3 pipes. They scared all the community by saying if we didn't get the reserves back up then the complex would be in receivership and we would all lose our homes. We knew that wasn't true, but many uninformed people didn't know that wasn't true. I know for a fact, they spent money from the reserves when they were supposed to advise the community and that money could be used only with a vote, and they didn't do that. I wanted to sue their @** so bad.

We all voted no on the montly increase and then they did a revote and of course the answer was YES because they fixed the vote. They also threated really high assessments. Our complex had a very cliqueish HOA and they discouraged people from attending the meetings. My husband ran and became VP and quit after 3 months because they basically shot down anything he said, ignored his emails or sent such hateful mail we got scared that something bad would happen to us. We had poured over the handbook and CCR's and they were breaking so many rules it wasn't even funny.
They never posted signs, they never sent the minutes around like they were supposed to according to the CC&R's. We had a green pool for weeks until we called the board of health and they red tagged it, then the board got it fixed. The same with our natural gas bbq's, we called the fire dept who said they were installed wrong and could blow up at anytime. They got that fixed after being red tagged.
All of our roofs needed repair but they spent money on new signs and a new landscaper. They yelled at everyone who came to meetings saying they were the problem for not participating, but they didn't want people to participate because the more people involved, the more people would see how bad the whole thing was being run. Besides that fact, people not coming to every meeting didn't excuse them from THEIR responsibilities per the CC&R's and bylaws. Half the people in our complex were renters and the owners lived in Canada...did they expect them to come down monthly for a meeting? It was just stupid. Plus they changed the times and days so frequently without notice, people physically couldn't go because of work.
We tried fighting them for months, ultimately we put it on the market. There were 15 other units for sale in our complex, by some miracle we sold. And we sold to someone who was getting an FHA loan, and our condo complex wasn't FHA approved (it had been revolked 4 years prior for defered maintenence..big shock) but we thought the same thing. We had contact the attorney general and they claimed they don't regulate HOA practices. We all wanted to hire an attorney but no one wanted to put up the cash.
I spoke with a realtor who claimed there is are HOA regulations but I can't find them, so you might want to contact an attorney to ask a question about that or contact a realtor/title company who might know more about what action you can take. Our community was too disinterested and apathetic for us to take matters any further. But good luck and next time buy an older property without an HOA....we swear we will never do it again. This is a problem all over the country. Best of luck to you.

Answer 6

Let me tell you who will want to buy your unit. Someone that is paying a lot more than 420.00 I just moved from an area where the condo I lived in went to 2300.00 we did have nice amenities plus we were close to a golf course, enclosed parking, no maintenance. If your HOAA (Home Owners Association Agreement) does not have a ceiling and does not have a l% cost of materials clause then don't sign it. Clean it up to sell and move on you can buy a better house with an additional 350.00 mortgage payment. Don't let them choak your paycheck. Your not the only one that has been going thru this menisis.

Answer 7

Well, having owned a couple of condos over the years, I noted that the people who screamed the loudest about HOA fees are the ones who NEVER showed up for the association meetings. They never took part in the process. Never ran for office. Never volunteered to help keep the pool and clubhouse clean. Yadda Yadda.

You're either part of the problem, or you're part of the solution.

Answer 8

Wow! Your HOA should have supplied you with an estimate of annual costs at the beginning of the fiscal year and an annual report of what they actually spent at the end of the year...shouldn't the homeowners have voted on the increase? Could you be like me and hardly read the additional inserts that they put in with my monthly statement? Go to the next meeting and ask for these reports and go over them....But that is still an outrageous increase.....

Answer 9

Get a copy of the bylaws and find out if they are violating their own rules about having meetings and giving proper notice when they do have them. If they are, you can do one of two things: (1) run for the board and work to straighten things out from the inside; or (2) sue them as an outsider. Suing them is tricky because they have a lot of power and discretion.

Answer 10

Never buy a piece of property in a HOA community. Problem solved.