> Business runs better on certainty. Risk is always there, uncertainty is always there, but things like insurance, planning for future costs, and the like are much easier when both are minimized.
.
Assertion: Individuals -- both as consumers and as workers -- also do better with certainty and minimal risk.
Question: Would you support a legislative ban on foreclosure by H.O.A. corporations ?
Or do you think it is a reasonable punishment to take somebody's home for not paying H.O.A. fees -- whether those fees are regular assessments, fines, attorney fees, and/or other junk fees ?
.
> Homeowners associations have been called private governments because they do many things that governments do. HOAs hold elections, provide services, tax residents, and regulate behavior within their jurisdictions, but as legal entities, they are not governments.
>
> To raise revenue for goods and services, HOAs lack taxing authority but not the power to charge assessments, which makes their inability to tax more a legal distinction than a real constraint. HOAs’ enforcement powers for failure to pay assessments equal those of local governments and allow them to place liens or foreclose on property, a power that the courts have upheld repeatedly.
>
> -- Barbara Coyle McCabe. “Homeowner Associations As Private Governments”. Public Administration Review. July/August 2011. At page 535 and page 537.
> Val Ford and his wife, Ann Thomas, have had escalating problems with their HOA. Now the organization has foreclosed on their home because of $9,000 in unpaid fines and penalties. (photo caption)
>
> Ask Val Ford whether a homeowners association can do harm, and he will respond that his destroyed his health and wealth.
>
> Ford, 72, and his wife, Ann, are on the verge of losing their home after the Master HOA for the Southcreek Townhomes in Englewood foreclosed on them.
>
> The HOA, which charges dues of $240 a year, has amassed $9,000 in fines and late fees against the ailing couple in a nine-year battle that started with a misplaced trash can that Ford used to collect debris from a nearby community mailbox.
>
> In late 2010, before his wife’s surgery for breast cancer, the HOA won a court order allowing it to garnish their bank fund. The HOA took all the money the couple had saved for the surgery.
>
> “Touching HOA law is always a bit dicey around here,” [Colorado State Senator Morgan] Carroll said of the vested interests surrounding the state’s HOA laws.
>
> -- "Horror Stories Prompt Industry Group To Ask Colorado To Regulate HOA Managers". Denver Post. February 12, 2012.
> Business runs better on certainty. Risk is always there, uncertainty is always there, but things like insurance, planning for future costs, and the like are much easier when both are minimized.
.
Assertion: Individuals -- both as consumers and as workers -- also do better with certainty and minimal risk.
Question: Would you support a legislative ban on foreclosure by H.O.A. corporations ?
Or do you think it is a reasonable punishment to take somebody's home for not paying H.O.A. fees -- whether those fees are regular assessments, fines, attorney fees, and/or other junk fees ?
.
> Homeowners associations have been called private governments because they do many things that governments do. HOAs hold elections, provide services, tax residents, and regulate behavior within their jurisdictions, but as legal entities, they are not governments.
>
> To raise revenue for goods and services, HOAs lack taxing authority but not the power to charge assessments, which makes their inability to tax more a legal distinction than a real constraint. HOAs’ enforcement powers for failure to pay assessments equal those of local governments and allow them to place liens or foreclose on property, a power that the courts have upheld repeatedly.
>
> -- Barbara Coyle McCabe. “Homeowner Associations As Private Governments”. Public Administration Review. July/August 2011. At page 535 and page 537.
> @ https://web.archive.org/web/20170809074411/http://illinois-online.org/krassa/ps410/Readings/HOAs/McCabe%20HOA%20as%20Private%20Government.pdf
.
> Val Ford and his wife, Ann Thomas, have had escalating problems with their HOA. Now the organization has foreclosed on their home because of $9,000 in unpaid fines and penalties. (photo caption)
>
> Ask Val Ford whether a homeowners association can do harm, and he will respond that his destroyed his health and wealth.
>
> Ford, 72, and his wife, Ann, are on the verge of losing their home after the Master HOA for the Southcreek Townhomes in Englewood foreclosed on them.
>
> The HOA, which charges dues of $240 a year, has amassed $9,000 in fines and late fees against the ailing couple in a nine-year battle that started with a misplaced trash can that Ford used to collect debris from a nearby community mailbox.
>
> In late 2010, before his wife’s surgery for breast cancer, the HOA won a court order allowing it to garnish their bank fund. The HOA took all the money the couple had saved for the surgery.
>
> “Touching HOA law is always a bit dicey around here,” [Colorado State Senator Morgan] Carroll said of the vested interests surrounding the state’s HOA laws.
>
> -- "Horror Stories Prompt Industry Group To Ask Colorado To Regulate HOA Managers". Denver Post. February 12, 2012.
> @ http://www.denverpost.com/ci_19951732