If you had to name the state where a Vietnam War veteran almost lost his apartment because he had the wrong kind of dog; in which a gang of thieves made off with millions of dollars in money from the residents they were obliged to care for; and where a family was threatened with legal action over decorative garage door hinges, your intuition led you to Florida.
Such absurdities of homeowners associations (HOAs) abound where the nation’s highest concentration of condominium developments, gated communities and luxury resorts blend seamlessly with a plethora of petty bureaucracy and outright dishonesty.
But now, thanks to a bill promoted by a Republican congressman and signed by the governor Ron DeSantis Last week things are about to change.
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On July 1, there will be unprecedented new restrictions on the power and excesses of HOAs, the ultra-local panels of government that decide what color your front door should be and how clean you should keep your mailbox, in a drive for high standards. of maintenance and aesthetics.
Residents can no longer be fined or fined for trivial offenses such as leaving their rubbish bins behind after collection day, or leaving Christmas lights and decorations hanging long after the last visitors have returned home – at least without 14 days’ written notice, a hearing and appeal.
Anyone who wants to become an HOA board member will have to be trained and regulated, a blow to Florida’s army of overzealous and autocratic apparatchiks who enjoy controlling even the smallest details of residents’ existence.
“These associations are usually full of Karens who don’t just want to talk to the manager, but want to be the manager themselves,” says Craig Pittman, a veteran journalist and popular culture expert whose book Oh, Florida! describes the extremes of the most idiosyncratic state in the country.
“They want to micro-manage what everyone does and dictate who can park where and what kind of Christmas lights you can put up. In fact, you should not do anything that is different from what someone else does. It’s all about uniformity.
“Now they will either have to find another outlet, like joining their local Moms for Liberty chapter, or they will have to fight there to change things back to the way they were.”
Pittman and real estate law experts recognize the need for a change in Florida’s HOA regulations, which will now include criminal penalties for blocking access to official documents.
They cite the example of The Hammocks, a 5,500-home community in West Kendall, near Miami, where at least six HOA members or their relatives were arrested following a years-long investigation into an alleged $2 million theft and a 400% increase in revenues. HOA fees.
“There’s always a lot of grumbling and complaining about the way HOAs run things, how much they charge, and in the case of some of them, how they don’t let people in to inspect their records,” Pittman said.
“That caused a huge commotion. And ultimately, of course, they didn’t want anyone to see their data because it showed that they were stealing a lot of money.”
Michael Allan Wolf, a distinguished professor of local government at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, believes the Hammocks scandal likely provided the impetus for the reforms, but the drafters quickly identified other problems.
“Usually you get this kind of legislation because voters are concerned about an issue that can be traced back to a scandal or some kind of lawsuit,” he said.
“And maybe if that was the spark, once they started doing it, they started considering other issues with HOAs because most of these have nothing to do with fraud or even money. Is it a matter of the government, or is it a matter of nosy neighbors?
“In American society, sometimes your complaint is about the government, for example about zoning, and other times your complaint is about your neighbors invading your life. They’re just curious and basically don’t respect your privacy.’
The bill was sponsored by Tiffany Esposito, a Republican state representative from southwest Florida whose district includes a proliferation of gated residential neighborhoods controlled by homeowners’ associations.
She did not respond to an interview request but said in a statement that the law “empowered homeowners and increased the transparency and accountability of our state’s homeowner associations.”
Wolf said this could bring about a major change in how Florida’s 50,000 HOAs are managed.
“It will have a chilling effect on people thinking about becoming active in homeowners’ associations as they deal with misdemeanor charges and all the other new rules of [the state capital] Tallahassee,” he said.
“There are professional firms that have taken over the management of HOAs, lawyers and others, and I think this will actually speed up that process and make it more likely that these tasks will no longer be performed by amateurs.”
He also thinks Florida’s law will be closely watched elsewhere. Nationwide, an estimated three in 10 people live in planned communities or condo developments, and other states have experienced similar irrationality. In Missouri, for example, an HOA sought fines and jail time for a family in a dispute over whether a child’s swing could be painted pink or purple.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if other states follow Florida’s model,” Wolf said.
Pittman, meanwhile, expects a response to the law as soon as its consequences become clear.
‘There will be complaints. This neighbor let these workers park in his driveway, and we can’t have that here. That guy’s hedges are too high and it spoils the view. And they’ll be told, ‘I’m sorry, state law says we can’t regulate them anymore,'” he said.
“You will see them complaining to their legislators, and slowly they will get rid of it. I predict that within five years people will say that the law has gone too far, that all these things are lowering the value of our properties, and that we need to let the pendulum swing back the other way.”
