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In the latest twist to this issue, I found out at our 11/14/07 board meeting that back in Oct 2002, the board president, took it upon himself to grant an easement right of way for a sewer line to this non-HOA property owner.
The owner, also a builder, built the house that is in part causing storm water run-off to flood through part of our common area and on the properties of several HOA members. They cite pictures and records detailing ankle high water and flows of a gallon per second from a french drain.
Now, I'm in a struggle with the current board to get answers as to why the easement was granted without notice or any consideration of the impact on our HOA. This is a concern because we may end up having to tap capital reserves to spend maybe $10-15K if the state, county and non-HOA property owner don't.
Just last year the board had spent nearly $10K in legal fees fighting my complaint with the Montgomery County Commission on Common Ownership Communities (CCOC). Another board in place since last Oct 2006 negotiated with me in CCOC mediation to finally agree upon a settlement that recognizes the requirement for the board to hold open meetings, published agendas, and no routine email votes of board items.
This still has been something that I have had to continually police and monitor. All this occurred under a CAI credentialed property manager that we are ending contractual services with by year end.
Posted Nov 18 2007 4:49PM CET
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John Montreal
(View Profile)
Damascus, Maryland |
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Thanks all for the comments.
I was looking for anyone have a similar issue and how they may have handled it.
Damascus Board Member
Posted Oct 22 2007 7:34PM CEST
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Username withheld
Damascus, Maryland |
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Dear Marie,
My whole point in initially writing on this subject was to attempt to help "Damascus Board Member" by giving this person insight as to what our HOA had done in a similar situation. As I said earlier, I don't believe I'm going to change the minds of anyone who has been hurt by a bad HOA. Obviously, you are one of the people who have been hurt.
However, complaining about "CAI lawyers, judges, realtors, experts, managers, insurance and bank brokers," is not going to make them go away. Doing something about making your community a better place to live can do something to either avoid having to use these people, or finding the best ones to use if no other choice is possible.
By the way, in our HOA, not one single house has slid anywhere. We go to great pains to make sure that doesn't happen. Yes, it has happened to other homes in San Clemente. Also, in our HOA, not one single lawsuit has been generated internally by a homeowner in the last 4 1/2 years. Yes, we have been sued by outside entities, but all of those have also been resolved with one exception (and that should be settled within the next six months at no cost to our homeowners).
As to why my previous house went down in value, please re-read my comment. The house I was describing was located in Odessa, TX, not San Clemente, California and was NOT located in a HOA.
As for "homeowners in your HOA report (see: Coast Homeowners Association in San Clemente, California being ripped off with attorney, management company and an ombudsman fees," I am the Ombudsman. Rather than repeat myself, please read my answer on this forum. located at http://www.ahrc.com/new/index.php/src/tools/sub/comments/action/View/mediaid/189/mediadb/directory (text/html) 82397 bytes
By the way, I performed the function of Ombudsman for free for over two years until I was laid off from my previous job. At that time I announced that I would have to quit performing this function due to my change in employment. It was homeowners in our HOA who convinced me to start Service 1st Mediation because they felt that it was money well spent.
Lastly, I am not here to defend myself or HOA's in general. I write on this forum to attempt to help people who want help. Because I don't believe this conversation is beneficial to anyone, this will be my last public comment on this subject. If you would like to communicate with me privately, I answer all Email sent to me.
Thanks,
Bill Mills
Service 1st Mediation & Ombudsman Services
San Clemente, CA
Posted Oct 22 2007 12:58AM CEST
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Bill Mills
(View Profile)
San clemente, California |
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I will give you an example from my own HOA. Because of bad management by the previous HOA Board, management company, and lawyers for the HOA, our community wound up declaring bankruptcy twice, suing itself once in a class action lawsuit, and multiple other homeowner to homeowner lawsuits (see "Trouble in Paradise" on this forum). A good Board was finally elected in February 2003 and over the period of four years all of these problems were resolved. As a result, our property values more than doubled while those communities around us only went up approximately 60% during the period from 2004 through 2006. ...My property value degraded because my neighbor decided to restore a 1930's pickup truck in his front yard. .....you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. Some of us are trying to make a difference...Bob Mills - San Clemente, California The San Clemente HOA houses and especially the homes in your HOA are known for its landslide and litigation problems. These sliding defective homes are also a money maker for homeowner association CAI lawyers, judges , realtors, "experts", managers, insurance and bank brokers. San Clemente sliding homes are sold to "view struck" potential buyers without proper disclosure using "buyer beware contracts."
I'd wager that your home went down in value when the landslide problems surfaced and as a result of feuding HOA board members and greedy lawyers ..not because of a neighbor next door restoring a car on his property.
,..and homeowners in your HOA report (see: Coast Homeowners Association in San Clemente, California being ripped off with attorney, management company and an ombudsman fees that in the midst of all this HOA lawyers and board member feud, the new board skims $78,000. from their maintenance dues to create an "ombudsman" job for this 500 member HOA. In addition the members pay $162,000 a year for a lawyer who they report is related to a board member, and hired a new management company (Progressive Management has a history of testifying and perjuring in court for CAI lawyers against homeowners) at double the salary of the former manager. Looks as if the board has all the politics, PR and finances for their HOA fiefdom sewn up and the owners have to work harder to pay this massive HOA government overhead, high San Clemente taxes and their mortgages.
This mortgage, HOA fee, property tax overhead, the 6% real estate brokers fees from constant turnover of unaffordable sliding properties, the litigation fees, the HOA lawyers fees , the manager and "ombudsman" fees requires sellers to inflate the property values in your HOA. It's a bubble waiting to burst in a bad economy or when the rains decide to pour on San Clemente.
Posted Oct 21 2007 7:06PM CEST
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Marie Anderson
Los Angeles, California |
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Dear Arizona Writers of Comments #5, 6, and 7,
I'm sorry that my comments have made you so angry. That was not my intent. If you will re-read my comments, I started off with the comment, "All of the advice I'm going to give to you is relative to California, so I hope it applies to Maryland also." It was given to a Board member who was trying to determine their HOA's responsibility to act on behalf of HOA members.
Writer #5, you are definitely correct in that the HOA had to take up the slack of where governmental entities failed. The City of San Clemente has no control over the state right-of-way for the freeway. Caltrans, as the state authority over freeways, can do anything it pleases with impunity, including block homeowner's ocean views and multiple other transgressions. I didn't make the rules, and I certainly don't support them. I'm simply reporting what happened.
Writer #6, I greatly over simplified the details in my previous comments because the case was much more complicated than the details I gave. Our HOA manager actually told us that the HOA could not spend money outside of the HOA. This was not true. I quoted to the manager, from "Advising California Common Interest Communities," a CID/HOA not only can spend money outside of the development, in come cases they are mandated to do such. In Alpert v Villa Romano Homeowner's Ass'n, a CID was penalized for not taking action outside of the CID to repair a defect. By inductive logic, this decision says that a HOA can take action outside of the CID if it's in the best interests of its members and in order to protect them. A good HOA (and we've fought four hard years to create just that, a good HOA) wants to protect its owners and do what is best for them. I'm sorry if your experience with bad HOA's has led you to believe that they are all alike because they're not.
Writer #7, you seem to go to great lengths to prove that a HOA has no value in and of itself. In actuality that was not my point. When I said, "the number one responsibility of the Board is to maintain the property values within the HOA," I was referring to the property values of individual homeowner homes within the HOA. I am not familiar with the history of HOA's in Arizona and I assume from your comments that your state is different. However, in California, my comment is correct. Yes, the HOA is a non-profit corporation. However, all non-profit corporations have a reason or purpose for their existence.
In California there are multiple reasons for HOA's existence. HOA's were originally created in California as a result of Proposition 13, which cut off the state and municipalities from taxing homeowner's property every time they wanted to increase their budget (Proposition 13, originated by Howard Jarvis and now maintained by Jon Coupal, was the savior of property owners in California; for more information please see www.hjta.org). Once the state and municipalities no longer had unlimited access to property taxes, they created HOA's to take over responsibility for common green/park areas. From this origin, HOA's have taken on many other responsibilities within California. Again, I don't make the rules, and I don't support them, so please don't shoot the messenger.
I will give you an example from my own HOA. Because of bad management by the previous HOA Board, management company, and lawyers for the HOA, our community wound up declaring bankruptcy twice, suing itself once in a class action lawsuit, and multiple other homeowner to homeowner lawsuits (see "Trouble in Paradise" on this forum). A good Board was finally elected in February 2003 and over the period of four years all of these problems were resolved. As a result, our property values more than doubled while those communities around us only went up approximately 60% during the period from 2004 through 2006. Our community now has a reputation where other HOA's call our new management company and ask for information on how we turned ourselves around. I'm not trying to beat our own drum. What I'm trying to show you is what can be accomplished when a motivated group of homeowners take control of their own association.
I'm sorry that the former HOA you lived in actually degraded your property value. I had a similar situation in Odessa, TX for the exact opposite reason. My property value degraded because my neighbor decided to restore a 1930's pickup truck in his front yard. I had no problems with the restoration. My problem was that the truck sat in his front yard (not his driveway) for three years while he performed the work.
Unfortunately, I was forced to move for work reasons during year number two and was not able to sell my home for the same price I originally paid even though overall property values in the area had gone up. It was because of this incident that I chose to live in a HOA. The reason I chose my HOA is that property values were already depressed and I knew I could help improve that situation.
I could go on defending my position, but I don't believe I'm going to change the minds of anyone who has been hurt by a bad HOA. Recently, here in San Clemente, CA, a bad HOA actually has been accused of being responsible for a suicide (please see Homeowners Associations: "MY daughter ..committed suicide upon receiving the notice of judgment from the court" on this forum).
My whole point in writing this is not to defend my position, but rather, to show that you shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. Some of us are trying to make a difference.
Thank, Bill Mills
Service 1st Mediation & Ombudsman Services
San Clemente, CA
Posted Oct 21 2007 5:42PM CEST
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Bill Mills
(View Profile)
San clemente, California |
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"For example, if the water runoff problem will lower the value of several homes, then that lowers the value of the HOA as a whole. Remember, the number one responsibility of the Board is to maintain the property values within the HOA." And this statement is completely absurd.
The HOA has not real 'value' other than the 'value' of the property the HOA actually 'owns,' which is the common area itself, which is actually not 'marketable' in most instances, so has no true 'value.' The HOA is simply a legal corporate entity which was initially meant as a 'non-profit' and the Board simply meant to, in older communities, 'pay the bills, and call for the votes and meetings' as needed in order to 'fund' the maintenance costs for the common areas.
It is the 'gravy train' who have obscured what were initially 'gentlemen's agreements' with respect to the 'restrictions' into their own, in addition to the city/state, revenue stream at the private property and homeowner's living in these communities expense.
And NEVER were intended to 'protect property values' at ALL. (and this is a 'false' assumption, since a former home I grew up in the Phoenix metropolitan area, has increased in value at a far greater rate than any newer HOA community in the Phoenix metropolitan area, simply because of where it is located, since there IS no more available land in North Phoenix, just as some of the older homes in Scottsdale, are worth far more than some of the 'newer' particle board ones even with their jacuzzis.
As any realtor will tell you.....it is location, location, location that determines true 'property values' even with geese in the front yard.
Posted Oct 18 2007 2:54AM CEST
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Linda Gehring
Phoenix, Arizona |
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Would still maintain that if it is a city 'grading' problem most likely responsible for the water runoff, and it is affecting the homeowners or the common area, than as 'incorporated' areas the proper redress for BOTH entities, the Board for 'Association' property, and the owners, for their own properties - whether or not they address this either 'together' or 'apart,' as a city responsibility.
And find it pretty unbelieveable that the HOA would be responsible for city sidewalk, and would be interested in that case citing, and whether or not this one in CAI dominated states with one of their member judiciary? If so, would appear 'the state' again is feeding it's industries and little brothers, at the homeowners expense, once again.
And in many documents 'property value' is never even mentioned, since that is negligible at best, but such vague terms as 'civic betterment,' were purportedly the aim (the 'civic' betterment of the city/state itself, it appears, in the extra tax revenue and 'favored subject' campaign contributions, it would appear).
Posted Oct 18 2007 2:12AM CEST
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Username withheld
Phoenix, Arizona |
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Mr. Mills:
Actually, HOAs were not at all intended to 'maintain' property values at all, nor was that the basis for why these entities were created to begin with.
And it looks like your community ended up 'picking up the slack' for the state's negligence in maintaining 'their' property at the citizen's requests, citizens who are paying state and city revenue, and also additional revenue to the HOA which are 'uncredited' taxes. Would have felt this 'problem' would have been referred to 'the city' if it was within an incorporated area (such as San Clemente), rather than for Caltran to tell those homeowners to 'contact their HOA,' which didn't, obviously, own the property.
It appears those on the 'gravy train' are becoming enablers.
Posted Oct 18 2007 2:06AM CEST
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Username withheld
Phoenix, Arizona |
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Dear Board Member,
Others have already given you approaches to solving this problem. I'm simply going to comment on your original question of whether the HOA should get involved. All of the advice I'm going to give to you is relative to California, so I hope it applies to Maryland also.
First, if the runoff problems are affecting common area in any way, then the Board has a duty to act to protect the common area. This is true even if the common area is not as severely affected as are individual homeowners.
Second, if more than one homeowner in the HOA is being affected, then the Board may have a right to intervene on their behalf. Let me give you an example. Here in California there are 99 houses out of 575 in our HOA that border on a freeway. The freeway right of way is maintained by a state organization called Caltrans. When individual homeowners asked Caltrans to maintain the area immediately next to their homes, Caltrans declined. In their letters to individual homeowners Caltrans specifically asked the homeowners to have the HOA approach them on behalf of all the homeowners involved.
Our HOA lawyer looked into this and found a court case where a HOA was found negligent for not getting involved in repairing a city sidewalk even though the sidewalk did not belong to the HOA. Using this logic our HOA determined that even though the property to be maintained did not belong to the HOA, it did present a fire hazard to the HOA. Therefore, the HOA acted, obtained a permit from Caltrans, and cleaned up the fire hazard even though it was not on common area property.
I'm not suggesting that your HOA take independent action to remedy this problem directly. What I'm saying is that if the water runoff problem affects more than one homeowner, then the HOA may have both the right and duty to pursue a solution because it's in the best interests of the HOA. For example, if the water runoff problem will lower the value of several homes, then that lowers the value of the HOA as a whole. Remember, the number one responsibility of the Board is to maintain the property values within the HOA.
Thanks,
Bill Mills
Service 1st Mediation & Ombudsman Services
San Clemente, CA
Posted Oct 15 2007 9:49PM CEST
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Bill Mills
(View Profile)
San clemente, California |
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My question....since all grading for new home development must be approved by the city and/or county inspectors prior to building, have these owners checked to see whether this was done? How old are the homes? Has there been any physical damage to any of the properties themselves, or is it just the water runoff which is bothering them, which hasn't caused any actual damage at all?
Rain causes water runoff, that is a fact, and unless it had or it is likely that this runoff would or has caused any damage, other than attempting to redirect the flow if that is possible from the common area itself rather inexpensively, there are usually drainage easements already created in most lot development plans themselves, unless something has occurred to change this over the years.
Unless it is a flood and water is seeping into their homes, it shouldn't be too hard to have the city come out and check what might have happened contrary to the original drainage and drainage requirements which were approved upon the initial construction.
Posted Oct 12 2007 8:47PM CEST
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Username withheld
Phoenix, Arizona |
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