Fuck HOAs

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Rumor_Watkins

why is it any different? take this scenario:

Debtor owns a 100,000 house. that’s all the assets they have in the world. nothing else. zip. zilch. i’m even talking about clothes, a random CD, or a penny they picked up in an alley. jack else except for the house. doesn’t work, either.

Debtor lives in a state where there are no judgment exemptions (i.e. you can’t shield assets from judgment)

Debtor borrows $500 bucks from Creditor / Debtor mortgages his house for $500 from Creditor / Debtor contracts to have housing repair done on his house for $500

Debtor refuses to pay.

What is a creditor supposed to do? That’s why there’s no legal distinction between (there are procedural distinctions, yes) taking your house to pay the mortgage or taking your house to pay the judgment against you. It’s a debt.

If the home repair guy was relying on the house as security for payment when he did the work, then I hear you. Since we are making up extreme fact patterns let me give it a whirl:

Debtor2 has a house that is worth less than the mortgage of $500. Debtor2 runs over an orphan. The orphans manages to get a $500 judgment against the debtor and the debtor is judgment proof.

The home repair guy voluntarily assumed the risk of non-payment (its not like he did a title search or anything before he started doing the work did he?), the orphan had no choice in becoming a creditor of Debtor2. Why is it so important (as a policy matter) to give home repair guy some recourse that he never bargained for or relied on?

what distinguishes homeowner associations here is that they are given an exemption from judgment exemptions, given expedited non-judicial mechanisms to foreclose, and lastly operate on resident-contributed budgets where there is both a financial incentive ($500 on a small HOA can’t be covered up with accounting - it goes to pay necessary bills) and a fair game incentive (if one fellow resident isn’t paying, but everyone else is…) to vigorously pursue the liens. so you’ve got a situation where these lienholders are in prime position to foreclose. which puts the debtor/homeowner in prime position to ensure that the bill is paid. which is the entire point of rigging the system in the favor of the HOA - so that no one can skate by without paying for communal upkeep.

I hear you but I think there are at least 3 jurisdictions that do not have this expedited process for foreclosing on homes for HOA fees (NYC, DC (I assume you are a member of that bar) and Maryland), in these places HOAs get to place a lien on the property and that’s it. It doesn’t have to get paid until the home is sold. If I am wrong about DC then I am probably wrong about NYC and Maryland as well but I THINK that this is the rule in these places. I only say this to show that life can go on and society can function without giving HOAs these special rights.

[Condescending_Robot]

Imagine if people got this angry every time Capt. Mike Clauer dropped a bomb on an Iraqi’s house just to laugh at the victim!

[VinylTurnip]

I’m sure he wouldn’t do that unless the homeowner was seriously in arrears on their HOA dues.

[Acsenray]

Yeah, 7 days overdue would be ridiculous, but 27 days and the bombs fly.

[robby]

There’s an interesting article here in today’s Hartford Courant about an insurance company marketing automobile liability insurance in Texas to protect one’s house against civil judgements. A Texas consumer group has protested the ads, arguing that Texas’ homestead exemption, which has no upper limit and which protects the forced sale of homes to satisfy most judgements, already protects homes.

Anyway, there are some interesting quotes in the article relevant to the current discussion:

…But the Texas constitution prohibits the forced sale of a home in most circumstances, including liability from a car crash.

“It is not true that you need to cushion your auto insurance in order to somehow protect your home because liability would extend to your home because of an auto accident,” Tom Kelley, a spokesman for Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott. “In other words, our state is pretty clear about protecting one’s home.”

…Just not from HOAs, I guess. :rolleyes:

As a native Texan, I can report that it’s well-known how protective Texas has traditionally been to protect one’s house. That’s why the ability of an HOA to force the sale of a house is so astonishing to me.

I will also add that one reason why so many HOAs have proliferated in Houston is because Houston has no municipal zoning. The only thing keeping someone from putting in a gas station or a nightclub in the middle of a residential neighborhood is deed restrictions enforced by a HOA.