PUNITIVE BY DESIGN
THE SURPRISING POWERS HOAs HAVE TO WREAK HAVOC IN PEOPLE’S LIVES
The April 10, 2023 episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver featured a segment where the host discusses homeowners associations (HOAs) and the surprising amount of power they wield.
Brought to you by Drew McManus, your neighbor in 7908.
In a striking coincidence, exactly one week later during the April 17, 2023 Board meeting our Board President, Scott Timmerman, surprised owners with an automatic late fee policy that ticks all of the red flag boxes from Oliver’s segment.
Authority Gone Awry…
Oliver highlights one of the problems with HOAs is even though they are set up as not-for-profit, private corporations that can often function like a local government.
This means they can set the rules and the punishment without owner review or input, a point Oliver expands on at the 9:24 mark.
“And that gets to an important point here because HOAs can have the authority of a government and collect fees and fines like one, but when it comes to accountability, they can actively resist it in ways that government officials could only dream about.”
– John Oliver
This sort of largely unregulated authority means government regulators see any disputes between an HOA’s Board, its management company*, and its members as private matters. That’s another red flag Oliver points out toward the end of the segment at the 19:05 mark
*Not-So-Fun-Fact
“If you’re thinking ‘Well, this all seems [bleep]ed up, but thank God there aren’t private companies making this worse,’ hold on, I’ve got some bad news. Because at this point, we should probably discuss management companies.”
Curious to learn more about some of these issues? Feel free to get in touch, I’m happy to chat.