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Sunday, February 22, 2009

Socializing Associations without worrying about the rest. in VA

In this recent article on the Washington Post website I was taken back by over all lack of understanding of how Common Interest Communities, CIC, work within the local markets. Take this....


"...recently gave rise to a proposal for a targeted rental inspection program. The plan would give county agents unprecedented access inside homes to ensure they are safe and well-maintained. County officials said an inspection program could protect property values by pressuring renters to keep up their dwellings.

Michelle Casciato, chief of the Neighborhood Services Division, recommended that the board consider creating an inspection program after noticing that as owner-occupied rates fell, building maintenance cases and code enforcement calls from residential tenants increased.

"In our experience, when you have higher rates of renter occupancies, community maintenance standards start to slide," Casciato said. "It's fairly well-documented that rental property is not maintained at the same rate."
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State law allows counties to establish residential inspection districts, giving owners 60 days to register all rental property within those boundaries. Once the inventory list is created, agents can inspect homes to ensure they are up to code and safe. Inspectors would have access once every four years, unless a complaint is registered."

Housing Bust Spurs Rental Fears - washingtonpost.com


Funny thing I figured since this and many of the properties that are part of private communities the local government does not have this right since a communities document's would govern this as provided by the VA HOA ACt. unless they have changed the laws in Virginia.

The communities documents all have, or should, provisions for renters.Existing architectural guidelines covenants and bylaws of a community would already provide procedures for dealing with non conforming properties.

What we really have here is the this government's failure to buttress these private communities rights with legislation that would put teeth into roles of boards, overall supervision and collection of delinquent assessments.

So now local government is going to illegally go around the inherent rights of CIC's to government their own private communities and take over one function all the while doing nothing about the other issues like disclosure, assessments, board transparency, and most importantly financial viability all of which most are missing and Virginia is considered a model in CIC's.

Now take the District of Columbia, they have no HOA Act. That is right, surprise, there are no rules about Homeowner Associations. So boards, renters, contractors, the government just does what they want to do. I wonder how long before a responsible public office steps up to the plate to make this happen.

btw. here is a hint about a big problem that this story did not address. Every underwriter of loans that involve a CICs, including Fannie, Freddy, VA, HUD, FHA, all have owner to renter ratio limits. The most important one is that no more then 49 percent of the owners can be renters. It's the 51% Letter. The reality is that those number are really much higher in many cases like 75-85 percent.

So how is your State of Communities?



I guess we'll call it "Socializing Associations" without worrying about the rest.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Guess who ain't getting any FED help

Thats right all you Tens of Millions of residence in Common Interest Communities.

Who is that Condos, Coops, Townhouse and Singe-family Homeowner Community Associations.

The congress, the reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision OPHEA, Fannie, Freddy, and the VA HUD have all been told by me and for years about the problems in your communities.


Well, they all have not done one thing positive for you and with the exception of a a few states and local authorities none one else has either and in some case are detrimental.

Did you known that the so called news show 60 minutes has been faxed again and again and not one producer thinks the 80 million homeowners are Sh*t out of luck.

So to all the banks, investors, and governmental agencies that own so many of these homes now I believe everyone of you are in for a RICO charge the first one of these in a CIC that you own and sell and do not disclose the state of the communities, budget, documents, and board actions.

If you are not paying your communities assessment while you own one of these because of foreclosure then you are now undermining the very community your property is in and in some cases has forced seniors to have to move out because of habitability of the premise.

No one pays the bills,

the insurance, lights, heat, water, security, upkeep and repairs do not get done. The community goes to HELL.


Who is responsible besides the owners. Everyone that is doing nothing to change it.

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