Why no one claims an empty home.

Bank-Owned Homes Surge, Communities Stung « The Washington Independent

The growing number of bank-owned properties in foreclosure scarring neighborhoods across the country.

The volume of bank-owned foreclosed homes — known as REOs, or real-estate owned properties — is growing at an alarming rate, compounding the foreclosure crisis by sticking hard-hit neighborhoods with vacant and often trashed homes that drive down property values even more. REOs are foreclosed homes that lenders take back after they don’t sell at foreclosure auctions or sheriff’s sales. They keep the homes in inventory until they can be sold again.

The bottom line is that many of these homes( as many as 3 out of 5) are in condos, town home or single family homeowner associations. And, the banks or FANNIE don't want to be on the hook for the assessments.

So they just let the homes sit idol. To them nothing is happening. To the community the rest of the owners are dealing with not only the blight of them, they are dealing with the budget shortfall that empty homes cause and there is absolutely no help coming out of Washington DC.

If the number of home in the US that are in common interest communities is any where near the number trade groups like CAI post ( http://www.caionline.org/about/press/Pages/IndustryLeadersFormCAIChapterinNewMexico.aspx ) then this housing debacle is far from over and your government is trying it's best to cover it up.

Forclosures, Condo, Coop, HOA, Fannies, Banks, Homes.

Fannie Mae and Assessments.

It appears that my years of asking that our Government take notice of the rise in delinquent Assessments and the effect this has on communities has not only fell upon cold marble Fannie has gone and done the exact opposite.

Delinquent HOA Dues for Units in Attached Condominium Projects
Announcement 07-18 states that when using CPM Expedited Review and Lender Full
Review for an established project consisting of attached units, no more than 15 percent of
the condominium/association fee payments can be more than one month delinquent.
Fannie Mae is updating its delinquent HOA dues policy for the CPM Expedited Review
and Lender Full Review processes to require that no more than 15 percent of the total
units in a project can be 30 days or more past due on the payment of their
condominium/association fee payments. This new policy applies to the review of both
new and established attached condominium projects.

https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/guides/ssg/annltrs/pdf/2008/0834.pdf

So in simple terms a condo/coop/hoa budget is suppose to equal zero at the end of each calendar year. The budget is made up of line items that are explained in your documents and have a reason for being there. So when up 15 percent of the unit owners are not paying them what does this mean. It means either the services which are mandated by the documents are not preformed (trash pickup, recycling snow removal, common area maintenance, management fees, security street lights) and the community is in breach of it's own operating guidelines or a special assessment has been passed, which truth be told is considered personal debt, to make up for the budget short fall.


So what to guess has not been paying those assessment then look no further then FANNIE, FREDDY, HUD & VA. They have more of the properties then anyone and while they have been in possession of them the lack of good faith effort to pay the back assessment should be considered criminal.

Think about it someone was not paying the mortgage do anyone really think they were paying the community fees.

Why criminal! Because FANNIE requires a 921 Project questionnaire on every loan that it fund in a planned community and prior to this announcement the previous amount of delinquent assessments was no more then 10 percent.

Since they are the owners of so many homes this was starting to be a real problem. Thus the need for them to help the government was clearly greater then the need to help the community actually get the funds they need to fund the budget. How many homes did Fannie sell prior to this new percentage failed to even meet their own requirement? Is Fannie even filling out the 921 when they sell foreclosed properties.

The effect of all this is that anyone that happens to be buying into a community that has 15 percent deficit in income is walking into a huge problem and the government is doing nothing to help and in fact they are the problem.

btw the average community is more like 20 percent late if not higher.

Property In Landmark Eminent Domain Supreme Court Case Never Used

Private development aka common interest community "CIC" Think developer, local, state and federal authorities in what amounts to a ponzie scheme.



Take LAND/homes that are owned fee simple btw trash, recycling, snowplowing and maintenance of green area, lights and streets is being supplied by local GOV.



So let's seize it and then make the whole area over in some kind of CIC (condos. townhomes,single families in a master association.



The real judo is that this community will have an annual assessment based upon a budget to carry out all the activities that the local city used to provide and still pay taxes.



Ok it gets better---This community is a non stock private company and must hire out all of the services that were supplied by the local authorities previously.



What is the biggest problem facing these planned communities. If people are not paying their mortgage they are not paying these assessments.



This is the biggest reasons why NOone is taking property back. Once they do -assessments, special assessments and reserve funds become due FYI Current requirements state that no more then 10 percent of unit owners can be late.



Fannie, Freddy, HUD, the VA and every other underwriter in a CIC knows that the community is dead broke



Funny! Not really!! if anyone else conspired to conceal losses in a company let alone one that has public dollars and all the while selling it off to some dupe when will someone take notice.



http://stateofcommunities.org
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Hey Maryland Condo's`

You have a new rule about listing every item in the unit for the purpose of insurance

Condominium associations and insurance agents were left scrambling when the Maryland Court of Appeals recently ruled against a long-standing insurance practice for insuring condominiums. Insurance Agents & Brokers of Maryland is working to resolve the issue via an agreement among affected parties.

The court held that the Maryland Condominium Act does not require the condominium association’s master insurance policy to cover damage to an individual unit. Instead, it would be covered by an owner’s individual policy.

What are the Feds gona do?

I just called the main number for FHA and said that I have seen some trends that involve condo's and home owners across America as cited all over this blog. So I left a number and this blog address; So we'll see if anyone actually cares in Washington and I'll post the response here.

So far communities are not getting one ounce of love.

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.

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.

Condos, Coops, Townhouse, Singe-family, Homeowner, Community Associations, congress, the reserve, the Office of Thrift Supervision OPHEA, Fannie, Freddy, VA, HUD