No Homeowner Association Act.

[NelsonJacobsen]

In the Distict we have a Condo Act that guides how these housing unit, which are also a corporation, are managed by their Board of Directors "BOD" and how the BOD inturn should act. This is a nut shell view.

 

So what does this have to do with a Homeowner Associations "HOA"? In the District the single family and townhouse developments that are built out as a HOA which are the majority of new development In this region 80 percenet of new homes are in a CIC- see below. Yet we do not have an HOA Act. So what does that mean.

• No disclosure of the fact that you are buying into a corporate housing structure
  
• No rules that govern how the BOD manages the community property, books and funds. Let alone your community manager.
  
• No way to make individuals pay their associations dues, which could lead to a bankrupt communiy.
  
• No language about setting up a reserve fund to pay for common area elements replacement, roof, pools, roads.
  
• The District get to treat all lots, including green space, as separate taxable items instead of nontaxed common area elements like MD & VA.
  

So as you lookout at all the new single family homes in SE, townhouses everywhere what you are not seeing like a duck on water is the feet below paddling like crazy.

 

Say you parking lot property tax bill came in from the Distict Tax office and it is pretty high since common areas elements are seen the same as front foot properties i.e. your house. Add this bill to the assessments which pay for insurance, management fees, street lights, snowplowing, recycling, and trash removal.

 

Well as it turns out since there is no law on the books about paying HOA fees, people are not paying them. So the items that the assesments are to cover let alone a tax bill are not being paid. So the questions should be what happens next.

 

The District will take you parking lot and can sell it during a tax sale. So now you don't own the parking lot, pool, etc. Try selling your home to someone and then tell them they have no place to park. Your mortgage company is going to love that too.

 

What else? Well your HOA corporation could go into bankruptcy and you could be forced out of your home to which you still have a mortgage. Think I am kidding.

 

We have to get our officals to stop playing and take the language from the Uniform HOA Act that both MD and VA have used and put this law on the books.

 

 

FYI Condominiums, Cooperatives, Single Family and Townhouse Developments are all subsets part of Common Interest Community's "CIC". State of Communities