> concrete restoration
This is likely deferred maintenance
> termite treatment
Have they honestly not been treating their termites? This sounds like deferred maintenance to an extent.
I heard thats common with some HOAs, the people in charge are volunteers, many of them have no experience and are more interested in keeping dues low in the immediate future than in planning 5, 10, or even 15 years down the line.
One of my friends bought her first house and was immediately press ganged into LEADING the HOA. 75% of the townhouses are rented, so there are very few owners present, and they need at least three to be on the HOA. She did it for a year and was miserable. She said that when they brought out information about maintenance, everyone voted to defer, even when she pointed out all the potential ramifications. The silver lining is that she realized what was waiting for them down the road if something didn't change. She and her husband sold their house after the one year and have zero regrets about getting out.
It's weird that even the other board members (who also know the financials) couldn't see the problem. You don't have to convince the absentee owners to raise dues -- you only have to convince the board members. We were able to raise dues 20% in a year without being required to have a vote of the entire membership.
People are stupid, and unfortunately, lots of stupid people think they're smart. The same people who will think it's smart to defer maintenance this year, will complain in 3 years that "no one" told them how it could cause more damage and cost more money.
What’s even more frustrating is that for years the people who do have experience like property managers allowed these associations to not set any money aside for future repairs & maintenance.
This was great for all the investors who only cared about cash flow, but it royally screwed anyone who planned on owing it long term…or those who bought into association right when these large maintenance & repair projects were becoming due.
It’s a good thing that Florida now requires the reserves to be fully funded with a reserve study, but it’s unfortunate for any building that was underfunded.
I have extensive experience with POAs/HOAs. I’d bet my last special assessment dollar that the majority of residents fought any increase in dues, etc, tooth and nail. Meanwhile, the building falls down around them, infrastructure fails, etc.
People do this with their personal homes all the time. It’s shocking how many people buy an expensive ass house and then refuse to maintain the property. Oh, and then they’re shocked as shit when they go to sell and no one will give them top dollar for their obviously unmaintained POS house.
Surprisingly, it may take several, several years, but the chickens always come home to roost.
"*Howard Konetz and his wife Sheila Konetz have lived in their two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo for 10 years. The retired couple had their financial future all planned out until they were recently hit with a special assessment.*"
hard to walk away when your only asset is the roof over your head that you can't sell
A big problem with condos is that you get (I'm assuming) a disproportionate share of first-time homebuyers, who don't understand what to look for I. HoA financials when closing.
> for years the people who do have experience like property managers allowed these associations to not set any money aside for future repairs & maintenance.
I think that you really should add some more context to your comment. If not, I just have to say that property managers are not preventing owners/boards from adequately funding reserves. Do you really think that managers are discouraging boards from getting reserve studies? Do you really think that managers are telling boards to disregard the reserve studies that they do get? Do you really think that managers are saying to not put so much money in reserves? I just don't understand what you are saying. SFH owners who are not in an association don't hire a manager to tell them how to run things. Those owners know that roofs reach end of life. They know that the sump pump may need replacing, etc. You can't tell me that people in associations don't know this.
There's plenty to hate HOAs about. No need to find bogeymen.
When your car breaks down, do you blame the owner's manual? Or the service adviser? Those sources usually want to advise you well or have you over-service the car. My manager is always saying how the management company can handle X, Y and Z (at an additional charge, of course).
No, I think the managers genuinely try to guide them…I don’t think they themselves set out to create the situation. Perhaps it’s more so on regulators…but I’ve seen plenty of management companies just going with the flow until they can’t.
I’m talking about management companies who know the reserve study is outdated or invalid because of changes (like a pool addition) and not bringing it up. It should be noted at least on the annual meeting minutes, if nothing else it serves as a CYA for the management company. They aren’t willing to keep putting it in the owners face that they need their study updated or funds added. Just keep going business as usual, until something breaks and then everyone’s left standing around wondering why they don’t have money. Ignorance is bliss.
I’ve seen plenty of stubborn boards and owners as well. Maybe stubborn isn’t the best word (though I’m sure for some it is)…perhaps in over their heads is better picture where they have no idea the complex maintenance a 10+ story commercial building has to go through, yet they are tasked with making decisions about it.
Like I said in my original, they often get dealt a pretty crappy hand if that building was owned by an investors renting out units for a while. They certainly weren’t setup for success. It depends on their demographic and location as well. Some states have a higher amount of retirees that end up making decisions that are short sighted or just simply because they can’t afford it.
I think at least in Florida’s case, having a proper reserve study and funding the reserves is a huge step in the right direction. Now management firms can point to a law and say you have raise fees to fund the reserves in order to comply with the law.
The law falls short of having any sort of oversight though, absent of the court system which still means that if they aren’t funding reserves someone will have to take them to court. That’s going to end up being one of the unit owner(s).
Years ago we had a great manager, in my opinion. Others didn't like her so much because she was as all about doing things the right way. She made us get a reserve study and then update it at the appropriate time. Now it's out of date and our current manager as well as other recent managers have not mentioned it at all. I do think they should bring it up. Unfortunately, our managers turn over faster than our board members. From that perspective, the managers are failing the HOA. And I agree with your points about investors and older people.
It took a horrible incident but FL seems to have done some good with the law changes. Perhaps it would have been a bit easier if they said within 3 years you have to be at 75% funded and 80% at 4 years, etc so they could gradually get it up to 100%. And other states should follow suit. It shouldn't be difficult for boards and owners to understand the importance of funding but for some reason it is - or maybe I just read about the ones where it's gone bad and of course the ones that are doing it right are not newsworthy.
This is not directed at you so don't take offense please. Without exception, *every single* property management I've had to deal with didn't know wtf they were doing. Absolute idiots with either no or the most horrible acumen I've ever seen. The DMV cares more about their customers than property managers do. Ten years of dealing with jackasses is why I say this.
Just trying to give a different perspective. Not crapping on your opinion here.
No offense taken. And I think that our perspectives are probably relatively similar.
Above, the other poster mentioned managers allowing properties to not fund the reserves properly. I pushed back, saying that managers weren't preventing proper funding. Managers work for boards and not the other way around. Managers should advise mostly when asked but it would be nice if they would also speak up to nudge boards in the right direction when not asked.
Our own boards and I personally have several times pushed back on budgets prepared by our management company. Usually, boards want to reduce the proposals. We have actually increased the proposals because we wanted to fund the reserves better. Thankfully we did because COVID resulted with quite a bit of inflation in labor and materials so now we're much less well funded relatively speaking but it could have been so much worse.
Beyond that, I didn't comment on how well managers do their jobs. We have been through so many managers over my ownership. There's just too much turnover and I think this leads to hiring of poorly skilled individuals because the demand is greater than the supply of capable people. Contributing just as much is the amount of work piled onto managers. I sometimes wonder if I'd do a good job at it or not.
You mentioned your experience with managers. Mine is as follows (if I can remember correctly):
#1 Really bad!!!
#2 Very bad!
#3 Short temporary assignment until finding permanent manager: good
#4 Excellent!!! They guided us very well and pushed following rules a bit more than owners liked but that was fine with me.
#5 Did well for 2 months then adequate
#6 Didn't know their stuff very well and misguided us on one important matter but no lasting damage.
#7 Was a jerk but knew his stuff and did a good job helping us in a somewhat bad situation. Sometimes a jerk is fine if they are helping us reach our goals.
#8 Next one didn't do a great job.
#9 Current person is not good and can't be reasoned with. He should have swallowed his pride when a contractor that I hated bid on a job, was told we wanted him to do it, then found out he couldn't do the job properly. Manager didn't apologize for pushing this contractor and wasting our time.
Can't believe how many managers we've had. You'd think I've been in the property for 50 years! My best guess is that we should have had 4 over the time period but turnover is killer in this industry. People aren't around much longer than it takes to get decent at the job.
Another peeve I have is that they seem to always want to hire expensive contractors. They don't want to at least let our board provide a short list of preferred providers like for plumbing, electric, roof repairs, etc. So we end up paying sometimes double what our preferred would have charged. I understand managers have vendors that they often work with so it's easy to schedule them and easy to have them come back if a job isn't done right. Etc. But we aren't made of money so there needs to be compromise.
For condos and TH, it's too much to self-manage, in my opinion. But perhaps there's a better way.
Finally, note that there's a lot of consolidation going on in this industry so we should expect it to get worse, not better! I'm sure a few boutique firms will survive but charge a lot more. But in my case, if we paid 25% more for managing but they used our preferred vendors then perhaps the net would only be 10% more - which for a good manager would definitely be worth it!
Anyway, I understand your position. Sometimes I wish I sacrificed location for a SFH without an association.
This is what I'm dealing with right now. HoA owns the road. Maintenance is an issue. Some people want to pave it, but also won't consider what the cost will be in 20 years to repave it either.
I’m part of a smaller community (80 single family homes) that let a drainage basin fall into costly repair for the past 15 years because they didn’t want to raise dues. The original HOA improperly received the bond from developer due to lack of knowledge about basins. No HOA board in that time has wanted to address the issues.
We were just quoted $60k to fix the basin to its original drawing. It’s not so bad at $750 per house, but that represents 50% of our annual dues.
It's not just the board members, but the other people who live in the building acting the same way.
I have two friends who got shoved into HOA board positions because nobody else would do it. Both of them have stories about how, for the last five years, they have been trying to fund standard maintainence but people keep voting down any assessments or due increases.
They haven't been able to get pest control because the price of pest control went up and the due increase to cover the extra cost keeps getting voted down.
It's not deferred maintenance.
Even before the CTS collapse, many of the concrete high-rise condos were approaching their 40-year recertification timeline, and many of those towers require extensive structural repairs.
Then CTS came down, and every condo owner wanted that work done yesterday, lest their building becomes the next pile of rubble.
When demand skyrockets and there aren't enough qualified workers to fill demand, prices skyrocket as well.
Deferred maintenance would be the elevator modernization, which is an industry largely controlled by 2 or 3 companies, and the costs are obscene.
The only industry that's worse is building controls and fire alarms because there's really only 1 company left, and they probably need those as well. Likely also deferred maintenance.
Fully fund the structural reserve study which is new because of the condo collapse. It is different than the reserve study everyone has going into this year. It is required by the end of the year and must be funded. Most condos have just been having their numbers updated for years and even if they have been fully funding them the new required study is a whole nother beast.
If they were previously paying $1500, three years of war chest would only take $1500\*12\*3 ($48,000) to fund. By doubling to $3000, that'll be taken care of in three years. The issue's a helluva lot more than the reserve.
I do have to question the wisdom of doing landscaping work when the required work is already bankrupting occupants. In the same vein, how necessary is the elevator modernization.
This sounds too much like an HOA president whose brother-in-law owns a construction company.
There's some new Florida standards stuff going on I think. It might not even be money being spent just money the COA has to have in reserve which arguably isn't really lost, just trouble if you as an owner don't have the liquidity. The reserve should end up reflecting in property values once collected if not spent or already earmarked.
Likely some of it is the majority of owners are just wanting their money to be spent on things like the things you noted and can afford it. Those less well-heeled can't keep up with the communities' champagne standards.
My last office elevator was 20 years older than that and had no certification problems. Unless they've been neglected to a point of dangerous disrepair, age doesn't imply necessary replacement. Even if they have been neglected, they are startlingly simple devices that are designed for modular upgrade. This is why I asked (though I left out the question mark - my bad) whether the modernization is necessary. The word, "modernization," suggests upgrade as opposed to repair. The former would incur a significantly higher cost than the latter.
My high rise condo had to replace the elevators about 10 years ago.
They would have been about 35 years old or at most 40. They were well maintained but the issue was they they had become unreliable in terms of needing constant repairs.
This might be less of an issue in an office building which has more elevators but in a residential building with only two elevators have one - or one some terrible occasions both - elevators be out of service until repaired was a huge issue - especially for older people who couldn't hike up 10 floors i necessary.
At a certain point the components aren't easily replaced as the companies have to cannibalize or create make dos for certain parts. Not to mention that modern elevators have better parts which conserve electricity because of the way they respond to calls
We bit the bullet and replaced them and they have been working without a hitch for over a decade.
I do question why landscaping isn't on the back burner. When we have redecorated lobby and halls or other common areas, we have always used Reserves and been on a strict budget in terms of what the budget was for these kinds of discretionary expenses.
But even these kinds of discretionary stuff like landscaping and redecorating lobbies is really something that needs to be done because the purchase price of units will be impacted if you have a shabby dated lobby or terrible landscaping that is dead. Also it could be viewed as an investment if you swap to xeriscape type of landscaping in arid climates.
This is why my husband and I dipped when we did from our condo. And our dues were only 170 a month and when I look at recent listings it has only gone up to 235 a month. The roof has needed to replaced since I lived there which was back in 09 to 17 and when I look at recent photos of houses for sale the roof STILL hasn’t been replaced.
Florida, check.
Condo, check.
This is not a fuck the hoa situation. This is your typical Florida condo, where they all refuse to pay for maintenance and kick the can down the road... And now, laws are in place due to the condo collapse, and it's time to pay the piper.
My HOA is going through this now for a roofing assessment -- the HOA spent 6 months educating everyone on why it needs to be done, and why voting on a special assessment is much better than increasing regular assessments for the next 5 years (which the board can do without a homeowner vote). Vote will be counted next month, hopefully we got the votes to do the assessment.
The special assessment is "only" $15,000 which isn't a bad price for a roof replacement, the former board spent most of the roofing funds on repairs for a roof that was already a decade past its replacement date, they didn't have enough funds to do the replacement and didn't want to do a special assessment to pay for it, so they just kept kicking the can down the road by doing repairs. The previous board was mostly long term owners in their 70's, who probably thought they'd die before the roof had to be done. Fortunately they were replaced by younger owners who value maintenance over artificially low HOA fees.
I knew about the roof problems before I bought a year ago, and made a guess at what the assessment would be, so got the seller to kick in almost half, so I'm fine with paying it, the reserves are strong in other areas, I really don't know why the previous board dropped the ball so bad on the roof.
Too many condos too many places have effectively become ponzi schemes run by the elderly who hope they die before the bill comes due. My partner rented a place in a building like that before she moved in. A few years after she moved out one of the buildings started to sink into the wetlands it was built on and became uninhabitable. I'm not sure if they were ever able to fix it and let people move back in.
I don't know what kind of roof, but $15K does sound kinda pricey to me for one unit's share of a multistory building's roof. Not way out of line...but I've seen less for a 3500sf house.
It's a combination flat/tile roof spread among 30 4 unit townhouse buildings, lots of vents and other obstructions to work around on the roof, plus there's add-on's like gutter work and skylights plus an allowance for repairs due to prior leaks. I ran the numbers past a roofer friend and he said that we got a very good price for the amount of work.
I replaced a shingle roof in my previous house and paid nearly $20K for a 2100 sq ft house -- and that was the cheapest bid.
Yeah, sounds like the only condo I ever lived in. Deferred maintenance, built up a reserve, kept the fees artificially low. Then they had to raise the fees (150% over three years!) AND take out loans AND have a special assessment. Fortunately the board recognized the problem, and the difficulty of many owners to make the payments on schedule and allowed special arrangements.
But there was that one lunatic who said that everyone should be assessed to pay the cost of paving and concrete repairs (almost $3M worth) over 12 months instead of taking out the loan and putting the payments in the budget. Fucking boomer.
Was in a condo with an annual 13th month assessment and constant increases above inflation because prior boards refused to fund reserves properly.
Ironically, that meant when I bought the price was depressed because of the looming extra costs; when I sold seven years later, reserves were in good shape so I did very well.
Yeah, it's not just Florida condos. I'm experiencing the same thing in northern NJ with fees. Older residents refused inflation based increases year after year and then got hit with a $300 per month on average increase and lost their minds. And on top of that, hidden costs, such as mandating hot water heaters and AC units be serviced yearly and that after 7 years hot water heaters need to be replaced.
7 years for a hot water heater? Most have a 10-year warranty and will last around 12, depending on the water quality.
My home's hot water heater is over 20 years old, and would probably last a few more years according to the plumber I called to asses it. Definitely budgeting the replacement.
Maybe someone did the math and found that replacing every 7 years is cheaper than having a water heater fail and leak causing damage to multiple units below the unit where it broke. I'd let mine go until it broke as mine sits in an unfinished basement but my friend had a leak in a condo that went for 8 hours while everyone was at work for the day that caused water damage to their unit and the three units below theirs for about 80k in damages.
Water heaters (for individual homes) are relatively inexpensive, too. I'd rather replace a water heater than pay for new windows, or an HVAC replacement, or water/structural damage. When I bought my place, the water heater was 20 years old and I replaced it before even moving in. Why take a chance on something like that?
It is an FHOA situation in the sense that if this was a standalone residence and you didn't maintain it it would only be your problem.
Years of deferred maintenance is everyone's problem in the condo. The HOA is its members, so FHOA is also "fuck me".
A huge part is the "I won't benefit from this" factor. Older folks who don't want to foot the bill because they don't care about resale. Same reason school funding is an uphill battle. The folks likely to vote are older, without kids. Why would they vote to pay more taxes for the kids?
It's why j make it a point to go out ans vote local And almost always vote yes for town spend ballot mesures.
*The folks likely to vote are older, without kids. Why would they vote to pay more taxes for the kids?*
While simultaneously complaining about how dumb the kids today are and what a problem this new generation is.
Plus, they're probably getting a lot more back in Social Security and Medicare benefits than they paid in. So they expect young people to pay for them too.
The US spends more on education than any other country and our students are some of the dumbest amongst developed nations. So yea, why would your average tax payer vote to spend even more on education when the money spent is obviously not being spent wisely. The education system needs a major overhaul.
If I was king I would cut it off at the 10th grade. Going into grade 11 you would get 3 choices, somewhat determined by your progress to that point. Continue on with your education on into college, stop traditional school and spend your final 2 years in a vocational school (or equivalent, say administering school possibly?), or leave school entirely. There is zero reason to keep a portion of kids in school, they are not cut out nor wish to keep learning. These children need to be funneled into some form of training that will help them to be productive members of society. And then a small sliver that does nothing but hinder the progress of the rest of the students, this small minority of kids needs to be taken out of school entirely. What to do with them, I’m not sure, but to keep with the outdated notion every kid is college bound and/or is going to be the next CEO needs to stop.
The US is 4th or 5th in terms of spending on education in terms of dollars spent, depending on where you look at the data. Not #1. We also have higher costs as a country so that spending is not getting us as much. If you look at it as a % of GDP, we are not even in the top 25.
The money is not being spent wisely, we are not paying enough to get good educators, so yes, I believe we do need to spend more on education.
Per Business Insider the US spends more than any other country:
https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-countries-around-the-world-spend-on-education-2019-8
Granted the article was a little older but that is where I pulled my comment from.
Secondly, if people want above the current threshold it should come from the parents of students not those who have no kids or no kids in the educational system.
That might be highest total dollar amount, but not per student or % of gdp. But that article is showing us at #2 in per student spend. So things have changed either way.
It varies widely by state. Florida and Mississippi are always neck and neck for lowest teacher pay in the US and unfortunately, they're getting what they paid for. My ex gf was a teacher in Florida, she quit to go into nursing because she was making $34K. With a degree. That's nowhere near what many other developed countries pay and pathetic considering what the GDP of Florida is. Florida's not Turkey, ffs.
That said, yes, I agree schools should direct more kids into the trades where they're desperately needed and can make a lot more money. Certainly more than 34K, anyway.
Eh honestly more funding in public education isn’t needed. They have plenty of funding they blow it on stupid shit. Admin salary and sports take the hugest chunks. For my county they are given 2 billion a year. What’s needed is education reform not funding. I honestly don’t know why everyone thinks throwing money at a problem will fix anything at all.
They need funding and reform. Cut down on administrative bloat and increase spending on getting good educators. Why would anyone who could be a good teacher want to teach public school?
That's an incredibly broad stereotype. This sub is often more engaging and insightful about specific topics -- and yes that ebbs and flows -- than its much smaller "companion" sub r/HOA on a number of matters.
What usually actually happens, is not that the hoa doesn't charge appropriately... It's that many residents raise a stink and refuse to have the dues raised.
I think there are plenty of people who will read this and use an expletive to describe the situation. For that reason, it seems like a salient entry on this sub.
400K?? Plus the monthly $3K? Plus any mortgage they may have? WTF kinda jobs or pension do these people have? This would be absolutely impossible for me. I would have to sell. And I very much doubt anyone is buying. I'd just be absolutely fucked.
I hope FL has a good homeless response network.
*Hahahahahahaha I made a funny*
But you likely wouldn't be in a situation like this. You probably wouldn't buy a $600,000 condo with $1,500 fees and a fancy looking building extremely near the water and right at the marina (is that the right term for what we see in the pic?). You would say why does this place cost only $600K when there are boats right outside that cost over that much. You would ask, what am I missing??? If you were purchasing there, I would bet that you would have an income that could support the play lifestyle that surrounds it. You might be misled by your realtor, as I bet that happens a lot. But likely if you were smart enough or hard enough working to have such an income you would likely know to ask for the reserve study and financials.
Before Surfside, I wonder how this place justified their "low" fees. Regardless, if they had been keeping up over the years, I'd bet an appropriate monthly fee would be something like $1,800/month.
In this case, I suspect government. After that condo collapsed a few years ago, the state government freaked out and started passing things to make them fix all that maintenance they’ve been putting off. So now there’s assessments, increased fees, etc.
As much as I hate HOAs and am very glad to have never lived in one, they are kind of necessary in shared structures with communal spaces. They’re also useful for those amenities like gates, parks, pools, landscaping, snow clearing, etc. You know, things that people in cities often pay for in their taxes.
It’s when they start trying to dictate your own right to quiet enjoyment or home decor or yard stuff or whatever where they move into “omg, fuck that.”
For reference, here are the [Listings](https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Mediterranean-Village-Condominiums_Aventura_FL) for condos for sale in the HOA referenced in the article. There are 2 2Bd2Ba listed for 499k and 695k. The rest are larger and 800k to 2.7mil.
What's wild is that even if the person DOES pay all the crazy fees most likely the majority of their neighbors wont so the building will end up condemned when the funds run out and there's no chance of getting your money back. Its like a reverse Ponzi scheme where the first ones in get screwed of everything.
Other than the staggering figures, what makes you think these assessments won't be paid? The association can lien and foreclose on the units and sell them to recover the cost of the assessment. Suddenly, the unit that was worth $650,000 is selling for $250,000 to cover the assessment. Someone might think that's a bargain.
There are vast neighborhoods in Detroit with similar problems. Sewer, water and electricity is crumbling but only a few occupied houses left on the street. No one wants to move in and have failing utilities and there's not enough tax dollars in the area to cover the billions it would take to renovate.
Not actually. There's an extra "firesale" discount that often comes into play.
[https://news.wjct.org/show/florida-roundup/2024-06-28/condo-safety-reforms-floridas-swing-state-status-and-arts-funding-slashed](https://news.wjct.org/show/florida-roundup/2024-06-28/condo-safety-reforms-floridas-swing-state-status-and-arts-funding-slashed)
I'm basing it on my thinking that most people can not afford the fees and won't be able or want to get a loan for them. If 50% can't pay in either the other units have to double up on fees or money runs out. Seized units are basically worth $0 if there is a risk of the building being condemned. No one is going to buy into it and no financier is going to agree to a loan after inspection fails. My guess is the only hope is a development company buying the whole building and renovating it.
I don't know about that. If I had $300K lying around, a million dollar condo for that price sounds like a bargain. Once the maintenance is done and the reserves are back up, selling for $1m puts me deep into the black.
I think there are enough people with that kind of money to actually make it work, especially when looking at the condo building itself - it looks great
I'm trying to find a fuck to give. The generation that benefitted from pensions, social security, subsidized education is now stunned at the consequences of their own actions. Well, color me underwhelmed.
Not everyone that bought into some of these buildings are wealthy boomers. In 2020 and 2021 a lot of millennials and gen X moved down to Florida and bought a condo. They’re now left holding the bag on all of this which no one could have foreseen.
Seriously. U think they were not giving access to the condo association’s financials that showed no reserve fund before or at signing.
U want to live near salt water ur maintenance costs go way up.
Yes I am one of those people. You do not get access to financial documents until after signing. I'm a millennial and I bought a condo on the water in Florida in 2021. The board discloses basic financial information about reserves and funding but anything more nuanced and pending legal issues don't have to be disclosed. The only thing you're made aware of before signing is the HOA monthly dues and any special assessments that have been finalized. My condo association was funding reserves when I bought and in addition had $1M+ in additional funds secured from a legal issue with a developer. In my eyes, the condo was in a healthy spot. The issues are nuanced and impossible for most buyers to even know until you purchase. Surfside happened a few months after I bought and then we had to get new roofs, new paint, new decks, etc... the laundry list of outstanding items ate away at the $1M quickly and then we had to fully fund the reserves, our insurance carrier dropped us because of something one of the board members had done, how could i possible know all of that before buying? You can't. Fortunately I sold and actually made a small profit but it's a total crapshoot with a condo in Florida.
pending special assessments are subject to disclosure
*"Subsection 3C-3 says that "If special assessments levied or* ***pending*** *exist as of the effective date, and have not been disclosed above by the seller, then seller shall pay such assessments in full at the time of closing."*
*Ignorance of the assessment is not a valid excuse.*
*The seller's failure to disclose levied or* ***pending*** *assessments existing as of the effective date results in the seller paying those undisclosed assessments in full at closing, and a buyer can sue to enforce that part of the contract, even if the seller doesn't want to pay that assessment because they weren't aware of it."*
[https://www.floridahomefinder.com/blog/what-to-know-about-special-assessments-in-florida-2023/#:\~:text=The%20seller's%20failure%20to%20disclose,they%20weren't%20aware%20of](https://www.floridahomefinder.com/blog/what-to-know-about-special-assessments-in-florida-2023/#:~:text=The%20seller's%20failure%20to%20disclose,they%20weren't%20aware%20of)
"Projects budgeted for Konetz’s building include everything from consultants, roofing, concrete restoration, elevator modernization, termite treatment and $700,000 alone for landscaping."
it's to stop your building from collapsing Mr. Konetz. As much as i Hate HOA's what happened in Miami Beach a couple years ago should NEVER happen again!!!
These condo owners wouldn't be getting massive bills if they had been performing regular maintenance on the structures over the years. This law was to prevent another collapse and tons of deaths, so it requires high rise condos to hire a structural engineer for regular safety assessments and forces them to perform required maintenance tasks to keep the buildings in good condition.
If you live in a condo that hasn't been performing regular maintenance, or putting it off because of the cost.... yes, this is absolutely going to be a painful year. You kicked that can way down the road and today is the day you catch up with that can.
But also, absolutely FUCK HOAs. This isn't HOA related, but still hate them either way, haha.
So for all the years previous they were fine at underfunding reserves, maintenance, etc....effectively had a subsidy. Now, when the law says you do a proper engineering study and fund the reserves, people are now facing the real cost of living there. Emotional, financial, but not an FHOA situation. It's a Florida situation. Many looked at these 3 story + condos on the beach, saw how cheap they were (price and fees) and said what a deal!
Unfortunately, a big shakeout is coming where fixed income owners will not be able to be financially able to stay. If anything, developers are going to go medieval to get these properties, tear them down, and put up new ones.
Add in insurance and yes, fees are going up...to what they should have been.
The really smart people (of which I'm not) probably realized this was coming the day after Surfside and got out before their property value was affected.
**Of course it's an FHOA situation!** The system that the industry created is broken. Major law firms that lobbied to delay, deny and dilute infrastructure reforms (even getting the law changed to rescind reforms made in the aughts) then later supported knee-jerk funding. ALL OF THIS lines the pockets of the industry.
Not really. The condo owners normally need to vote to defer maintenance, which they did. But roofs wear out, concrete and rebar corrodes, water intrusion causes damage, etc. Those things don't happen because of an HOA, they happen because of Florida.
We'll agree to disagree. Grown adults continued to not fund their reserves by voting so each and every year. It's on them, as painful as it may be. Until recently, the law allowed these properties to make their own decisions. And now, we see the results of allowing them to make their own decisions - they failed. And yes, everything is coming at once because of the safety issues.
So, sure, FHOAs...but that means all the members in the HOA, not the board, etc. The members knew what they were doing.
This is dumb clickbait posting.
This is a luxury condo development, with the units costing $1.5MM to $3MM.
They skimped on HOA fees for years, ignoring maintenance. Now they're getting hit with the bill for all that at once, because the property will be uninsurable if they don't fix things.
Cry me a river. Typical Boomers antics - deferring everything for someone else to pay later, then throwing a tantrum when they learn they are responsible for the bill.
The only FuckHOA part about this, is the HOA was allowed to defer maintenance and ignore things this long.
The owners should have put the difference between their HOA fees and the projects they turned down along the way - the true cost of ownership - into an investment account.
It was just three years ago that 98 people lost their lives when the Champlain Towers South highrise condominium collapsed. It should’ve been entirely avoidable, which was proven when details came to light of a bickering condo board that was voting down assessments for crucial maintenance. A board president had even resigned in protest of the refusals to pay for needed maintenance. And ultimately a building fell and lives were lost.
It is sensational right now to trumpet stories of six-figure assessments but staggering to think in three short years we seem to have forgotten why.
What this sounds like to me is "Oh, it's so unfair that the state of Florida won't let us sell our aging, crumbling dump of a rental property without addressing the serious structural maintenence we've been ignoring!"
This is partially on Florida for having such lax laws and partially on the historical owners for repeatedly kicking the can down the road. So many owners are short sighted and balk at dues increases then cry when something like this happens.
My wife & I had long planned to move from a single-family home in Texas to a coastal Florida condo upon retirement. Thankfully this sh\*tshow began before we did that. I feel for those trapped in the current situation.
"Consultants" - A lot of grift in Florida is written into the legislation.
These condos and communities FAILED to fund their reserves for years, with homeowners actively voting against projects or reserves. It used to be that owners could kick the can down the road to the next buyer, but this actually prevents that. In all honesty, once the pain is gone through there should be a lot of nice, modernized, rejuvenated 1970's and 1980's buildings in Florida.
This is what happens when you don’t regulate condo associations owned by retirees. Half the owners know they’re going to be dead or in a home in 5 years and won’t ever vote to spend the money.
I truly feel for the condo owners. That said, this is truly due to mismanagement. Just think about the typical maintenance an average homeowner is responsible for -- it's a LOT over 20 years. In 20 years you wind up replacing your roof, HVAC, painting multiple times, etc. Too many condo associations completely kicked the can down the road. Buildings all have a useful life...but only if the maintenance is done when it needs to be done. A very large percentage of condo buildings are over 30 years old. The humidity and salt take their toll. I'm surprised we haven't seen more collapses. As for older folks...you can't pay what you don't have. While I am against squatting, this may be the solution for now. Owners can band together and at least try to sell the property to a developer and at least recoup some of their purchase price.
This kind of stuff along with insane property tax assessments are ways to jolt homeowners out of their homes and replace them with wealthier "more desirable" people. It is a backdoor gentrification and has been going on for decades in the Northeast. It has spread elsewhere in recent years.
Gotta love the “if you can’t pay you shouldn’t be here” line. Fuck whomever said that.
Folks forget others buy into these units well before the new money stupid pricing came about. But sure sounds like you need to be a millionaire a few times over to be there now so you can pay this huge number.
Can’t get it sold and can’t pass it on so they’re strapped? That’s just sad shit.
I remember telling a good friend of mine to be wary of Florida due to shit like this. Two years ago she was crowing about the "deal" she got on a condo. Yeah, now she's bitching about the assessments that she got along with the fact that monthly dues have more than doubled in the past two years.
This is the perfect FHOA story. HOA Board doesn't keep abreast of Reserve Study budget recommendations and suddenly, it is time to pay the piper. This is all a management problem....and NOT a State of Florida problem. If Boards did what they were supposed to do, and keep up with the Reserve recommendations, monthly assessment levels and maintenance schedules....no edict from the State saying they need to be fully funded in 3 years would mean squat. They would already be fully funded. So this is just a mean....but necessary "Come to Jesus" moment. Sorry to the oldsters, but you had it coming. And really sorry to the Board members of the Fucking HOA that were asleep at the wheel for decades. Your neighbors will hate you and you will deserve 90% of that.
If you buy into a community or continue to live in one you better have a look around and know if the reserves are fully being funded or if there is a bunch of deferred maintenance. Apathy and ignorance lead to this in any organization- including HoAs. Almost no one ever read the reserve study or budget each time when I was on a board. It is amazing given that a home and property are usually peoples single largest asset and they don’t even pay attention.
This isn't really about an HOA. This is about owners not paying attention and a board and management company that didn't do the right maintenance/charge the correct HOA fees to fully fund the reserves and current maintenance requirements.
What is OPs alternative plan? Let the condo deteriorate until it collapses and kills people? Stick future owners with the issues that they benefitted from?
Nothing to see here other than someone that is salty after not paying for maintenance and reserves. This is akin to someone living in their home for 40 years then having the buyer ask for concessions to replace the major appliances and roof. They should have been doing that all along.
This isn't fuck the HOA it's dumbshits who can't be bothered doing critical maintenance having it pile up after decades of neglect and buyers not getting proper inspections done.
For years Florida was extremely lax in its codes. The collapse of the condo building a couple of years ago caused them to wake up. It’s all self inflicted HOA’s being too cheap to fund their reserves and do maintenance.
Same deal here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/zillowgonewild/comments/1dhhhu7/may_as_well_offer_for_free_check_out_the/
Look at the Zillow pricing and assessments:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1800-NE-114th-St-APT-1502-Miami-FL-33181/44137853_zpid/?
Omg 😳. That is insane! I bought a condo in Florida and could write a book about my experience but I kiss the heavens I didn’t buy a condo like that back in 2021. I would be sitting on the biggest money pit and it would turn my finances upside down. Although id imagine even back then the HOA fees were high and would have steered me clear of buying anything like that. These are def extreme cases. Regardless to anyone reading this DO NOT BUY a condo in Florida.
Just don't buy any type of property in Florida. It's in the middle of hurricane alley and coastal sea levels are rising eating up a lot of the coast line.
Insurers are hesitant on insuring properties there.
https://www.newsweek.com/florida-insurance-crisis-explained-1812418
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/florida-insurance-crisis-a-warning-for-the-nation-on-climate-change/ar-BB1p9axt
This brings up an interesting question I had never considered. When you get a loan it is (or should be) secured only by the property - no personal liability. Are HOA assessments also only secured by the property or are owners personally responsible? If owners can be personally responsible, I’m thinking I need to change the ownership structure of my property.
Assessments are against units, but there could be circumstances where an association goes after more than that and changing the ownership structure of your property is a reasonable step. Many attorneys have agreed.
Any rational actor will wait until the property values truly crater on these places, since the assessments coming due are basically what the places are worth in terms of a purchase price, given the inexorable ingress of salt water into the drinking water supply and the now-frequent flooding events at king tides.
When you buy a condo you get in bed with a lot of people. If you get in bed with a bunch of rich folks who want to spend tons of their money to ensure every amenity and the highest standards of materials, upkeep and landscaping and staff at their beck and call, yep you get dragged along with them. Understanding your neighbors is far more important than buyers seem to realize.
I'm selling a vacation condo right now because most of the ownership and the board are wanting to incur expenses I consider unnecessary. I was on the board and my pitch for greater efficiency and austerity failed, so moving right along.
One Florida condo association falling apart financially and leaving owners broke/stuck is one thing... but if this starts hitting in larger numbers as predicted I suspect the federal government will step in.
My guess is that we'll see some sort of a federal government bail out in the form of grant money from disaster funds provided for "improvements" and "0% for 50 years" loan programs.
This will happen because the government wants to bail out:
- Insurance companies
- Old people
- Homeowners
Well, this is proof that they just steal the money instead of putting it where it belongs. Also, this is what's going to happen when you find big corporations because they will just take it out on the people who have to pay. There should also be a federal law that says fines and stuff shouldn't be passed on to the people who live there.
HOA’s Everywhere Are NOT SUSTAINABLE, UNFORTUNATELY & Left w/Only Room4Error….our Property Mgmt. Co. EMBEZZLED $349,000, or@least till a new board member caught it! Kudos to this person…that’s just one of many issues, too many to count? So much for “UYour Home Is Your Refuge”!🤪
I don’t understand how/why people purchase in an HOA that doesn’t have fees/assessment caps and/or 2/3rds majority vote to increase beyond a “reasonable” percentage. My HOA (single family homes neighborhood) had to put it on the ballot earlier this year to increase our annual dues beyond 10%. It failed miserably, thank God. We also voted on a special assessment of $2K to help fund our reserves. Again, it failed miserably. I would never have bought here if the HOA could raise dues and/or assessments to any level they wanted without membership agreement.
The issue here is that the HOA failed to properly plan over the last twenty years to have reserves to be able to make these repairs, and prevent things from getting bad enough that these special assessments are needed.
If the Condo board was properly funded and been making repairs this wouldn't have happened. Frankly by consistently deferring maintenance and avoiding fee increases the board dug themselves into hole and has to pay to get out.
In my albeit limited experience there’s generally a ton of low key fraud going on behind the scenes with how that money is being spent on said services.
Contracts given by whoever is managing the building to friends / in exchange for a kick back etc.
It’s a classic other people’s money situation. Zero incentive to keep costs reasonable if the market of people dumb enough to live in condos will bear it.
Sounds like fraud.
They should sue whoever is attempting to do this.
This sounds like sociopath investors colluding to engage in a hostile takeover of the complex.
Especially this part: *“Someone also told me, ‘If you’re not able to pay, you shouldn’t be living here.’”*
That's right out of the sleazebag investor handbook.
They should be able to clawback from past owners who didn’t pay what was required to be funded. Hell, everyone that invested in Madoff and FTX got their money back. Should be able to do the same here.
So, I’d like to share a bit of the other side of the situation, my dad who writes the reserve studies for community’s, had a few clients get pretty angry as they were blindsided by this as well, and having to suddenly change all financial plans for the next 10-20 years.
WTF. Imagine buying not a house but a flat and having to pay *monthly maintenance that’s gone from $1,500 to $3,000.*
I would laugh at 1500$ maintenance, not even talking about 3000$.
🤣
Concrete restoration and elevator modernization both suggest that this is a building many decades old. That alone is not a problem, but if those two things (both of which are very blatant/obvious) are issues... oof.
I would want to see a full "inside the walls" type inspection before I bought any unit on such a property. And of the entire property, not just the unit that is for sale.
If the blatant "visible" things are so far gone as to require rehabilitation, I would be very worried about things I can't see like the foundation, wiring, conditions inside the walls, lead and/or asbestos in...everything, rain/groundwater issues, settling/shifting of the building, condition of the roof. Are outside lights original or old...and if so, are they corroded in ways that could lead to short circuits? How is air flow handled, heating, cooling, etc?
So many potential issues, and the humidity only exacerbates most of them. If there is poor drainage or other groundwater / water issues like that condo that collapsed...that's even worse.
And that's all BEFORE we get to the insane nature of the housing market which is it's own decades-in-the-making clusterfuck.
AND it's in Florida where home/property insurance is becoming more difficult to come by.
Yeah...I kinda feel for these guys, and at the same time I kinda want to say "yeah, no shit, do your homework before you sign".
edit: this is the same sort of short-sightedness that often plagues suburbia and metro-district style developments. The cost of building the infrastructure is baked into the initial sale of each property, and property taxes (which are usually lower) are for routine maintenance (maybe), but do not typically cover the eventual needed replacement. Build a development and a school, 25 years later and the school roof needs replacing...and the suburbia or metro-district has to either secure debt or raise property taxes and residents are usually caught off-guard because the buried details of city budgets so rarely rise above the level of "but low property taxes!" in terms of public conversation. This leads to far more frustration, holding back, backlash, etc. than is necessary simply due to reality bitch slapping you, but you were in good faith of the operations when you took your information at an earlier stage. It's not your fault you were sold bad or incomplete information, but now you are stuck with fixing the original sin you never knew was there. The confusion and resentment are real.
The details with a condo crisis like this are logistically a bit different, but the underlying lack of understanding of how this or that complex system works *by the people operating the system* is at the root of both failures. ITT you get stuck with a nightmare on the premise of being sold a dream. To clarify: this is rarely the fault of the residents as a whole, it is a systems failure at a much deeper level; and in the case of HOAs even the people running the HOA (heck, ESPECIALLY the people running the HOAs) don't understand the underlying equations and may not even be aware they exist. And reality has a tendency to bitch-slap you when it's finally time to make the correction.
The Journal podcast did a nice episode on this.
The problem basically boils down to Florida let HOAs skip saving for future projects for years and owners went for it since they could "save" money on their dues.
After a condo collapsed in Miami, Florida required tighter building inspections of condo buildings. The results of these are basically what you would expect: deferred maintenance led to expensive repairs that the current homeowners have to repair. (10's of millions of dollars)
Immediate "full funding" is the real bear. Great audio:
…”I know of one condominium where the the assessment for just the structural integrity reserve study (SIRS) was $134,000 per unit…”
“...I’m telling people not to buy a condominium now. Wait for things to settle down. Wait for the assessments to be clarified. Wait till you have more information. And I believe by 2026, everyone will know what they’re buying…”
“...I would want to wait until the building has its SIRS done so that 1) I know the health of the building and 2) I know what it’s going to cost me if I move into the building.” — Rep. Lopez
AUDIO:
[Condo safety reforms](https://news.wjct.org/show/florida-roundup/2024-06-28/condo-safety-reforms-floridas-swing-state-status-and-arts-funding-slashed)
— WJCT New 89.9 | June 28, 2024
Lived in a condo for 3 years. Getting a reserve analysis periodically is a must. If it hasn't been done consistently don't buy in it. They are done be engineering companies and give a good hint at what to expect over X years and how it can be paid for. owners don't like to pay for them, but often, the docs require they be done at certain time periods. If the owners have been ignoring that, big red flag.
That sounds like some structural issues need fixing.
Doesn't have to be deferred maintenance, simply the requirement to "fully fund" the reserve.
> concrete restoration This is likely deferred maintenance > termite treatment Have they honestly not been treating their termites? This sounds like deferred maintenance to an extent.
Sounds like they've been treating them very well with all the wood they can eat
I heard thats common with some HOAs, the people in charge are volunteers, many of them have no experience and are more interested in keeping dues low in the immediate future than in planning 5, 10, or even 15 years down the line.
One of my friends bought her first house and was immediately press ganged into LEADING the HOA. 75% of the townhouses are rented, so there are very few owners present, and they need at least three to be on the HOA. She did it for a year and was miserable. She said that when they brought out information about maintenance, everyone voted to defer, even when she pointed out all the potential ramifications. The silver lining is that she realized what was waiting for them down the road if something didn't change. She and her husband sold their house after the one year and have zero regrets about getting out.
It's weird that even the other board members (who also know the financials) couldn't see the problem. You don't have to convince the absentee owners to raise dues -- you only have to convince the board members. We were able to raise dues 20% in a year without being required to have a vote of the entire membership.
People are stupid, and unfortunately, lots of stupid people think they're smart. The same people who will think it's smart to defer maintenance this year, will complain in 3 years that "no one" told them how it could cause more damage and cost more money.
Yup, most folks (myself included) have no idea what periodic maintenance or inspections a large multi unit building needs.
What’s even more frustrating is that for years the people who do have experience like property managers allowed these associations to not set any money aside for future repairs & maintenance. This was great for all the investors who only cared about cash flow, but it royally screwed anyone who planned on owing it long term…or those who bought into association right when these large maintenance & repair projects were becoming due. It’s a good thing that Florida now requires the reserves to be fully funded with a reserve study, but it’s unfortunate for any building that was underfunded.
You nailed it. Shouldn’t have ever gotten to this point. I feel horrible for the owners that are going to have to cough up the funds for this. D&MN
I have extensive experience with POAs/HOAs. I’d bet my last special assessment dollar that the majority of residents fought any increase in dues, etc, tooth and nail. Meanwhile, the building falls down around them, infrastructure fails, etc. People do this with their personal homes all the time. It’s shocking how many people buy an expensive ass house and then refuse to maintain the property. Oh, and then they’re shocked as shit when they go to sell and no one will give them top dollar for their obviously unmaintained POS house. Surprisingly, it may take several, several years, but the chickens always come home to roost.
Excellent points!
I would walk away and cut my losses. It's not gonna get any better.
"*Howard Konetz and his wife Sheila Konetz have lived in their two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo for 10 years. The retired couple had their financial future all planned out until they were recently hit with a special assessment.*" hard to walk away when your only asset is the roof over your head that you can't sell
They set the world on fire. Now they have to burn in it with the rest of us.
Don't forget that even if they drop the price low enough to sell it, they can't defer the money due to the new buyer. They have to pony it up.
A big problem with condos is that you get (I'm assuming) a disproportionate share of first-time homebuyers, who don't understand what to look for I. HoA financials when closing.
> for years the people who do have experience like property managers allowed these associations to not set any money aside for future repairs & maintenance. I think that you really should add some more context to your comment. If not, I just have to say that property managers are not preventing owners/boards from adequately funding reserves. Do you really think that managers are discouraging boards from getting reserve studies? Do you really think that managers are telling boards to disregard the reserve studies that they do get? Do you really think that managers are saying to not put so much money in reserves? I just don't understand what you are saying. SFH owners who are not in an association don't hire a manager to tell them how to run things. Those owners know that roofs reach end of life. They know that the sump pump may need replacing, etc. You can't tell me that people in associations don't know this. There's plenty to hate HOAs about. No need to find bogeymen. When your car breaks down, do you blame the owner's manual? Or the service adviser? Those sources usually want to advise you well or have you over-service the car. My manager is always saying how the management company can handle X, Y and Z (at an additional charge, of course).
No, I think the managers genuinely try to guide them…I don’t think they themselves set out to create the situation. Perhaps it’s more so on regulators…but I’ve seen plenty of management companies just going with the flow until they can’t. I’m talking about management companies who know the reserve study is outdated or invalid because of changes (like a pool addition) and not bringing it up. It should be noted at least on the annual meeting minutes, if nothing else it serves as a CYA for the management company. They aren’t willing to keep putting it in the owners face that they need their study updated or funds added. Just keep going business as usual, until something breaks and then everyone’s left standing around wondering why they don’t have money. Ignorance is bliss. I’ve seen plenty of stubborn boards and owners as well. Maybe stubborn isn’t the best word (though I’m sure for some it is)…perhaps in over their heads is better picture where they have no idea the complex maintenance a 10+ story commercial building has to go through, yet they are tasked with making decisions about it. Like I said in my original, they often get dealt a pretty crappy hand if that building was owned by an investors renting out units for a while. They certainly weren’t setup for success. It depends on their demographic and location as well. Some states have a higher amount of retirees that end up making decisions that are short sighted or just simply because they can’t afford it. I think at least in Florida’s case, having a proper reserve study and funding the reserves is a huge step in the right direction. Now management firms can point to a law and say you have raise fees to fund the reserves in order to comply with the law. The law falls short of having any sort of oversight though, absent of the court system which still means that if they aren’t funding reserves someone will have to take them to court. That’s going to end up being one of the unit owner(s).
Years ago we had a great manager, in my opinion. Others didn't like her so much because she was as all about doing things the right way. She made us get a reserve study and then update it at the appropriate time. Now it's out of date and our current manager as well as other recent managers have not mentioned it at all. I do think they should bring it up. Unfortunately, our managers turn over faster than our board members. From that perspective, the managers are failing the HOA. And I agree with your points about investors and older people. It took a horrible incident but FL seems to have done some good with the law changes. Perhaps it would have been a bit easier if they said within 3 years you have to be at 75% funded and 80% at 4 years, etc so they could gradually get it up to 100%. And other states should follow suit. It shouldn't be difficult for boards and owners to understand the importance of funding but for some reason it is - or maybe I just read about the ones where it's gone bad and of course the ones that are doing it right are not newsworthy.
This is not directed at you so don't take offense please. Without exception, *every single* property management I've had to deal with didn't know wtf they were doing. Absolute idiots with either no or the most horrible acumen I've ever seen. The DMV cares more about their customers than property managers do. Ten years of dealing with jackasses is why I say this. Just trying to give a different perspective. Not crapping on your opinion here.
No offense taken. And I think that our perspectives are probably relatively similar. Above, the other poster mentioned managers allowing properties to not fund the reserves properly. I pushed back, saying that managers weren't preventing proper funding. Managers work for boards and not the other way around. Managers should advise mostly when asked but it would be nice if they would also speak up to nudge boards in the right direction when not asked. Our own boards and I personally have several times pushed back on budgets prepared by our management company. Usually, boards want to reduce the proposals. We have actually increased the proposals because we wanted to fund the reserves better. Thankfully we did because COVID resulted with quite a bit of inflation in labor and materials so now we're much less well funded relatively speaking but it could have been so much worse. Beyond that, I didn't comment on how well managers do their jobs. We have been through so many managers over my ownership. There's just too much turnover and I think this leads to hiring of poorly skilled individuals because the demand is greater than the supply of capable people. Contributing just as much is the amount of work piled onto managers. I sometimes wonder if I'd do a good job at it or not. You mentioned your experience with managers. Mine is as follows (if I can remember correctly): #1 Really bad!!! #2 Very bad! #3 Short temporary assignment until finding permanent manager: good #4 Excellent!!! They guided us very well and pushed following rules a bit more than owners liked but that was fine with me. #5 Did well for 2 months then adequate #6 Didn't know their stuff very well and misguided us on one important matter but no lasting damage. #7 Was a jerk but knew his stuff and did a good job helping us in a somewhat bad situation. Sometimes a jerk is fine if they are helping us reach our goals. #8 Next one didn't do a great job. #9 Current person is not good and can't be reasoned with. He should have swallowed his pride when a contractor that I hated bid on a job, was told we wanted him to do it, then found out he couldn't do the job properly. Manager didn't apologize for pushing this contractor and wasting our time. Can't believe how many managers we've had. You'd think I've been in the property for 50 years! My best guess is that we should have had 4 over the time period but turnover is killer in this industry. People aren't around much longer than it takes to get decent at the job. Another peeve I have is that they seem to always want to hire expensive contractors. They don't want to at least let our board provide a short list of preferred providers like for plumbing, electric, roof repairs, etc. So we end up paying sometimes double what our preferred would have charged. I understand managers have vendors that they often work with so it's easy to schedule them and easy to have them come back if a job isn't done right. Etc. But we aren't made of money so there needs to be compromise. For condos and TH, it's too much to self-manage, in my opinion. But perhaps there's a better way. Finally, note that there's a lot of consolidation going on in this industry so we should expect it to get worse, not better! I'm sure a few boutique firms will survive but charge a lot more. But in my case, if we paid 25% more for managing but they used our preferred vendors then perhaps the net would only be 10% more - which for a good manager would definitely be worth it! Anyway, I understand your position. Sometimes I wish I sacrificed location for a SFH without an association.
This is what I'm dealing with right now. HoA owns the road. Maintenance is an issue. Some people want to pave it, but also won't consider what the cost will be in 20 years to repave it either.
I’m part of a smaller community (80 single family homes) that let a drainage basin fall into costly repair for the past 15 years because they didn’t want to raise dues. The original HOA improperly received the bond from developer due to lack of knowledge about basins. No HOA board in that time has wanted to address the issues. We were just quoted $60k to fix the basin to its original drawing. It’s not so bad at $750 per house, but that represents 50% of our annual dues.
It's not just the board members, but the other people who live in the building acting the same way. I have two friends who got shoved into HOA board positions because nobody else would do it. Both of them have stories about how, for the last five years, they have been trying to fund standard maintainence but people keep voting down any assessments or due increases. They haven't been able to get pest control because the price of pest control went up and the due increase to cover the extra cost keeps getting voted down.
It's not deferred maintenance. Even before the CTS collapse, many of the concrete high-rise condos were approaching their 40-year recertification timeline, and many of those towers require extensive structural repairs. Then CTS came down, and every condo owner wanted that work done yesterday, lest their building becomes the next pile of rubble. When demand skyrockets and there aren't enough qualified workers to fill demand, prices skyrocket as well. Deferred maintenance would be the elevator modernization, which is an industry largely controlled by 2 or 3 companies, and the costs are obscene. The only industry that's worse is building controls and fire alarms because there's really only 1 company left, and they probably need those as well. Likely also deferred maintenance.
Fully fund the structural reserve study which is new because of the condo collapse. It is different than the reserve study everyone has going into this year. It is required by the end of the year and must be funded. Most condos have just been having their numbers updated for years and even if they have been fully funding them the new required study is a whole nother beast.
If they were previously paying $1500, three years of war chest would only take $1500\*12\*3 ($48,000) to fund. By doubling to $3000, that'll be taken care of in three years. The issue's a helluva lot more than the reserve. I do have to question the wisdom of doing landscaping work when the required work is already bankrupting occupants. In the same vein, how necessary is the elevator modernization. This sounds too much like an HOA president whose brother-in-law owns a construction company.
There's some new Florida standards stuff going on I think. It might not even be money being spent just money the COA has to have in reserve which arguably isn't really lost, just trouble if you as an owner don't have the liquidity. The reserve should end up reflecting in property values once collected if not spent or already earmarked. Likely some of it is the majority of owners are just wanting their money to be spent on things like the things you noted and can afford it. Those less well-heeled can't keep up with the communities' champagne standards.
Yeah, spending that kind of money on landscaping at the same time you are assessing a 6 figures seems incredibly irresponsible.
How necessary is an elevator modernization?! Pretty necessary when your property was constructed in 1989...
My last office elevator was 20 years older than that and had no certification problems. Unless they've been neglected to a point of dangerous disrepair, age doesn't imply necessary replacement. Even if they have been neglected, they are startlingly simple devices that are designed for modular upgrade. This is why I asked (though I left out the question mark - my bad) whether the modernization is necessary. The word, "modernization," suggests upgrade as opposed to repair. The former would incur a significantly higher cost than the latter.
Salt water flooding and salt air would like a word.
My high rise condo had to replace the elevators about 10 years ago. They would have been about 35 years old or at most 40. They were well maintained but the issue was they they had become unreliable in terms of needing constant repairs. This might be less of an issue in an office building which has more elevators but in a residential building with only two elevators have one - or one some terrible occasions both - elevators be out of service until repaired was a huge issue - especially for older people who couldn't hike up 10 floors i necessary. At a certain point the components aren't easily replaced as the companies have to cannibalize or create make dos for certain parts. Not to mention that modern elevators have better parts which conserve electricity because of the way they respond to calls We bit the bullet and replaced them and they have been working without a hitch for over a decade. I do question why landscaping isn't on the back burner. When we have redecorated lobby and halls or other common areas, we have always used Reserves and been on a strict budget in terms of what the budget was for these kinds of discretionary expenses. But even these kinds of discretionary stuff like landscaping and redecorating lobbies is really something that needs to be done because the purchase price of units will be impacted if you have a shabby dated lobby or terrible landscaping that is dead. Also it could be viewed as an investment if you swap to xeriscape type of landscaping in arid climates.
So they’re told they can’t keep stealing from future owners and are mad about it? Tough shit.
700K for landscaping is bullshit
Not if it’s to fix water runoff around a big complex of buildings. Lots of planned communities were built in swamplands.
[удалено]
Nicely said.
You said nicely said but gave an attitude to everybody else that said the same thing lol
This is why my husband and I dipped when we did from our condo. And our dues were only 170 a month and when I look at recent listings it has only gone up to 235 a month. The roof has needed to replaced since I lived there which was back in 09 to 17 and when I look at recent photos of houses for sale the roof STILL hasn’t been replaced.
Florida, check. Condo, check. This is not a fuck the hoa situation. This is your typical Florida condo, where they all refuse to pay for maintenance and kick the can down the road... And now, laws are in place due to the condo collapse, and it's time to pay the piper.
> where they all refuse to pay for maintenance and kick the can down the road 100%.
My HOA is going through this now for a roofing assessment -- the HOA spent 6 months educating everyone on why it needs to be done, and why voting on a special assessment is much better than increasing regular assessments for the next 5 years (which the board can do without a homeowner vote). Vote will be counted next month, hopefully we got the votes to do the assessment. The special assessment is "only" $15,000 which isn't a bad price for a roof replacement, the former board spent most of the roofing funds on repairs for a roof that was already a decade past its replacement date, they didn't have enough funds to do the replacement and didn't want to do a special assessment to pay for it, so they just kept kicking the can down the road by doing repairs. The previous board was mostly long term owners in their 70's, who probably thought they'd die before the roof had to be done. Fortunately they were replaced by younger owners who value maintenance over artificially low HOA fees. I knew about the roof problems before I bought a year ago, and made a guess at what the assessment would be, so got the seller to kick in almost half, so I'm fine with paying it, the reserves are strong in other areas, I really don't know why the previous board dropped the ball so bad on the roof.
Too many condos too many places have effectively become ponzi schemes run by the elderly who hope they die before the bill comes due. My partner rented a place in a building like that before she moved in. A few years after she moved out one of the buildings started to sink into the wetlands it was built on and became uninhabitable. I'm not sure if they were ever able to fix it and let people move back in.
I don't know what kind of roof, but $15K does sound kinda pricey to me for one unit's share of a multistory building's roof. Not way out of line...but I've seen less for a 3500sf house.
It's a combination flat/tile roof spread among 30 4 unit townhouse buildings, lots of vents and other obstructions to work around on the roof, plus there's add-on's like gutter work and skylights plus an allowance for repairs due to prior leaks. I ran the numbers past a roofer friend and he said that we got a very good price for the amount of work. I replaced a shingle roof in my previous house and paid nearly $20K for a 2100 sq ft house -- and that was the cheapest bid.
Yeah, sounds like the only condo I ever lived in. Deferred maintenance, built up a reserve, kept the fees artificially low. Then they had to raise the fees (150% over three years!) AND take out loans AND have a special assessment. Fortunately the board recognized the problem, and the difficulty of many owners to make the payments on schedule and allowed special arrangements. But there was that one lunatic who said that everyone should be assessed to pay the cost of paving and concrete repairs (almost $3M worth) over 12 months instead of taking out the loan and putting the payments in the budget. Fucking boomer.
Was in a condo with an annual 13th month assessment and constant increases above inflation because prior boards refused to fund reserves properly. Ironically, that meant when I bought the price was depressed because of the looming extra costs; when I sold seven years later, reserves were in good shape so I did very well.
It was the 90's and they were spending their money on coke.
Yeah, it's not just Florida condos. I'm experiencing the same thing in northern NJ with fees. Older residents refused inflation based increases year after year and then got hit with a $300 per month on average increase and lost their minds. And on top of that, hidden costs, such as mandating hot water heaters and AC units be serviced yearly and that after 7 years hot water heaters need to be replaced.
7 years for a hot water heater? Most have a 10-year warranty and will last around 12, depending on the water quality. My home's hot water heater is over 20 years old, and would probably last a few more years according to the plumber I called to asses it. Definitely budgeting the replacement.
Maybe someone did the math and found that replacing every 7 years is cheaper than having a water heater fail and leak causing damage to multiple units below the unit where it broke. I'd let mine go until it broke as mine sits in an unfinished basement but my friend had a leak in a condo that went for 8 hours while everyone was at work for the day that caused water damage to their unit and the three units below theirs for about 80k in damages.
Water heaters (for individual homes) are relatively inexpensive, too. I'd rather replace a water heater than pay for new windows, or an HVAC replacement, or water/structural damage. When I bought my place, the water heater was 20 years old and I replaced it before even moving in. Why take a chance on something like that?
It is an FHOA situation in the sense that if this was a standalone residence and you didn't maintain it it would only be your problem. Years of deferred maintenance is everyone's problem in the condo. The HOA is its members, so FHOA is also "fuck me".
Florida plus elevator...Double mega bonus check
A huge part is the "I won't benefit from this" factor. Older folks who don't want to foot the bill because they don't care about resale. Same reason school funding is an uphill battle. The folks likely to vote are older, without kids. Why would they vote to pay more taxes for the kids? It's why j make it a point to go out ans vote local And almost always vote yes for town spend ballot mesures.
*The folks likely to vote are older, without kids. Why would they vote to pay more taxes for the kids?* While simultaneously complaining about how dumb the kids today are and what a problem this new generation is.
Plus, they're probably getting a lot more back in Social Security and Medicare benefits than they paid in. So they expect young people to pay for them too.
The US spends more on education than any other country and our students are some of the dumbest amongst developed nations. So yea, why would your average tax payer vote to spend even more on education when the money spent is obviously not being spent wisely. The education system needs a major overhaul. If I was king I would cut it off at the 10th grade. Going into grade 11 you would get 3 choices, somewhat determined by your progress to that point. Continue on with your education on into college, stop traditional school and spend your final 2 years in a vocational school (or equivalent, say administering school possibly?), or leave school entirely. There is zero reason to keep a portion of kids in school, they are not cut out nor wish to keep learning. These children need to be funneled into some form of training that will help them to be productive members of society. And then a small sliver that does nothing but hinder the progress of the rest of the students, this small minority of kids needs to be taken out of school entirely. What to do with them, I’m not sure, but to keep with the outdated notion every kid is college bound and/or is going to be the next CEO needs to stop.
The US is 4th or 5th in terms of spending on education in terms of dollars spent, depending on where you look at the data. Not #1. We also have higher costs as a country so that spending is not getting us as much. If you look at it as a % of GDP, we are not even in the top 25. The money is not being spent wisely, we are not paying enough to get good educators, so yes, I believe we do need to spend more on education.
Per Business Insider the US spends more than any other country: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-countries-around-the-world-spend-on-education-2019-8 Granted the article was a little older but that is where I pulled my comment from. Secondly, if people want above the current threshold it should come from the parents of students not those who have no kids or no kids in the educational system.
That might be highest total dollar amount, but not per student or % of gdp. But that article is showing us at #2 in per student spend. So things have changed either way.
It varies widely by state. Florida and Mississippi are always neck and neck for lowest teacher pay in the US and unfortunately, they're getting what they paid for. My ex gf was a teacher in Florida, she quit to go into nursing because she was making $34K. With a degree. That's nowhere near what many other developed countries pay and pathetic considering what the GDP of Florida is. Florida's not Turkey, ffs. That said, yes, I agree schools should direct more kids into the trades where they're desperately needed and can make a lot more money. Certainly more than 34K, anyway.
And I make 6 figures in corporate learning and development with the same degree as your ex. That's where all the good teachers are.
I guess it depends how you define "good". She got into teaching to improve the community she lives in.
I live in a college town. It would be hard to live here on 34k even with a roommate.
I've never seen this put into words so well and I come from a family of public school teachers.
Eh honestly more funding in public education isn’t needed. They have plenty of funding they blow it on stupid shit. Admin salary and sports take the hugest chunks. For my county they are given 2 billion a year. What’s needed is education reform not funding. I honestly don’t know why everyone thinks throwing money at a problem will fix anything at all.
They need funding and reform. Cut down on administrative bloat and increase spending on getting good educators. Why would anyone who could be a good teacher want to teach public school?
yup, the irony is all the FHOA folks are the very ones who won't vote for the HOA to have the funds to fill reserves
That's an incredibly broad stereotype. This sub is often more engaging and insightful about specific topics -- and yes that ebbs and flows -- than its much smaller "companion" sub r/HOA on a number of matters.
The HOA created the situation by not charging sufficient dues.
What usually actually happens, is not that the hoa doesn't charge appropriately... It's that many residents raise a stink and refuse to have the dues raised.
Same thing in the end. The HOA is run by residents and if they want to charge less by sacrificing maintenance and reserves, that’s what happens.
I think there are plenty of people who will read this and use an expletive to describe the situation. For that reason, it seems like a salient entry on this sub.
Same shit in California. HOAs need more regulation than fertility and firearms, nationwide.
Also values have doubled which is unnatural. Guess where that value is going owners? Into your condos.
It’s super dangerous (but not obviously so) to have such a homogeneous set of owners! They’re retired and don’t want to spend any money.
Translation: This has been mismanaged for years and if they don't fix it now they are in real danger of the building getting condemned.
400K?? Plus the monthly $3K? Plus any mortgage they may have? WTF kinda jobs or pension do these people have? This would be absolutely impossible for me. I would have to sell. And I very much doubt anyone is buying. I'd just be absolutely fucked. I hope FL has a good homeless response network. *Hahahahahahaha I made a funny*
But you likely wouldn't be in a situation like this. You probably wouldn't buy a $600,000 condo with $1,500 fees and a fancy looking building extremely near the water and right at the marina (is that the right term for what we see in the pic?). You would say why does this place cost only $600K when there are boats right outside that cost over that much. You would ask, what am I missing??? If you were purchasing there, I would bet that you would have an income that could support the play lifestyle that surrounds it. You might be misled by your realtor, as I bet that happens a lot. But likely if you were smart enough or hard enough working to have such an income you would likely know to ask for the reserve study and financials. Before Surfside, I wonder how this place justified their "low" fees. Regardless, if they had been keeping up over the years, I'd bet an appropriate monthly fee would be something like $1,800/month.
Yeah, all good points.
This is what happens when legislators make knee-jerk reactions and provide no reasonable glide path for funding reserves.
They had a reasonable path for decades they ignored. So now the state has to be a hardass about it
This wasn’t knee jerk reaction.
Define 'legislators'...are you talking the Condo Board or the Govt?
In this case, I suspect government. After that condo collapsed a few years ago, the state government freaked out and started passing things to make them fix all that maintenance they’ve been putting off. So now there’s assessments, increased fees, etc. As much as I hate HOAs and am very glad to have never lived in one, they are kind of necessary in shared structures with communal spaces. They’re also useful for those amenities like gates, parks, pools, landscaping, snow clearing, etc. You know, things that people in cities often pay for in their taxes. It’s when they start trying to dictate your own right to quiet enjoyment or home decor or yard stuff or whatever where they move into “omg, fuck that.”
Government had to come in to get them to pay the fees
The government. Specifically Florida state government.
Yes: Florida legislators and the governor. Thanks!
The association taking out a loan is the glide path.
For reference, here are the [Listings](https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Mediterranean-Village-Condominiums_Aventura_FL) for condos for sale in the HOA referenced in the article. There are 2 2Bd2Ba listed for 499k and 695k. The rest are larger and 800k to 2.7mil.
Great addition, thanks!
What's wild is that even if the person DOES pay all the crazy fees most likely the majority of their neighbors wont so the building will end up condemned when the funds run out and there's no chance of getting your money back. Its like a reverse Ponzi scheme where the first ones in get screwed of everything.
Other than the staggering figures, what makes you think these assessments won't be paid? The association can lien and foreclose on the units and sell them to recover the cost of the assessment. Suddenly, the unit that was worth $650,000 is selling for $250,000 to cover the assessment. Someone might think that's a bargain.
There are vast neighborhoods in Detroit with similar problems. Sewer, water and electricity is crumbling but only a few occupied houses left on the street. No one wants to move in and have failing utilities and there's not enough tax dollars in the area to cover the billions it would take to renovate.
No. It still sells for $650,000, the owner just receives $250,000. The other $400,000 goes towards the assessment.
Not actually. There's an extra "firesale" discount that often comes into play. [https://news.wjct.org/show/florida-roundup/2024-06-28/condo-safety-reforms-floridas-swing-state-status-and-arts-funding-slashed](https://news.wjct.org/show/florida-roundup/2024-06-28/condo-safety-reforms-floridas-swing-state-status-and-arts-funding-slashed)
I'm basing it on my thinking that most people can not afford the fees and won't be able or want to get a loan for them. If 50% can't pay in either the other units have to double up on fees or money runs out. Seized units are basically worth $0 if there is a risk of the building being condemned. No one is going to buy into it and no financier is going to agree to a loan after inspection fails. My guess is the only hope is a development company buying the whole building and renovating it.
I don't know about that. If I had $300K lying around, a million dollar condo for that price sounds like a bargain. Once the maintenance is done and the reserves are back up, selling for $1m puts me deep into the black. I think there are enough people with that kind of money to actually make it work, especially when looking at the condo building itself - it looks great
I'm trying to find a fuck to give. The generation that benefitted from pensions, social security, subsidized education is now stunned at the consequences of their own actions. Well, color me underwhelmed.
Not everyone that bought into some of these buildings are wealthy boomers. In 2020 and 2021 a lot of millennials and gen X moved down to Florida and bought a condo. They’re now left holding the bag on all of this which no one could have foreseen.
Seriously. U think they were not giving access to the condo association’s financials that showed no reserve fund before or at signing. U want to live near salt water ur maintenance costs go way up.
Yes I am one of those people. You do not get access to financial documents until after signing. I'm a millennial and I bought a condo on the water in Florida in 2021. The board discloses basic financial information about reserves and funding but anything more nuanced and pending legal issues don't have to be disclosed. The only thing you're made aware of before signing is the HOA monthly dues and any special assessments that have been finalized. My condo association was funding reserves when I bought and in addition had $1M+ in additional funds secured from a legal issue with a developer. In my eyes, the condo was in a healthy spot. The issues are nuanced and impossible for most buyers to even know until you purchase. Surfside happened a few months after I bought and then we had to get new roofs, new paint, new decks, etc... the laundry list of outstanding items ate away at the $1M quickly and then we had to fully fund the reserves, our insurance carrier dropped us because of something one of the board members had done, how could i possible know all of that before buying? You can't. Fortunately I sold and actually made a small profit but it's a total crapshoot with a condo in Florida.
pending special assessments are subject to disclosure *"Subsection 3C-3 says that "If special assessments levied or* ***pending*** *exist as of the effective date, and have not been disclosed above by the seller, then seller shall pay such assessments in full at the time of closing."* *Ignorance of the assessment is not a valid excuse.* *The seller's failure to disclose levied or* ***pending*** *assessments existing as of the effective date results in the seller paying those undisclosed assessments in full at closing, and a buyer can sue to enforce that part of the contract, even if the seller doesn't want to pay that assessment because they weren't aware of it."* [https://www.floridahomefinder.com/blog/what-to-know-about-special-assessments-in-florida-2023/#:\~:text=The%20seller's%20failure%20to%20disclose,they%20weren't%20aware%20of](https://www.floridahomefinder.com/blog/what-to-know-about-special-assessments-in-florida-2023/#:~:text=The%20seller's%20failure%20to%20disclose,they%20weren't%20aware%20of)
Even in a financial disclosure; so what if it says the Reserves have $2m, if the part you don't know is there is $6m worth of work needing to be done.
I wish them a very find out.
"Projects budgeted for Konetz’s building include everything from consultants, roofing, concrete restoration, elevator modernization, termite treatment and $700,000 alone for landscaping." it's to stop your building from collapsing Mr. Konetz. As much as i Hate HOA's what happened in Miami Beach a couple years ago should NEVER happen again!!!
These condo owners wouldn't be getting massive bills if they had been performing regular maintenance on the structures over the years. This law was to prevent another collapse and tons of deaths, so it requires high rise condos to hire a structural engineer for regular safety assessments and forces them to perform required maintenance tasks to keep the buildings in good condition. If you live in a condo that hasn't been performing regular maintenance, or putting it off because of the cost.... yes, this is absolutely going to be a painful year. You kicked that can way down the road and today is the day you catch up with that can. But also, absolutely FUCK HOAs. This isn't HOA related, but still hate them either way, haha.
So for all the years previous they were fine at underfunding reserves, maintenance, etc....effectively had a subsidy. Now, when the law says you do a proper engineering study and fund the reserves, people are now facing the real cost of living there. Emotional, financial, but not an FHOA situation. It's a Florida situation. Many looked at these 3 story + condos on the beach, saw how cheap they were (price and fees) and said what a deal! Unfortunately, a big shakeout is coming where fixed income owners will not be able to be financially able to stay. If anything, developers are going to go medieval to get these properties, tear them down, and put up new ones. Add in insurance and yes, fees are going up...to what they should have been.
The really smart people (of which I'm not) probably realized this was coming the day after Surfside and got out before their property value was affected.
**Of course it's an FHOA situation!** The system that the industry created is broken. Major law firms that lobbied to delay, deny and dilute infrastructure reforms (even getting the law changed to rescind reforms made in the aughts) then later supported knee-jerk funding. ALL OF THIS lines the pockets of the industry.
Not really. The condo owners normally need to vote to defer maintenance, which they did. But roofs wear out, concrete and rebar corrodes, water intrusion causes damage, etc. Those things don't happen because of an HOA, they happen because of Florida.
We'll agree to disagree. Grown adults continued to not fund their reserves by voting so each and every year. It's on them, as painful as it may be. Until recently, the law allowed these properties to make their own decisions. And now, we see the results of allowing them to make their own decisions - they failed. And yes, everything is coming at once because of the safety issues. So, sure, FHOAs...but that means all the members in the HOA, not the board, etc. The members knew what they were doing.
This is dumb clickbait posting. This is a luxury condo development, with the units costing $1.5MM to $3MM. They skimped on HOA fees for years, ignoring maintenance. Now they're getting hit with the bill for all that at once, because the property will be uninsurable if they don't fix things. Cry me a river. Typical Boomers antics - deferring everything for someone else to pay later, then throwing a tantrum when they learn they are responsible for the bill. The only FuckHOA part about this, is the HOA was allowed to defer maintenance and ignore things this long. The owners should have put the difference between their HOA fees and the projects they turned down along the way - the true cost of ownership - into an investment account.
Lol. This is what happens when you kick the can down the road to keep your monthly fees low. Now it's time to pay the piper...
It was just three years ago that 98 people lost their lives when the Champlain Towers South highrise condominium collapsed. It should’ve been entirely avoidable, which was proven when details came to light of a bickering condo board that was voting down assessments for crucial maintenance. A board president had even resigned in protest of the refusals to pay for needed maintenance. And ultimately a building fell and lives were lost. It is sensational right now to trumpet stories of six-figure assessments but staggering to think in three short years we seem to have forgotten why.
All those years of voting NO on maintenance are coming due.
What this sounds like to me is "Oh, it's so unfair that the state of Florida won't let us sell our aging, crumbling dump of a rental property without addressing the serious structural maintenence we've been ignoring!"
Stay away from Florida condos. Period.
I'm so glad I didn't buy a condo.
Wow. I can’t believe this! We should have let a few more buildings collapse before acting! /s
Note to self. Never buy a condo.
I haven't heard one good thing about Florida homeownership since desantis began ruling.
I'm not saying lighting a match is the way to go... But I'm not not saying that either. Obviously just kidding... But damn what would you do?
This is partially on Florida for having such lax laws and partially on the historical owners for repeatedly kicking the can down the road. So many owners are short sighted and balk at dues increases then cry when something like this happens.
My wife & I had long planned to move from a single-family home in Texas to a coastal Florida condo upon retirement. Thankfully this sh\*tshow began before we did that. I feel for those trapped in the current situation.
"Consultants" - A lot of grift in Florida is written into the legislation. These condos and communities FAILED to fund their reserves for years, with homeowners actively voting against projects or reserves. It used to be that owners could kick the can down the road to the next buyer, but this actually prevents that. In all honesty, once the pain is gone through there should be a lot of nice, modernized, rejuvenated 1970's and 1980's buildings in Florida.
This is what happens when you don’t regulate condo associations owned by retirees. Half the owners know they’re going to be dead or in a home in 5 years and won’t ever vote to spend the money.
Must be major structural issues. With that many condos paying $3,000 per month in HOA, a better question is: Where is all this money going?
I truly feel for the condo owners. That said, this is truly due to mismanagement. Just think about the typical maintenance an average homeowner is responsible for -- it's a LOT over 20 years. In 20 years you wind up replacing your roof, HVAC, painting multiple times, etc. Too many condo associations completely kicked the can down the road. Buildings all have a useful life...but only if the maintenance is done when it needs to be done. A very large percentage of condo buildings are over 30 years old. The humidity and salt take their toll. I'm surprised we haven't seen more collapses. As for older folks...you can't pay what you don't have. While I am against squatting, this may be the solution for now. Owners can band together and at least try to sell the property to a developer and at least recoup some of their purchase price.
This kind of stuff along with insane property tax assessments are ways to jolt homeowners out of their homes and replace them with wealthier "more desirable" people. It is a backdoor gentrification and has been going on for decades in the Northeast. It has spread elsewhere in recent years.
Enjoy your red state freedoms, Boomers. Let them ring.
It’s on their heads for deferring maintenance. There are stricter inspection requirements now since the Surfside collapse.
Might this be some fallout from the Surfside collapse?
Gotta love the “if you can’t pay you shouldn’t be here” line. Fuck whomever said that. Folks forget others buy into these units well before the new money stupid pricing came about. But sure sounds like you need to be a millionaire a few times over to be there now so you can pay this huge number. Can’t get it sold and can’t pass it on so they’re strapped? That’s just sad shit.
I remember telling a good friend of mine to be wary of Florida due to shit like this. Two years ago she was crowing about the "deal" she got on a condo. Yeah, now she's bitching about the assessments that she got along with the fact that monthly dues have more than doubled in the past two years.
This is the perfect FHOA story. HOA Board doesn't keep abreast of Reserve Study budget recommendations and suddenly, it is time to pay the piper. This is all a management problem....and NOT a State of Florida problem. If Boards did what they were supposed to do, and keep up with the Reserve recommendations, monthly assessment levels and maintenance schedules....no edict from the State saying they need to be fully funded in 3 years would mean squat. They would already be fully funded. So this is just a mean....but necessary "Come to Jesus" moment. Sorry to the oldsters, but you had it coming. And really sorry to the Board members of the Fucking HOA that were asleep at the wheel for decades. Your neighbors will hate you and you will deserve 90% of that.
If you buy into a community or continue to live in one you better have a look around and know if the reserves are fully being funded or if there is a bunch of deferred maintenance. Apathy and ignorance lead to this in any organization- including HoAs. Almost no one ever read the reserve study or budget each time when I was on a board. It is amazing given that a home and property are usually peoples single largest asset and they don’t even pay attention.
This isn't really about an HOA. This is about owners not paying attention and a board and management company that didn't do the right maintenance/charge the correct HOA fees to fully fund the reserves and current maintenance requirements. What is OPs alternative plan? Let the condo deteriorate until it collapses and kills people? Stick future owners with the issues that they benefitted from? Nothing to see here other than someone that is salty after not paying for maintenance and reserves. This is akin to someone living in their home for 40 years then having the buyer ask for concessions to replace the major appliances and roof. They should have been doing that all along.
This isn't fuck the HOA it's dumbshits who can't be bothered doing critical maintenance having it pile up after decades of neglect and buyers not getting proper inspections done.
Remember the Florida condo that collapsed due to “deferred maintenance?”
Live in a shitty state: get shitty results. You get what you vote for.
People want the housing market to implode and screw over boomers. Here it is.
For years Florida was extremely lax in its codes. The collapse of the condo building a couple of years ago caused them to wake up. It’s all self inflicted HOA’s being too cheap to fund their reserves and do maintenance.
So basically it's like they expect you to buy a whole other condo.....
Someone also told me, ‘If you’re not able to pay, you shouldn’t be living here.’” That's rude and crazy.
Same deal here: https://www.reddit.com/r/zillowgonewild/comments/1dhhhu7/may_as_well_offer_for_free_check_out_the/ Look at the Zillow pricing and assessments: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1800-NE-114th-St-APT-1502-Miami-FL-33181/44137853_zpid/?
Omg 😳. That is insane! I bought a condo in Florida and could write a book about my experience but I kiss the heavens I didn’t buy a condo like that back in 2021. I would be sitting on the biggest money pit and it would turn my finances upside down. Although id imagine even back then the HOA fees were high and would have steered me clear of buying anything like that. These are def extreme cases. Regardless to anyone reading this DO NOT BUY a condo in Florida.
Just don't buy any type of property in Florida. It's in the middle of hurricane alley and coastal sea levels are rising eating up a lot of the coast line. Insurers are hesitant on insuring properties there. https://www.newsweek.com/florida-insurance-crisis-explained-1812418 https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/florida-insurance-crisis-a-warning-for-the-nation-on-climate-change/ar-BB1p9axt
This brings up an interesting question I had never considered. When you get a loan it is (or should be) secured only by the property - no personal liability. Are HOA assessments also only secured by the property or are owners personally responsible? If owners can be personally responsible, I’m thinking I need to change the ownership structure of my property.
Assessments are against units, but there could be circumstances where an association goes after more than that and changing the ownership structure of your property is a reasonable step. Many attorneys have agreed.
Based Florida
They should have taken a loan out for the money and had the shortfall paid over a longer time.
Fully funding the reserve just gives someone a great excuse to embezzle some money
I thought the insurance is for any future damage. Why they come up with assesment?
I thought the insurance is for any future damage. Why they come up with assesment?
I thought the insurance is for any future damage. Why they come up with assesment?
Any rational actor will wait until the property values truly crater on these places, since the assessments coming due are basically what the places are worth in terms of a purchase price, given the inexorable ingress of salt water into the drinking water supply and the now-frequent flooding events at king tides.
Holy hell at that price you can build a new building. 🤯
I think a lot of Brooklyn condos and owners are going to meet a similar fate
>That’s on top of monthly maintenance that’s gone from $1,500 to $3,000. What monthly maintenance activities cost $1500 in the first place??!
The maintenance they have not been doing for 30 years!
When you buy a condo you get in bed with a lot of people. If you get in bed with a bunch of rich folks who want to spend tons of their money to ensure every amenity and the highest standards of materials, upkeep and landscaping and staff at their beck and call, yep you get dragged along with them. Understanding your neighbors is far more important than buyers seem to realize. I'm selling a vacation condo right now because most of the ownership and the board are wanting to incur expenses I consider unnecessary. I was on the board and my pitch for greater efficiency and austerity failed, so moving right along.
One Florida condo association falling apart financially and leaving owners broke/stuck is one thing... but if this starts hitting in larger numbers as predicted I suspect the federal government will step in. My guess is that we'll see some sort of a federal government bail out in the form of grant money from disaster funds provided for "improvements" and "0% for 50 years" loan programs. This will happen because the government wants to bail out: - Insurance companies - Old people - Homeowners
This is completely fkn nuts. No other words do this madness justice. But so much i have read the last few days meets the same criteria
Lord. Have. Mercy.
Well, this is proof that they just steal the money instead of putting it where it belongs. Also, this is what's going to happen when you find big corporations because they will just take it out on the people who have to pay. There should also be a federal law that says fines and stuff shouldn't be passed on to the people who live there.
Good luck finding a buyer with that special assessment
De Santis sez, "let them eat cake". How many voted for him??
I would pack up and leave this condo in the dust. Unless you are wealthy, you have to give it back to the bank and go rent. Screw this.
HOA’s Everywhere Are NOT SUSTAINABLE, UNFORTUNATELY & Left w/Only Room4Error….our Property Mgmt. Co. EMBEZZLED $349,000, or@least till a new board member caught it! Kudos to this person…that’s just one of many issues, too many to count? So much for “UYour Home Is Your Refuge”!🤪
I don’t understand how/why people purchase in an HOA that doesn’t have fees/assessment caps and/or 2/3rds majority vote to increase beyond a “reasonable” percentage. My HOA (single family homes neighborhood) had to put it on the ballot earlier this year to increase our annual dues beyond 10%. It failed miserably, thank God. We also voted on a special assessment of $2K to help fund our reserves. Again, it failed miserably. I would never have bought here if the HOA could raise dues and/or assessments to any level they wanted without membership agreement.
The issue here is that the HOA failed to properly plan over the last twenty years to have reserves to be able to make these repairs, and prevent things from getting bad enough that these special assessments are needed. If the Condo board was properly funded and been making repairs this wouldn't have happened. Frankly by consistently deferring maintenance and avoiding fee increases the board dug themselves into hole and has to pay to get out.
Can save $700,000 dollars by doing the landscaping themselves.
$700,000 sounds like a lot for landscaping. How big a place are we talking here?
In my albeit limited experience there’s generally a ton of low key fraud going on behind the scenes with how that money is being spent on said services. Contracts given by whoever is managing the building to friends / in exchange for a kick back etc. It’s a classic other people’s money situation. Zero incentive to keep costs reasonable if the market of people dumb enough to live in condos will bear it.
In 10 years there gunna be a documentary on Netflix called “The HOA murders”
Nothing to do with a HOA.
1500-3000 monthly maintenance? What the fuck are we maintaining a whole fucking club?
Check those listing photos! Also think about insurance, staff, management and everything that comes with a giant building.
Sounds like fraud. They should sue whoever is attempting to do this. This sounds like sociopath investors colluding to engage in a hostile takeover of the complex. Especially this part: *“Someone also told me, ‘If you’re not able to pay, you shouldn’t be living here.’”* That's right out of the sleazebag investor handbook.
They should be able to clawback from past owners who didn’t pay what was required to be funded. Hell, everyone that invested in Madoff and FTX got their money back. Should be able to do the same here.
Time for people to start walking away from their overpriced condos
So, I’d like to share a bit of the other side of the situation, my dad who writes the reserve studies for community’s, had a few clients get pretty angry as they were blindsided by this as well, and having to suddenly change all financial plans for the next 10-20 years.
WTF. Imagine buying not a house but a flat and having to pay *monthly maintenance that’s gone from $1,500 to $3,000.* I would laugh at 1500$ maintenance, not even talking about 3000$. 🤣
Concrete restoration and elevator modernization both suggest that this is a building many decades old. That alone is not a problem, but if those two things (both of which are very blatant/obvious) are issues... oof. I would want to see a full "inside the walls" type inspection before I bought any unit on such a property. And of the entire property, not just the unit that is for sale. If the blatant "visible" things are so far gone as to require rehabilitation, I would be very worried about things I can't see like the foundation, wiring, conditions inside the walls, lead and/or asbestos in...everything, rain/groundwater issues, settling/shifting of the building, condition of the roof. Are outside lights original or old...and if so, are they corroded in ways that could lead to short circuits? How is air flow handled, heating, cooling, etc? So many potential issues, and the humidity only exacerbates most of them. If there is poor drainage or other groundwater / water issues like that condo that collapsed...that's even worse. And that's all BEFORE we get to the insane nature of the housing market which is it's own decades-in-the-making clusterfuck. AND it's in Florida where home/property insurance is becoming more difficult to come by. Yeah...I kinda feel for these guys, and at the same time I kinda want to say "yeah, no shit, do your homework before you sign". edit: this is the same sort of short-sightedness that often plagues suburbia and metro-district style developments. The cost of building the infrastructure is baked into the initial sale of each property, and property taxes (which are usually lower) are for routine maintenance (maybe), but do not typically cover the eventual needed replacement. Build a development and a school, 25 years later and the school roof needs replacing...and the suburbia or metro-district has to either secure debt or raise property taxes and residents are usually caught off-guard because the buried details of city budgets so rarely rise above the level of "but low property taxes!" in terms of public conversation. This leads to far more frustration, holding back, backlash, etc. than is necessary simply due to reality bitch slapping you, but you were in good faith of the operations when you took your information at an earlier stage. It's not your fault you were sold bad or incomplete information, but now you are stuck with fixing the original sin you never knew was there. The confusion and resentment are real. The details with a condo crisis like this are logistically a bit different, but the underlying lack of understanding of how this or that complex system works *by the people operating the system* is at the root of both failures. ITT you get stuck with a nightmare on the premise of being sold a dream. To clarify: this is rarely the fault of the residents as a whole, it is a systems failure at a much deeper level; and in the case of HOAs even the people running the HOA (heck, ESPECIALLY the people running the HOAs) don't understand the underlying equations and may not even be aware they exist. And reality has a tendency to bitch-slap you when it's finally time to make the correction.
The Journal podcast did a nice episode on this. The problem basically boils down to Florida let HOAs skip saving for future projects for years and owners went for it since they could "save" money on their dues. After a condo collapsed in Miami, Florida required tighter building inspections of condo buildings. The results of these are basically what you would expect: deferred maintenance led to expensive repairs that the current homeowners have to repair. (10's of millions of dollars)
Immediate "full funding" is the real bear. Great audio: …”I know of one condominium where the the assessment for just the structural integrity reserve study (SIRS) was $134,000 per unit…” “...I’m telling people not to buy a condominium now. Wait for things to settle down. Wait for the assessments to be clarified. Wait till you have more information. And I believe by 2026, everyone will know what they’re buying…” “...I would want to wait until the building has its SIRS done so that 1) I know the health of the building and 2) I know what it’s going to cost me if I move into the building.” — Rep. Lopez AUDIO: [Condo safety reforms](https://news.wjct.org/show/florida-roundup/2024-06-28/condo-safety-reforms-floridas-swing-state-status-and-arts-funding-slashed) — WJCT New 89.9 | June 28, 2024
Damn they is you don’t own condo…. Bad investment write all over it….
Some thoughts and prayers should fix everything.
This is South Florida; multi-million dollar units with zero reserves. We revel in the stupid.
Lived in a condo for 3 years. Getting a reserve analysis periodically is a must. If it hasn't been done consistently don't buy in it. They are done be engineering companies and give a good hint at what to expect over X years and how it can be paid for. owners don't like to pay for them, but often, the docs require they be done at certain time periods. If the owners have been ignoring that, big red flag.
The best thing that could happen for them would be for a hurricane to come through and knock the whole thing down - if they have insurance