problem homeowner

Started by MarissaO • 5 replies • 1473 views

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MarissaO (Florida)
Posts: 7

Posted:

We live in a small neighborhood of 18 homes in Florida which has an HOA. We have had a problem homeowner that does not pay his HOA dues or his mortgage, he has consistently had "roommates" that have resulted in the police being called here way too many times. We bought our homes through Habitat for Humanity and we lease our grounds from them and they lease it from the county, our ground lease states that you can not sublet your house out, however when the police were called on his roommates they told them that they pay 700 dollars for the house and he was sleeping in the car port. My question is because Habitat is the mortgage holder and they are not moving very fast in resolving this issue, is there anything we as a board can do to make this process happen any quicker? There are a lot of children in our neighborhood and people are getting very concerned. Thanks for any advice!

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

I do volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity. So familiar with their setup and how things work. They will foreclose on a person not paying their share. I've seen it happen. The house will go to someone else. It's NOT a free ride or home. It's just a reduced rate/time line. Basically your not paying for labor but the materials of the home. Your sweat equity hours and the work of volunteers covers the labor portion.

Habitat can't act outside the existing laws nor can the HOA. There is no "Speed" variances when it comes to the law. It still takes 2 10 business day notices to evict renters in many states. Meaning atleast a 20 not including weekends/holidays to have someone removed. There is then a 2 week sheriff removal after that. Which a tenant can refuse to pay rent to up to a year in some cases without an eviction. All legal. Tenant's have rights.

Best to keep working with Habitat for Humanity on eviction process. They own the home technically. They have to obey the laws and are responsible for the foreclosure or eviction. A foreclosure can take 6 months or more to complete. Sorry but do the research on the existing laws. You are limited to what ever those are in your area.

Former HOA President

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Marissa,

Since you are in FL, FL statutes allow the Association to collect the association fees directly from the renters. Talk to your Association attorney to see what steps the Association must comply with to make this happen.

Tim

MarissaO (Florida)
Posts: 7

Posted:

yes we are working with Habitat, it is just that seems that it is getting dangerous because they are fighting in the street and intoxicated and there are children playing, we had to call the police three times today and the end result is the woman was arrested for coming back onto the property after they asked her to leave twice. The reason they asked her to leave is because even if they were paying rent they did not have the key to get inside, so the whole situation is sketchy. It is hard to explain all of this writing it out, but it is very frustrating to have people in fear to leave their house because they never know who will be next door. Thank you for your advice...

SteveM9 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 3,699

Posted:

Habitat for Humanity is nice but remember......... you can take the guy out of the ghetto, but you cant take the ghetto out of the guy.

BrianB (California)
Posts: 2,820

Posted:

Continue to involve the police whenever a Florida statute is broken.

Get a phone tree going to bug the tar out of the Habitat office, until you get clear, precise answers as to what they are doing.

As for what the HOA can do, it would all depend on what your rules/regs/CC&R's say you can do. You can only enforce the contract, and we here don't know what your contract says.

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