HOA FINING PROCEDURES

This is the important part, afaic.

All the snark in the first post made me not want to give this much thought.

Yes, homeowners still have to obey covenants, but before you think this is a money grab:

Homeowner obey what covenants they can obey. This was a declared disaster. Many homes suffered severe damages.

Hurricanes Ian was last September - was your house damaged? If so, are you saying you didn't notice damage to your home until now? There were hearings in Florida about homeowner n insurance. Many owners had to sue insurance carriers who stalled, and wait years for a settlement.

My house was damaged. It was documented, and was documented. The property manager notified by a public adjuster and lawyer. She told the public adjuster outside damages had nothing to do with the hurricane, it was none of her business, and to keep her nose out of it. She ignored the letter from my attorney. The board attorney told the manager to set a deadline and to fine owners from then on.

Did you get an initial notice of damage to your home - if so, when? If there was a deadline to get the area fixed and it was clear you might miss it, did you notify the board? If so, when?

There were notices of damage. The board attorney told the board to set a deadline and fine owners from then on, regardless of the hurricane. This was a declared disaster. When you have damages in the tends of thousands, do you let the HOA demand repairs out of your pocket. I consider that extortion.

Did you get a second notice - when? Did you notify the board again? Why hasn't the work been done?
There were notices. The board attorney told the manager to ignore the public adjuster and my lawyer and fine me and several other owners with hurricane damage.

Were you aware of the violation policy, fine schedule and appeal process before all this got started? If so, why haven't you filed an appeal? If your insurance company told you

I am aware of the violation policy, fine schedule. There is no appeal process in Florida, unless you hire an attorney and spend thousands taking the HOA to court. Here the board levies a fine, the committee approves or rejects it. If it is approved, the owner is sent a bill to start paying. Once the fine hits $1,000, the HOA can lien your home and take it away.

to leave the damage, did they send you those instructions in writing? Did you show that letter to the board? If you've filed a claim, what was the outcome or is it still pending, and did you inform the board?

The public adjuster told me to leave the damage as is. The HOA then demanded I do thousand of dollars of repair work out of pocket. the claim is still pending Several of my neighbors still have tarps on their roofs.

You may need to answer those questions and perhaps some more when you attend your fining hearing. Note this is a hearing - a decision hasn't been made yet. Getting angry isn't going to help you and wastes energy - you need to calm down and prepare your appeal and make sure there wasn't a communication breakdown on your end and that you have documentation to prove your point.

I went to one fining hearing weeks ago where the manager told the committee it was all my neglect. I tried to tell them there was an insurance claim. They demanded I pay out of pocket and approved the fine. . My lawyer then told the manager the hearing was illegal, and she had to redo the whole group of hearings.

I feel like a broken record, but here goes one more time:

The ability to foreclose for unpaid fines is state-specific. If a state allows it and the CC&Rs treat fines as assessments, then yes the association can foreclose.

The procedures your association is using are perfectly legal in Florida, and none of it is new or should be a surprise to you. The $1000 threshold for liens is not new. The fining procedure where the board levies the fines and the fining committee either says yes or no is not new. The retroactive fining to the day the 14 day notice was sent out is not new. All of it has been in place for a long time.

When did you get the first notice of violation? I would suspect that there was a time lapse between the hurricane and the request that you fix the violation.

Your argument that the public adjuster and the attorney told you to leave the damage just doesn't make sense. If you made a claim with your adjustor in a timely manner after the hurricane, they sent out their field adjuster. The FA did an exam and took pictures. They reported to the desk adjuster. Your public adjuster took pictures and made a report. You have plenty of pictures and a lot of reports. You may also have gotten written estimates from contractors to fix the damage. At this point, the only thing you are waiting on is the money from the insurance company (or you may have gotten it, but you don't think it's enough). There's plenty of documentation. You can fix the damage and not lose your evidence for the insurance company lawsuit.

The HOA should not have to wait and look at the damage on your home while you fight your court battle. That could be years. It must be cosmetic damage or you wouldn't be living in the home. Can you tell us exactly what the violation notice says and what damage they are asking you to fix?

In our HOA, which was directly hit by Hurricane Ian, we fixed all the damage on the common areas already but our suing our insurance company for a larger settlement. NOte that I said we repaired all the damage already. Individual homeowners have fixed their damage that would violate our rules, except for roofs. We do allow people who have dirty roofs but a roof claim submitted more time since that process takes forever.

Unless you give more specifics, I don't have much sympathy here.

"The procedures your association is using are perfectly legal in Florida, and none of it is new or should be a surprise to you. The $1000 threshold for liens is not new. The fining procedure where the board levies the fines and the fining committee either says yes or no is not new. The retroactive fining to the day the 14 day notice was sent out is not new. All of it has been in place for a long time."

Indeed, I should know all this and stop complaining. No, they are not necessarily legal. They haven't been tested yet. Taking homes for fines has been a legal issue for years. The current fining procedure, with the threshold, was put in there a few years ago. That after years of liens being forbidden. Years ago, owners were fined and lost their homes for any level of fine. Fining and foreclosures were a favorite pastime for boards and their lawyers. The board vote is new. It is also backward. Used to be the violation would go to the fining committee first, then to the board. That is how it should be. Robert's Rules. Committees are meant to investigate issues like violations, not boards.

"When did you get the first notice of violation? I would suspect that there was a time lapse between the hurricane and the request that you fix the violation."

There was a time lapse.

"Your argument that the public adjuster and the attorney told you to leave the damage just doesn't make sense. If you made a claim with your adjustor in a timely manner after the hurricane, they sent out their field adjuster. The FA did an exam and took pictures. They reported to the desk adjuster. Your public adjuster took pictures and made a report. You have plenty of pictures and a lot of reports. You may also have gotten written estimates from contractors to fix the damage. At this point, the only thing you are waiting on is the money from the insurance company (or you may have gotten it, but you don't think it's enough). There's plenty of documentation. You can fix the damage and not lose your evidence for the insurance company lawsuit."

Not quite. The insurance company told me to leave the outside walls alone until the bathrooms were repaired. "Duty to preserve". It is in the contract. My bathrooms were badly damaged, and the walls ripped open and exposed.

"The HOA should not have to wait and look at the damage on your home while you fight your court battle. That could be years. It must be cosmetic damage or you wouldn't be living in the home. Can you tell us exactly what the violation notice says and what damage they are asking you to fix?"

Says who? What makes the HOA so special? Thousands of homes outside my HOA are in horrible shape, some condemned, from the hurricane. The neighbors have to look at them. A major hurricane leaves billions of dollars in damages and many homeless. The HOA expects its community to be back in pristine condition within a few months? Owners in my neighborhood are still living with damages to their homes. My violation letter has the term "exterior". The HOA refuses to be more specific. The "exterior" covers the roof, wing walls, windows, gutters, anything and everything on the outside. That means tens of thousands out of pocket. We had a manager who wrote "exterior" on violation letters and told the owner "You figure out what it means!" It is being done deliberately. Only those with lots of money, the desirables, will be left here.

I say property insurance is now a waste of time in the HOAs, if the HOA can set a deadline, bully the owners and insurance carrier, and take away homes.

Did you see the hearings on property insurance in Tallahassee months ago? Owners were waiting months for insurance settlements, and had to hire lawyers to sue and wait years. Some of them lived in trailers and on the streets.

"In our HOA, which was directly hit by Hurricane Ian, we fixed all the damage on the common areas already but our suing our insurance company for a larger settlement. NOte that I said we repaired all the damage already. Individual homeowners have fixed their damage that would violate our rules, except for roofs. We do allow people who have dirty roofs but a roof claim submitted more time since that process takes forever. "

Peachy for you.

"Unless you give more specifics, I don't have much sympathy here."