HOA Goes Over Board, Police Called, Neighborhood Nonsense?
Residents in the Mandarin Lakes neighborhood of Naranja Lakes in South Miami Bay, Florida are outraged after their homeowners association called the police to end a meeting when the residents were debating a fee increase.
Videos of the chaotic meeting obtained by WFOR-TV show Property Owners objecting to the $350 per quarter fee hike, with one resident, Zoe Sosa, saying, "The issue is that the HOA fee is going up for the second time in one year, and we were given short notice about the increase and a lot of things on the new budget don't make sense".
Other issues include the property owners still having to pay for car insurance for security personnel who now use golf carts, lack of improvement in amenities, reported crime, and cars being towed.
Kristen Marti, one of the residents at the meeting, relayed how the HOA has ignored her complaints, saying, "They discredit me, they tell me basically go away. This is how it is, if you don't like it, move out".
The meeting ended when police arrived in response to the homeowner's association who called them. Out of 370,000 homeowners associations in the United States, this incident has drawn attention to how HOA's deal with doubting or dissatisfied homeowners.
Residents of Mandarin Lakes have now organized to hold a special meeting and vote out current members of the HOA board, replacing them with members more likely to listen to their complaints.
A resident of the community, who refused to be named, voiced his outrage to the situation, saying, "I feel threatened by the HOA, and I'm outraged that we have to live like this in our neighborhood".
The incident in Mandarin Lakes serves as a reminder to all Property Owners in HOA's of the importance of understanding their rights when it comes to their properties and the fees associated with them. With over 40 million households now represented by Homeowner's Associations, incidents like this may show a need for homeowners to be more informed so as to prevent such occurrences from ever happening again.