The majority of neighborhoods in areas of Collin County, such as Frisco, Plano, Prosper, McKinney and Little Elm are individually governed by homeowners’ associations (HOA’s). Originally designed to protect homeowner’s HOA’s now seem to hurt them. Some Frisco neighborhood residents are complaining that HOA’s are getting out of control. So much so that state leaders are saying they are regularly hearing stories of unrestrained HOA’s, not only in our local areas of Little Elm and Plano, but state wide and it has gotten their attention. So much so that homeowners' associations were the target of some of the lawmakers in the latest Texas State legislative session. In this most recent session, Texas State representatives filed multiple bills that would limit the HOA's authority, including a measure that restricts their right to foreclose on homes. Currently in Texas, an HOA can foreclose on a home owner when the home owner becomes delinquent with their association dues; this is because Texas is currently a non-judicial state when it comes to foreclosures. Over the years we have heard stories of HOA’s purposefully aiming their foreclosure rights on homes that are free of mortgages in order to turn around and sell them for a nice profit. One of the stories that made national headlines a few years back was of and HOA foreclosing on a military family while the husband was serving in Iraq, because his wife got behind on the dues.
Relief has finally come for home owner’s in Texas’ last Legislative session, several of the bills that were proposed have been passed and HOA’s will now find their power’s regarding foreclosure for failure to pay their association dues more limited. In fact Texas passed 18 HOA reform bills; this is a huge win for home owners and very timely considering the Texas Legislature only meets every 2 years. One of the bills that passed will now require an HOA to obtain a court order to foreclose on homes. However, it will take some time for these to be amended into the Texas property code and any “tweaking” that needs to be done will not be able to be addressed until the next session in 2013. Until the property code is amended if you have any questions or curiosity about what changes were approved you can visit Texas Legislature Online and browse through them.
Robyn Heathcock
www.irgrealestate.com
Comments(3)