Are Homeowners being penalized by their own Homeowners Association?

As a Realtor® in Weston FL...Selling and renting out a home in FL can be a challenging for me as well as the homeowner.

This market is tough. Prices are dropping daily and some homeowners are facing the fact that they can no longer wait to sell and the only alternative for some is to move out and rent it to cover part of their expenses in order to avoid foreclosure. Most of the homeowners I speak with daily are concerned that even if they rent it out they can't command enough to cover their bills. Basically it's a temporary band-aid to cover the wound and stop the bleeding.

Most homeowners will face enough obstacles.... hoping that they get a contract on their home in a reasonable time and then want to close quickly so they can be relieved of the tremendous debt that id weighing them down. The same goes for the ones that need to just get a warm body into their home and collect some income. Even though it's negative income it's still enough to keep them from losing their homes. It's bad enough that they have to go through the process of waiting for the buyers loan to be approved and cleared to close but when their own homeowners association holds up or delays their home from closing or even losing a months rent due to the lack of being proactive.... then in my opinion all these board members are doing is making matters worse by impeding on the sale and or rental of their property because they want to take their dear sweet time giving an answer in a reasonable time frame. It's hard enough for people to sell or their properties....let these board members stick to sending out violation notices .......they seem to be pretty quick with handing those out.

When I owned my previous home I decided to get more involved with my association. I figured that if I could help be more proactive...my fellow homeowners would greatly appreciate that I was working in their best interest. I became vice president of my homeowners association and sat in that position for about 7 years. In this particular subdivision where I lived there wasn't a requirement to be approved for the sale but a few years later we decided there was a need to screen renters. Even when we made an adjustment we still worked with the homeowner to get the process completed rather quickly and without too many complications.

There are a lot of areas across the country that do not have associations and some that do but without any approvals needed. Recently I have noticed that these boards want to take their dear sweet time with all kinds of long waited policies for approvals. Many times we have deals that need to close quickly and homeowners want their properties occupied as soon as possible. Being on the board of as homeowners association is a volunteer position and unless government steps in then it's a non-paying position.

Basically when you don't get paid...you're not motivated enough to try to help some folks out and make a few exceptions. Money talks and bullsh-t walks. Getting approvals in some areas should be a quick decision. And if one board member cannot fulfill this then there should be others that can come out of the bullpen in relief. This is not happening. They simply don't care how long it takes. They don't take into consideration the fact that people are sitting at the closing table waiting for an approval and I have even seen a case when someone asked if their approval could be expedited and then they had to pay an extra fee but where that fee went to is beyond me.

Back in July 2007 I had one property that I listed for rent. The homeowner found me on the Internet and it turned out that we lived across the street from each other. We ended up getting a renter within a few weeks and the renters agent needed to get in an approval to have the lease start the first of August. But because of lack of responses from the association and excuses to delay the process...the homeowner lost one months rent of $2,200. It was bad enough that their expenses were about $2,900. He was pissed off and wanted to hire an attorney because of what he called dirty tactics the property management company was using to hold up the occupancy of his new tenant. In the end ...he ended up losing a month of rent.

I'm seeing more and more delays and that is pissing off these folks. Whatever happened to helping people during tough times? I bet that if there were a homeowner in the same situation who happens to serve on one these boards that there would be a way expedite the sale of their own property.... there would be instant answers.

For more information please contact Neal The Real Deal Bloom-Realtor® /RE/MAX Premier Associates

2500 Weston Road ,Suite 103

Weston FL 33331

(954)608-5556

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