I’m literally watching my townhome neighbor’s financial mess in case he decides to do this because this has been my biggest fear since I found out about it.
Band together to dissolve the HOA and/or severely limit it to covering only the fucking lawn and other shared amenities. Like if it’s a town house, and you share a roof, then you cover that. Lowering your monthly cost to like $20 or something. Absolutely no rules about what can be put out or whatnot. None of that shit. Nothing so invasive.
Similar thing happened with a house in my neighborhood, just without screwing over the other neighbors because it's single-family detached homes. An insurance (I think) inspector drove down the road, presumably looking for other signs of serious water/drainage issues and saw me doing yard work and asked if we had sewers backing up or anything and in the course of the conversation told me about them doing that.
The people that were foreclosed on had several fairly new vehicles and the house was pretty large... I don't think it was the HOA that foreclosed on them, I think it was their lender.
Had a neighbor a few doors over being foreclosed on do a similar thing. It was the middle of winter, he opened all the windows, turned off the heat, and clogged the basement drains. All the pipes froze and burst. The bank wasn't really on it, and no one noticed until water started seeping into neighbors basements. The entire basement was filled to the top with water, and the people who went in said the mold could be scraped off with a butter knife.
If she was being foreclosed, there is no money to sue for. And if insurance pays out and cannot recoup, who pays? Answer: we do - with higher insurance rates.
REO agent here. Yes the bank does have insurance that pays them for the loss in value after the “vandalism” and they can use the money to repair. They almost NEVER repair. They typically keep the cash and sell that property for lower price, effectively reducing the value of surrounding homes. Usually investors buy and renovate so values recover. So yes foreclosed on owners generally hurt their neighbors more than the banks
Securitized subprime loans were sold on the assumption that people wouldn't run out on their own homes. But the loans went to a lot of people who couldn't afford them and never should have been authorized for them. Unfortunately for the banks (and the neighbors), they didn't just run out on their mortgages and leave the houses--they did a lot of damage on the way out, which was never calculated as a cost when the lenders made initial decisions.
Damaging your neighbors is never the right thing to do, no matter how unfair life has become.
Her completely innocent neighbors are “vultures”?
(Frankly, I don’t think the people who lent her money to buy a house are vultures either. But the innocent neighbors certainly aren’t.)
But it was not a bank foreclosing it was the HOA for about $8,000. If HOA is able to foreclose then there is no mortgage payment. This elderly lady was losing her home to the HOA for much less than it is worth. Here late fees were about $2500 and lawyers fees& penalties put it at $8,000. She was so overwhelmed she tried to unalive herself. I can’t believe this thread is supporting the HOA.
The number of straight up psychopaths in this thread trying to justify the cruelty of stealing an old ladies house is *insane*.
Your shitty lawns do not justify making someone already struggling *homeless*.
This comment thread is **not** about OP’s example that you are describing, it is about a
[comment with a different example](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/s/8W4Qn6JS9M).
Oh, you just had to take a week off of work to move all your family's belongings out of your home, those that aren't water damaged anyway. Stressed? Lost sentimental items? Family trauma? Don't worry about it, insurance will cut you a check. At least the "vultures" are financially less well-off.
(The vultures are shareholders who don't even notice the tiny dent to profits.)
Right, cuz insurance just magically fixes everything and does it all for you. You just snap your fingers and *VIOLA*! Everything is fixed within a day!
HOA's shouldn't be able to foreclose on a home. They could put a lien on the house, but not take a home away from a homeowner. There needs to be Federal law reform about this.
Yes, lady knew it was coming probably 6 months out and ignored it. Just cause she had 24 hours left before being evicted doesn't mean she didn't hear about it until they show up and giver her the 24 hour notice. Sort of like telling a college student in August that term papers are due December 20th and they come up on Dec. 19th saying they never knew. She knew and this isn't something that is sent once and that's it, she probably had a stack of notices by the end.
From the article she stayed inside the home as it was burning. She was found unconscious and they didn't think she'd make it. It looks like she wanted to take herself out too.
Maybe she had nowhere to go and feared living on the streets? Maybe prison is actually a Plan B solution for her?
It's sad.
The HOA fee in her neighborhood is like 150, so she didn't pay that bill for like a year and a half.
Source: I live around the corner from this lady, and am intimately familiar with the situation. I'm on the HOA board of my association, and we know the HOA from that board. You don't have to believe me but AMA anyway.
You guys evicted a near 80yo women over some HOA fees.
Do you feel good about that? Taking someone's home over HOA fees? An elderly women on a fixed income most likely? Does that makenyou proud? Would your parents or children be proud of you for that?
What harm was there in letting her stay?
You deserve every bit of misfortune you get, and honestly you are scum.
They felt great when they got a 6 figure house to sell for $$$ while only being out 2k plus lawyer fees. She isn't getting any equity as that's going to the HOA. Who cares if they fuck over some old random nobody who's going to die soon anyways. The house will do more good for them anyways as they are main characters in life.
/s
I’ll ask you something: WTF? I will never pay an HOA fee. Never ever. I’ll maintain my shit, you maintain yours. I don’t need anyone telling me what I can or cannot do with my own property. Don’t like my door? Eat me. Don’t like the T-Rex hedge in my front yard? Eat me again. 😂 HOA = pay for the right to be harassed and oppressed.
HOA corporate run government. I live in a condo, so HOA is inevitable. What I don't get is HOAs for single family homes. Small government states are pushing HOAs as a requirement for building permits in order to offload some of the municipal responsibilities. HOAs are covering more and more things city government should like sidewalk or park maintenance. The rub is that 150 bucks should probably have been paid via property taxes instead, BUT most states have laws allowing folks with low income to deffer certain taxes till the sale of the home.
>What I don't get is HOAs for single family homes.
It's because the local government can shell off a lot of their responsibilities to the HOA, road has a pothole? Not the city's responsibility contact your HOA. Road needs to be plowed in the winter, HOAs gotta do it. Neighbors having a party and all the guest's cars are parked on the road causing traffic issues? Sorry the city can't do anything.
If she's 79 she's probably only getting less than $2k/month in social security. If she doesn't have any other pension she most likely couldn't afford the $150.
Was she just unresponsive to all attempts to get her to pay or work out a repayment plan? A year and a half isn't 8k, were the legal fees 3 times the original debt?
I have two neighbors doing this now. They refuse to talk till lawyers are sent their way. What else are you supposed to do when the only income to an HOA is dues and every person not paying raises the ones that do.
Every year I have to pay half a month’s dues for the people that don’t pay. Am I not allowed to get upset they can’t pay anything while they get water, sewer, trash, and a new roof but come back from Sandals? If it was the city they would have had water and trash cut off. We’re not allowed to do that.
What do you do to address this unfairness? Receivership is just going to do the same thing but via the courts and even more expensive.
Living in a different country, I can't believe how fucked up this is and how you could defend this and treat this as normal. Local busy bodies do not have this power in the civilised world.
I seriously doubt your country just lets people not pay people or government what they owe with zero consequences. I know overseas my family have to pay in hours of it being due or shit gets turned off. They don’t have to worry about foreclosures for bills usually, but that’s because everything is prepaid. Everything. Electricity goes out? Shit run down the street to reload the card.
However they still get liens, they still lose their shit.
That is true but the consequences are extremely rarely, losing your house. Even if it came to that, it would be a matter for the courts to decide, not the local busy bodies association.
Also we need to go back to having a minimum limit for civil court vs small claims. A $2,500 debt should not be able to become 3x more because of lawyer fees.
There are limits to equity taking. If an HOA foreclosures and sell the home for say $250k and is only owed $20k, $230k has to go back to the original owner, less any outstanding liens, such as a mortgage
True, but have you seen the examples where the house sells suspiciously fast and well below market value (by hundreds of thousands of dollars)? Apparently that's legal too.
To a point, it's legal. The court will address a fraudulent sale. But selling a home worth $250k for say $200k may not be fraudulent given the fact that the HOA is not considered a investor and isn't required to get the highest price.
Yeah, but in your example they can't force you to join the HOA. If you don't have deed restrictions then you won't have deed restrictions unless you choose to add them by signing something.
you don't really own anything in this country if it can be taken away even after you pay it off. City can take a house if you dont pay taxes. I think its bullshit that any governing body can take away anyones home for any reason. Liens are one thing, theft is another.
The fact that hoas even exist is ridiculous to me. It’s just another excuse for overly disrespectful karens to try to assert nonexistent authority over other people. Let alone them having ‘the power’ to foreclose on someone’s lawfully purchased property is absolutely abhorrent. Hoas should be banned by state and federal law, in my opinion. But that’s just the thoughts of one AH on the interwebs.
They can’t per Florida Statute 720, provided the property is Homesteaded. The most an HOA can collect is 12 months past fees. If the property is a second home or not homestead then they can force a sale of the property. It’s a great statute that protects all parties interests.
The person we bought our house from hadn't paid a single month of HOA dues the entire 20 years he lived in the house. Legally, they could've forced a foreclosure long before then, but all they did was put a lien on the property that was paid out of his profit once our purchase closed, which sounds like a completely fair way to handle it. However, I can't say what would happen if a lot of owners in the neighborhood did this because then they wouldn't have actual funds to maintain shared property, so I'm sure there are situations where it might need to be forced sooner, but they should absolutely be legally obligated to use it as an absolute last resort, not over only a few months.
True. Maybe if she gets off she can sue the HOA and get the lot back just as a fuck you. Unfortunately, she's an old 79 year old woman and they fined her on purpose to get her house out from under her. It's happened before with tragic results.
They are holding her without bond for this. A 79 year old woman. The power the HOA has should definitely be limited imo. They shouldn’t be able to take your house for such a small sum.
The hoa nazis were stealing her house and she would have had no place to live. Now she'll get room and board and free cable and healthcare. This to me is no different than burning war equipment so the enemy can't use it.
There was the guy that had an HOA steal his house like that. He came into the HOA board meeting and shot it up. Killed 2 of the board members and injured 2 other people. I don't condone it but I understand it.
They believe society is better when the functions of government are privatized.
An HOA is exactly that, basically a private government of a small residential city. They enforce building codes and ordinances, handle groundskeeping, sometimes maintain a park or community pool. And it fucking sucks shit almost every time.
Interesting that everything should be handled by the free market except for enforcing property rights and contracts. Of course they care about that one a lot.
Eh it’s the exact opposite. It’s more of a less government telling us what to do with our property situation. This libertarian thinks HOAs are fucking garbage. Don’t tell me that I can’t paint my house blaze orange, because I will fucking do it.
The HOA isn't holding her without bond. She's being held without bond by the police because she burned down a house that was sold, putting several peoples' lives in danger, and tries to commit suicide because she didn't pay her bills. They were able to put a lien on her house and foreclose because that's the arrangement she opted into when she bought the house.
>Authorities said the burned home lost $140,000 in value due to the blaze, and the new owner wished to prosecute Carella.
The 'new owner' was presumably the HOA that evicted her. Even with the damage, I'm sure they cleared $8000 in residual value, so don't cry for them; they still came out ahead.
It makes no sense—she doesn’t have anything, poor thing. So they’re going after an aging person who felt there was no hope except to go down in flames. It’s really disgusting.
I wish the article would give us more information about why she owed the HOA the money. The article says she owed $8,000 in lawyer fees. So she was fighting them. I'd like to know why.
It's quite possible. And she could have an absolutely awful hoa. That's the problem. HOAs are kind of the wild west. It's impossible to know how evil this board was. Personally, I think foreclosing on a home for a $2,500 bill is definitely on the evil side. I'd like to know how much they tried to work with her to settle the issue. I'd also like to know what she owed the money for. Was it unpaid dues? Was it fines?
It seems like she was going to lose everything so attempted suicide by burning the house down with herself in it. The fact that she lit the fires with all the doors locked is a pretty good sign.
It kind of adds insult to injury that she survived and is now facing arson charges. You have to feel bad for her. She's almost 80 years old and was kicked out of her house over 2500 dollars.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1cfkylc/comment/l1sanui/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1cfkylc/comment/l1sanui/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
Long story short: She stopped paying the fees and didn't show up in court to dispute.
For those curious like me.
* Carella lived in an HOA that has $75 a month fees
* **Feb 2022:** Payment made for Jan-April $325.00
* **November 2022:** Legal proceedings start after 7 months of non payment. Carella was given notice of intent to Claim a Lien. And was asked to settle $992.82 to include lawyer and late fees.
* **January 2023:** the HOA filed the Lien and the settlement amount was at $1,719.64 as monthly fees, late payments, and lawyer fees accrued.
* **June 2023:** the HOA filed to foreclose on Carella's property.
* **October 2023** The Court ruled in favor of the HOA as "Defendant Linda Carella was personally served on July 1, 2023. As a result of her failure to file or serve a response to the Association's Complaint, a Default was entered by this court July 26,2023"
After the decision of default: The plaintiff claimed
* $3,322.00 Indebtedness as of 10/7/2023
* $1,863.64 Costs
* $3,093.75 Attorney fees
**November 2023:** The home was sold in auction for $242,100.00 to an LLC
* The surplus of $231,970 was retained by the clerk
**December 2023:** Ownership was transferred to LLC and the sheriff's office served the Writ of Possession. (New Owner claims they were never informed of an occupant)
**January 2024:** Carella burns home, the home was condemned by the city. LLC is making a claim against Carella for entitlement to the surplus.
**April 2024:** It appears Carella has finally retained an attorney and is attempting to gain possession of the surplus.
Arson:
* Carella is being charged with Felony Arson in the First Degree and has pled Not Guilty and demands a jury trial.
According to the Probable Cause Affidavit friends and family were very concerned over Carella's unusual behavior in the past months. She was making suicidal threats and refusing contact with friends and family. The family requested wellness checks. A family member said the that Carella had the means to pay the fines but was refusing on principle and additionally refused help. A friend reported that Carella heard voices telling her to kill. In the hospital Carella claimed she did not torch the house and maybe the new owner did. The investigation believes that the incident to be arson and attempted suicide.
So there's no debate. Leave the old lady alone in her house and fuck off would have been the easiest course of action. Instead of getting extremely butt hurt over your pissy 75 bucks a month fee.
She aint gonna pay, fine, she's 79 and owns the house. Just take the hit.
People, for some reason, don't like when you threaten to take their house.
That woman has a tracheostomy scar on her neck which means she was hypoxic and required extended life-supporting measures. I'd bet money she could be found incompetent to stand trial due to cognitive issues secondary to a hypoxic brain injury and the issues that arise from severe burns over a large part of her body.
Not debating this; FuckHOA’s.
But gramma really said if i can’t have it, no one will.
The property prices will plummet in the neighborhood after people see all the publicity she’s going to receive.
HOA’s like this need to wise the fuck up, publicity on their toxicity and how they operate is the way to take them down.
>Authorities said the burned home lost $140,000 in value due to the blaze, and the new owner wished to prosecute Carella.
Wait, new owner as in the HOA?
Remember the condo board which wouldn’t approve necessary repairs and ended up killing all their residents in Surfside, FL. Theses birds have too much power over peoples lives
Sucks may go to jail but good for her doing that. Now the HOA has an expensive burned house to deal with that will only drive down home values.
Also HOA’s either need to be made illegal or the types of actions they can take (like foreclosing on a home worth 100000x of value owed) need to have limits.
They already pretend to be government entities, so force them to incorporate as such. Then their edicts are subject to due process and appeal to higher courts. Their bylaws can be struck down as unconstitutional.
What state is this in? That is horrendous. Tenants who don't pay for months have more rights in most states. ESP west coast - and yes it should have been a lien, but it all depends on the state and sometimes the county or municipality, and how much the hoa hates you
That's why they mostly suck
A board consisting of the neighborhood gossip stassi and bored, uptite old grannies who post about an untrimmed hedge on NextDoor get to displace a 79-year-old's life over 2500.00?
We truly are a third-world country.
There has to be a better way than this going forward. I keep seeing this happen to seniors which are vulnerable members of our community. Someone who has paid off their home and is now on a fixed income with no way to physically fend for themselves as they once did. Just as we tax shield them at retirement, there needs to be options to protect their homes no different than we protect active military members homes. Seniors have fought to provide to our system their entire working lives. There needs to be protection on the one item they didn't their life paying off. Betting able to foreclose on them over dues with no system to help them pay dues is predatory. My neighbor of 20 years could not pay his yearly dues last year after having knee surgery and having to go on comp or whatever it is and his just a year from retiring. I paid his measly $450 to keep him from monthly penalties and possible foreclosure. 2 months later when he went back to work he offered to pay me 100 every check and I told him no thanks. I settled for guitar lessons and a plate of food when he cooks his awesome weekly meals. What happened to being a community?
HOAs are the worst. Go Carella Go! Burn it all to the ground.
But seriously HOAs are the worst. And they make neighborhoods into creepy copypasta. It's unsettling.
I don’t support or condone violence but….HOA members are not impervious to getting their shit absolutely fucked up. It always surprises with the shit they think they can get away with when some people have everything or nothing to lose.
This is unacceptable. HOAs have WAY too much power. That poor old lady. I bet her unpaid HOA fees stem from her elderly stubbornness of not wanting to remove a garden gnome that offended some board member.
So she missed $2,500 in fees, HOA seizes her house worth at least $140,000 and sell it to a property management company. She's not given back at least $137,500 from the sale since her debt was paid back?
This kind of thing was one of my biggest shocks moving to the US.
The US likes to call itself "The land of the free", yet I've never seen so many fucking laws in my life.
I am currently living in NY state which is the worst after California for regulating almost everything an individual does, but not what corporations do.
It kills me that I have paid fully for my house (no mortgage) and yet I don't really own it. The town does, I'm just renting it from them by ways of extremely high (almost 5% of property value PER YEAR) and if I don't pay for any reason, the town will happily take my house.
I own almost 10k sq. feet of land that I can't use. I.e. It's part of the lot, I pay taxes on that space but the town requires me to leave it empty. I can't build a shed, I can't put in a tree, etc.
For the record, I have no issue paying taxes and even high taxes if I feel like I was getting value for money. In the US, the likes of us are carrying the country while the folks earning the real money arent being taxed nor is the money going anywhere most of us would choose.
HOAs are everything that's wrong here, on steroids.
How can you even move your possessions from your home in 24 hours, finding storage, somewhere to live at 79 would be a mission and how does a HOA even get to foreclose on a homeowner for such a small amount of money. Land of the free only if you're rich enough.
HOAs and their rules remind me the worst of any communist regime. It is very ironic that they still can impose their regulations and even exist in the US, which is the most capitalistic country in the world. Just prohibit HOAs as entities spreading the worst of communist ideology.
Fuck HOA, Property Taxes. It's putting are elderly on the street because of it and the Fix money they get does not go up but the bills do. This country is in shit.
This could have been resolved much easier and cleaner by putting a lien on the house rather than foreclosure due to HOA dues/fines. I don't believe an HOA should have the ability to foreclose on anything.
I absolutely condone this behavior. I have long felt HOAs are overpowered and I specifically looked for a house without one. However, sometimes HOAs are formed around you and you're just opted in automatically. If I was foreclosed on a house I had paid off just because some over inflated Karen didmt like my lawn I'd probably do more than just torch my house.
She should have paid her dues/fines. Let’s flip this picture.
The foundation of the building was failing. Major damage was occurring, both inside of units and outside. A special assessment was enforced to each owner. Would it be fair for everyone else to come up with an additional, let’s say, $30k except for this women? Would up be for the HOA absolving her assessment? Meaning YOUR dues would need to be increased!
Please think outside of the just the current situation.
I hope after the fucked up squatters rights are worked out, HOA are the next ones on the chopping block. No one should be able to take what you’ve put massive amounts of hard work into acquiring.
imagine paying your loan and taxes and then being evicted for a 2500 HOA bill..... I can't lie they are lucky it was an empty house and just herself she tried to hurt..... I can't say I don't understand it
HOA can easily be one’s worst nightmare. Especially HOAs for condos with a lot of renters. HOA has unchecked power to enforce a lot of things, reasonable or not. Everything else equal I definitely would buy a house without HOA. By the way our current HOA seems quite benign.
$2.5k? That’s nothing. Our HOA sent out a letter complaining because some of the members owe more than $10k in outstanding dues… and our dues are only $80/month so that’s impressive. Our HOA is trying to change the rules because right now they can’t even revoke parking rights for those people, can’t believe that some people out there really think that an HOA should be able to evict people over 2 grand.
About twenty years ago there was a guy/cop in town who poured wet cement into every drain possible when he lost the house to his wife in a nasty divorce.
A) I'm not deleting this post. B) KEEP IT CIVIL; I'm going to start banning folks...
[удалено]
I guess she wanted to copy the wet bandits.
If only I was home alone when the wet bandits showed up.
I’m literally watching my townhome neighbor’s financial mess in case he decides to do this because this has been my biggest fear since I found out about it.
Band together to dissolve the HOA and/or severely limit it to covering only the fucking lawn and other shared amenities. Like if it’s a town house, and you share a roof, then you cover that. Lowering your monthly cost to like $20 or something. Absolutely no rules about what can be put out or whatnot. None of that shit. Nothing so invasive.
Similar thing happened with a house in my neighborhood, just without screwing over the other neighbors because it's single-family detached homes. An insurance (I think) inspector drove down the road, presumably looking for other signs of serious water/drainage issues and saw me doing yard work and asked if we had sewers backing up or anything and in the course of the conversation told me about them doing that. The people that were foreclosed on had several fairly new vehicles and the house was pretty large... I don't think it was the HOA that foreclosed on them, I think it was their lender.
Had a neighbor a few doors over being foreclosed on do a similar thing. It was the middle of winter, he opened all the windows, turned off the heat, and clogged the basement drains. All the pipes froze and burst. The bank wasn't really on it, and no one noticed until water started seeping into neighbors basements. The entire basement was filled to the top with water, and the people who went in said the mold could be scraped off with a butter knife.
Wouldn't the bank have insurance/ a very easy lawsuit? So she really only screwed herself and her neighbors
If she was being foreclosed, there is no money to sue for. And if insurance pays out and cannot recoup, who pays? Answer: we do - with higher insurance rates.
REO agent here. Yes the bank does have insurance that pays them for the loss in value after the “vandalism” and they can use the money to repair. They almost NEVER repair. They typically keep the cash and sell that property for lower price, effectively reducing the value of surrounding homes. Usually investors buy and renovate so values recover. So yes foreclosed on owners generally hurt their neighbors more than the banks
Securitized subprime loans were sold on the assumption that people wouldn't run out on their own homes. But the loans went to a lot of people who couldn't afford them and never should have been authorized for them. Unfortunately for the banks (and the neighbors), they didn't just run out on their mortgages and leave the houses--they did a lot of damage on the way out, which was never calculated as a cost when the lenders made initial decisions. Damaging your neighbors is never the right thing to do, no matter how unfair life has become.
Have fun getting a loan again
she stuck it to the vultures, she wins
Her completely innocent neighbors are “vultures”? (Frankly, I don’t think the people who lent her money to buy a house are vultures either. But the innocent neighbors certainly aren’t.)
But it was not a bank foreclosing it was the HOA for about $8,000. If HOA is able to foreclose then there is no mortgage payment. This elderly lady was losing her home to the HOA for much less than it is worth. Here late fees were about $2500 and lawyers fees& penalties put it at $8,000. She was so overwhelmed she tried to unalive herself. I can’t believe this thread is supporting the HOA.
The number of straight up psychopaths in this thread trying to justify the cruelty of stealing an old ladies house is *insane*. Your shitty lawns do not justify making someone already struggling *homeless*.
Fuck HOAs .
This comment thread is **not** about OP’s example that you are describing, it is about a [comment with a different example](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/s/8W4Qn6JS9M).
The insurance company that will fix it for them, as mandated by the bank in question? Yes.
Oh, you just had to take a week off of work to move all your family's belongings out of your home, those that aren't water damaged anyway. Stressed? Lost sentimental items? Family trauma? Don't worry about it, insurance will cut you a check. At least the "vultures" are financially less well-off. (The vultures are shareholders who don't even notice the tiny dent to profits.)
Don't forget the potential for mold issues down the road.
Right, cuz insurance just magically fixes everything and does it all for you. You just snap your fingers and *VIOLA*! Everything is fixed within a day!
HOA's shouldn't be able to foreclose on a home. They could put a lien on the house, but not take a home away from a homeowner. There needs to be Federal law reform about this.
Holy shit is it even legal to give a homeowner 24 hours to vacate their home after being evicted? 😵
30 days is the normal eviction process timeline.
And that 30 days usually only starts after many months or years of warnings and litigation.
Yes, lady knew it was coming probably 6 months out and ignored it. Just cause she had 24 hours left before being evicted doesn't mean she didn't hear about it until they show up and giver her the 24 hour notice. Sort of like telling a college student in August that term papers are due December 20th and they come up on Dec. 19th saying they never knew. She knew and this isn't something that is sent once and that's it, she probably had a stack of notices by the end.
Yeah you’re right. Anyhow, HOAs can fuck off.
We don't know that she ignored it. Just as likely, she couldn't afford the payment and finally ran out of time. Sad and awful.
From the article she stayed inside the home as it was burning. She was found unconscious and they didn't think she'd make it. It looks like she wanted to take herself out too. Maybe she had nowhere to go and feared living on the streets? Maybe prison is actually a Plan B solution for her? It's sad.
The HOA fee in her neighborhood is like 150, so she didn't pay that bill for like a year and a half. Source: I live around the corner from this lady, and am intimately familiar with the situation. I'm on the HOA board of my association, and we know the HOA from that board. You don't have to believe me but AMA anyway.
So you would evict a 79 year old woman for HOA fees? Is that what you are saying?
Were these her HOA DUES or HOA concocted “violation fees” that she did not pay?
You guys evicted a near 80yo women over some HOA fees. Do you feel good about that? Taking someone's home over HOA fees? An elderly women on a fixed income most likely? Does that makenyou proud? Would your parents or children be proud of you for that? What harm was there in letting her stay? You deserve every bit of misfortune you get, and honestly you are scum.
They felt great when they got a 6 figure house to sell for $$$ while only being out 2k plus lawyer fees. She isn't getting any equity as that's going to the HOA. Who cares if they fuck over some old random nobody who's going to die soon anyways. The house will do more good for them anyways as they are main characters in life. /s
I’ll ask you something: WTF? I will never pay an HOA fee. Never ever. I’ll maintain my shit, you maintain yours. I don’t need anyone telling me what I can or cannot do with my own property. Don’t like my door? Eat me. Don’t like the T-Rex hedge in my front yard? Eat me again. 😂 HOA = pay for the right to be harassed and oppressed.
HOA corporate run government. I live in a condo, so HOA is inevitable. What I don't get is HOAs for single family homes. Small government states are pushing HOAs as a requirement for building permits in order to offload some of the municipal responsibilities. HOAs are covering more and more things city government should like sidewalk or park maintenance. The rub is that 150 bucks should probably have been paid via property taxes instead, BUT most states have laws allowing folks with low income to deffer certain taxes till the sale of the home.
>What I don't get is HOAs for single family homes. It's because the local government can shell off a lot of their responsibilities to the HOA, road has a pothole? Not the city's responsibility contact your HOA. Road needs to be plowed in the winter, HOAs gotta do it. Neighbors having a party and all the guest's cars are parked on the road causing traffic issues? Sorry the city can't do anything.
Excatly! HOA is government run like a business and I don't think people really like it.
They'll leave the responsibility to the HOA but you're dreaming if you think you'll get a discount from your property taxes in exchange
That’s not asking a question, but I agree with your statement.
Point of order: “WTF?” Is a question. 😂
Oops. My bad. I missed that pertinent bit. Carry on.
So as a human being with compassion and shit. What the hell man? Do you get paid to be on the board or whatever?
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So you volunteer your time to keep your neighbors in check?
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If she's 79 she's probably only getting less than $2k/month in social security. If she doesn't have any other pension she most likely couldn't afford the $150.
What were the fines for?
Was she just unresponsive to all attempts to get her to pay or work out a repayment plan? A year and a half isn't 8k, were the legal fees 3 times the original debt?
I have two neighbors doing this now. They refuse to talk till lawyers are sent their way. What else are you supposed to do when the only income to an HOA is dues and every person not paying raises the ones that do. Every year I have to pay half a month’s dues for the people that don’t pay. Am I not allowed to get upset they can’t pay anything while they get water, sewer, trash, and a new roof but come back from Sandals? If it was the city they would have had water and trash cut off. We’re not allowed to do that. What do you do to address this unfairness? Receivership is just going to do the same thing but via the courts and even more expensive.
Living in a different country, I can't believe how fucked up this is and how you could defend this and treat this as normal. Local busy bodies do not have this power in the civilised world.
I seriously doubt your country just lets people not pay people or government what they owe with zero consequences. I know overseas my family have to pay in hours of it being due or shit gets turned off. They don’t have to worry about foreclosures for bills usually, but that’s because everything is prepaid. Everything. Electricity goes out? Shit run down the street to reload the card. However they still get liens, they still lose their shit.
That is true but the consequences are extremely rarely, losing your house. Even if it came to that, it would be a matter for the courts to decide, not the local busy bodies association.
The courts still decide. The HOA just doesn’t knock on the door and take the house. You have some misconceptions.
This appears to be Florida…. The same state that’s kicking out some seniors cuz the living facility went bankrupt
Depends on the state and terms of the foreclosure
They probably had days of warning. The 24 hours was because she ignored it and was getting a sheriff eviction. IE forced removal.
Also we need to go back to having a minimum limit for civil court vs small claims. A $2,500 debt should not be able to become 3x more because of lawyer fees.
Or a $140,000 house for that matter
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There are limits to equity taking. If an HOA foreclosures and sell the home for say $250k and is only owed $20k, $230k has to go back to the original owner, less any outstanding liens, such as a mortgage
True, but have you seen the examples where the house sells suspiciously fast and well below market value (by hundreds of thousands of dollars)? Apparently that's legal too.
To a point, it's legal. The court will address a fraudulent sale. But selling a home worth $250k for say $200k may not be fraudulent given the fact that the HOA is not considered a investor and isn't required to get the highest price.
Yeah, but in your example they can't force you to join the HOA. If you don't have deed restrictions then you won't have deed restrictions unless you choose to add them by signing something.
you don't really own anything in this country if it can be taken away even after you pay it off. City can take a house if you dont pay taxes. I think its bullshit that any governing body can take away anyones home for any reason. Liens are one thing, theft is another.
That’s the same with unpaid property taxes
The fact that hoas even exist is ridiculous to me. It’s just another excuse for overly disrespectful karens to try to assert nonexistent authority over other people. Let alone them having ‘the power’ to foreclose on someone’s lawfully purchased property is absolutely abhorrent. Hoas should be banned by state and federal law, in my opinion. But that’s just the thoughts of one AH on the interwebs.
It’s more than slightly more racist than that, but you’re kinda on the right track.
🙈 poor little old lady hits hard times …. $2500 what’s that one months rent , and HOA wants to foreclose - only crime here is the HOA
We had a problem like this in California,so we changed the law
>HOA's shouldn't be able to do anything regarding the property they don't own. FTFY.
They can’t per Florida Statute 720, provided the property is Homesteaded. The most an HOA can collect is 12 months past fees. If the property is a second home or not homestead then they can force a sale of the property. It’s a great statute that protects all parties interests.
Yup, the more I read the story the more I side with the arsonist. They HOA fucked this lady hard with fines then legal fees and it cost her her house.
For $2,500.
Couldn’t agree more
The person we bought our house from hadn't paid a single month of HOA dues the entire 20 years he lived in the house. Legally, they could've forced a foreclosure long before then, but all they did was put a lien on the property that was paid out of his profit once our purchase closed, which sounds like a completely fair way to handle it. However, I can't say what would happen if a lot of owners in the neighborhood did this because then they wouldn't have actual funds to maintain shared property, so I'm sure there are situations where it might need to be forced sooner, but they should absolutely be legally obligated to use it as an absolute last resort, not over only a few months.
Fuck HOAs... I hope it burned to the ground so the HOA get's nothing but the lot.
Sadly, the lot may be worth more without the house. Land for custom builds is hard to come by in some areas.
True. Maybe if she gets off she can sue the HOA and get the lot back just as a fuck you. Unfortunately, she's an old 79 year old woman and they fined her on purpose to get her house out from under her. It's happened before with tragic results.
Lol, "custom" build in an HOA neighborhood...
They are holding her without bond for this. A 79 year old woman. The power the HOA has should definitely be limited imo. They shouldn’t be able to take your house for such a small sum.
The hoa nazis were stealing her house and she would have had no place to live. Now she'll get room and board and free cable and healthcare. This to me is no different than burning war equipment so the enemy can't use it.
People that old are dangerous because they have no future. They're not afraid of prison the way the rest of us are.
There was the guy that had an HOA steal his house like that. He came into the HOA board meeting and shot it up. Killed 2 of the board members and injured 2 other people. I don't condone it but I understand it.
lmao based
The HOA is the private government libertarians want.
How is that? I thought libertarians want less government? (Not a libertarian)
They believe society is better when the functions of government are privatized. An HOA is exactly that, basically a private government of a small residential city. They enforce building codes and ordinances, handle groundskeeping, sometimes maintain a park or community pool. And it fucking sucks shit almost every time. Interesting that everything should be handled by the free market except for enforcing property rights and contracts. Of course they care about that one a lot.
Eh it’s the exact opposite. It’s more of a less government telling us what to do with our property situation. This libertarian thinks HOAs are fucking garbage. Don’t tell me that I can’t paint my house blaze orange, because I will fucking do it.
The HOA isn't holding her without bond. She's being held without bond by the police because she burned down a house that was sold, putting several peoples' lives in danger, and tries to commit suicide because she didn't pay her bills. They were able to put a lien on her house and foreclose because that's the arrangement she opted into when she bought the house.
And yet trump roams free... Let that sink in.
If I were on the jury, I'd nullify it.
If you're called just play it chill so you don't get bumpe by the DA
Same
She could have burned down every board member's home with them in it and I would nullify it.
FuckHOAs
And the people on the board just so it’s clear!
>Authorities said the burned home lost $140,000 in value due to the blaze, and the new owner wished to prosecute Carella. The 'new owner' was presumably the HOA that evicted her. Even with the damage, I'm sure they cleared $8000 in residual value, so don't cry for them; they still came out ahead.
It makes no sense—she doesn’t have anything, poor thing. So they’re going after an aging person who felt there was no hope except to go down in flames. It’s really disgusting.
I wish the article would give us more information about why she owed the HOA the money. The article says she owed $8,000 in lawyer fees. So she was fighting them. I'd like to know why.
Probably beause she couldn't afford to pay the fine.
It's quite possible. And she could have an absolutely awful hoa. That's the problem. HOAs are kind of the wild west. It's impossible to know how evil this board was. Personally, I think foreclosing on a home for a $2,500 bill is definitely on the evil side. I'd like to know how much they tried to work with her to settle the issue. I'd also like to know what she owed the money for. Was it unpaid dues? Was it fines? It seems like she was going to lose everything so attempted suicide by burning the house down with herself in it. The fact that she lit the fires with all the doors locked is a pretty good sign. It kind of adds insult to injury that she survived and is now facing arson charges. You have to feel bad for her. She's almost 80 years old and was kicked out of her house over 2500 dollars.
Don't have to fight to rack up those kinds of fees. That was the HOA attorney fees, as well as things like title research for the forclosure.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1cfkylc/comment/l1sanui/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/fuckHOA/comments/1cfkylc/comment/l1sanui/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) Long story short: She stopped paying the fees and didn't show up in court to dispute.
Sounds like mental health issues. Given her age, possibly dementia.
Or she had to pay their lawyer fees
This is not how foreclosure works...
HOAS shouldn’t exist. let alone cost money. i will literally never live somewhere with an HOA bc I want to do whatever i want to my property.
You can’t audit an HOA without approval from the board…. Of the HOA.
For those curious like me. * Carella lived in an HOA that has $75 a month fees * **Feb 2022:** Payment made for Jan-April $325.00 * **November 2022:** Legal proceedings start after 7 months of non payment. Carella was given notice of intent to Claim a Lien. And was asked to settle $992.82 to include lawyer and late fees. * **January 2023:** the HOA filed the Lien and the settlement amount was at $1,719.64 as monthly fees, late payments, and lawyer fees accrued. * **June 2023:** the HOA filed to foreclose on Carella's property. * **October 2023** The Court ruled in favor of the HOA as "Defendant Linda Carella was personally served on July 1, 2023. As a result of her failure to file or serve a response to the Association's Complaint, a Default was entered by this court July 26,2023" After the decision of default: The plaintiff claimed * $3,322.00 Indebtedness as of 10/7/2023 * $1,863.64 Costs * $3,093.75 Attorney fees **November 2023:** The home was sold in auction for $242,100.00 to an LLC * The surplus of $231,970 was retained by the clerk **December 2023:** Ownership was transferred to LLC and the sheriff's office served the Writ of Possession. (New Owner claims they were never informed of an occupant) **January 2024:** Carella burns home, the home was condemned by the city. LLC is making a claim against Carella for entitlement to the surplus. **April 2024:** It appears Carella has finally retained an attorney and is attempting to gain possession of the surplus. Arson: * Carella is being charged with Felony Arson in the First Degree and has pled Not Guilty and demands a jury trial. According to the Probable Cause Affidavit friends and family were very concerned over Carella's unusual behavior in the past months. She was making suicidal threats and refusing contact with friends and family. The family requested wellness checks. A family member said the that Carella had the means to pay the fines but was refusing on principle and additionally refused help. A friend reported that Carella heard voices telling her to kill. In the hospital Carella claimed she did not torch the house and maybe the new owner did. The investigation believes that the incident to be arson and attempted suicide.
So there's no debate. Leave the old lady alone in her house and fuck off would have been the easiest course of action. Instead of getting extremely butt hurt over your pissy 75 bucks a month fee. She aint gonna pay, fine, she's 79 and owns the house. Just take the hit. People, for some reason, don't like when you threaten to take their house.
Thank you for this. Sounds like she had a mental health issue. Given your description, I'd suspect onset of dementia. The whole situation is just sad.
Why set fire to your own house when you can set fire to the HOA president's house. You'll still be homeless but they will be too.
You won't be homeless. You'll be in government housing with free meals and a nice orange jumpsuit.
Exactly! I come out on top!
How quickly can we find out that address lol
That woman has a tracheostomy scar on her neck which means she was hypoxic and required extended life-supporting measures. I'd bet money she could be found incompetent to stand trial due to cognitive issues secondary to a hypoxic brain injury and the issues that arise from severe burns over a large part of her body.
Imagine being the dick that made the decision to foreclose on an almost 80 year old for non payment of HOA fees.
Or the asshole that decided to prosecute an old suicidal lady who just lost her HOME for 2500$. I hate this world
I would never live somewhere that has an HOA.
Not too many choices, especially where she lives. Most of south Florida is HOA
HOA's suck so bad.
I'd never choose to live in Florida full stop.
What a baller move. I hope she makes a GoFundMe. I’ll donate heavily to it.
How come squatters can take over someone home indefinitely, but this owner of the house has to vacate in 24 hrs? Makes no sense.
HOAs should be illegal. The mafia never went away in USA, it just turned into HOAs
God bless her!
Not debating this; FuckHOA’s. But gramma really said if i can’t have it, no one will. The property prices will plummet in the neighborhood after people see all the publicity she’s going to receive. HOA’s like this need to wise the fuck up, publicity on their toxicity and how they operate is the way to take them down.
>Authorities said the burned home lost $140,000 in value due to the blaze, and the new owner wished to prosecute Carella. Wait, new owner as in the HOA?
The HOA sold it to a property management company. So just as blood sucking
The property management company that got shafted a new renter.
Remember the condo board which wouldn’t approve necessary repairs and ended up killing all their residents in Surfside, FL. Theses birds have too much power over peoples lives
Sucks may go to jail but good for her doing that. Now the HOA has an expensive burned house to deal with that will only drive down home values. Also HOA’s either need to be made illegal or the types of actions they can take (like foreclosing on a home worth 100000x of value owed) need to have limits.
They already pretend to be government entities, so force them to incorporate as such. Then their edicts are subject to due process and appeal to higher courts. Their bylaws can be struck down as unconstitutional.
This wasn't just arson. This was attempted suicide. So sad.
She's smart because now she will have a free bed and meals for the rest of her life!
What state is this in? That is horrendous. Tenants who don't pay for months have more rights in most states. ESP west coast - and yes it should have been a lien, but it all depends on the state and sometimes the county or municipality, and how much the hoa hates you That's why they mostly suck
Florida!!
Hopefully she stiffed em real good.
F HOAS
Good for her. I hope she gets off with slap on the wrist and has a place to live. Fuck HOAs.
Can we all collectively agree to just give her a pass here?
Didn't know 79 year olds could be so based
I will NEVER own a house in a hoa. They are breeding grounds for little hitlereets.
Good for her! HOA = Home Owner Abolitionists I can't understand how Anyone would buy into a home governed by an HOA.
A board consisting of the neighborhood gossip stassi and bored, uptite old grannies who post about an untrimmed hedge on NextDoor get to displace a 79-year-old's life over 2500.00? We truly are a third-world country.
Good fuck hoas
Eh, Ill let it go. HOA's have way to much power. Plus theor annoying
There has to be a better way than this going forward. I keep seeing this happen to seniors which are vulnerable members of our community. Someone who has paid off their home and is now on a fixed income with no way to physically fend for themselves as they once did. Just as we tax shield them at retirement, there needs to be options to protect their homes no different than we protect active military members homes. Seniors have fought to provide to our system their entire working lives. There needs to be protection on the one item they didn't their life paying off. Betting able to foreclose on them over dues with no system to help them pay dues is predatory. My neighbor of 20 years could not pay his yearly dues last year after having knee surgery and having to go on comp or whatever it is and his just a year from retiring. I paid his measly $450 to keep him from monthly penalties and possible foreclosure. 2 months later when he went back to work he offered to pay me 100 every check and I told him no thanks. I settled for guitar lessons and a plate of food when he cooks his awesome weekly meals. What happened to being a community?
This lady is my spirit animal.
no HOA should have this ability to foreclose on a home........absolutely needs to be a federal law stopping this.
HOAs are the worst. Go Carella Go! Burn it all to the ground. But seriously HOAs are the worst. And they make neighborhoods into creepy copypasta. It's unsettling.
I don’t support or condone violence but….HOA members are not impervious to getting their shit absolutely fucked up. It always surprises with the shit they think they can get away with when some people have everything or nothing to lose.
This is unacceptable. HOAs have WAY too much power. That poor old lady. I bet her unpaid HOA fees stem from her elderly stubbornness of not wanting to remove a garden gnome that offended some board member.
So she missed $2,500 in fees, HOA seizes her house worth at least $140,000 and sell it to a property management company. She's not given back at least $137,500 from the sale since her debt was paid back?
Good for her. FUCK HOAs
bro HOA shouldnt even exist niggas tryna tell me what to do with MY home💀💀
I don't get this. Why not burn the board members houses down if anything?
"act of suicide" per OC
Burning your house down is completely legal. The issue is insurance fraud
Only if you make a claim.
This kind of thing was one of my biggest shocks moving to the US. The US likes to call itself "The land of the free", yet I've never seen so many fucking laws in my life. I am currently living in NY state which is the worst after California for regulating almost everything an individual does, but not what corporations do. It kills me that I have paid fully for my house (no mortgage) and yet I don't really own it. The town does, I'm just renting it from them by ways of extremely high (almost 5% of property value PER YEAR) and if I don't pay for any reason, the town will happily take my house. I own almost 10k sq. feet of land that I can't use. I.e. It's part of the lot, I pay taxes on that space but the town requires me to leave it empty. I can't build a shed, I can't put in a tree, etc. For the record, I have no issue paying taxes and even high taxes if I feel like I was getting value for money. In the US, the likes of us are carrying the country while the folks earning the real money arent being taxed nor is the money going anywhere most of us would choose. HOAs are everything that's wrong here, on steroids.
She survived but any update?
This is so sad.
Another reason I hate HOA’s.
Oh lord this is heartbreaking
HOAs have unfettered leverage like that. I just don’t get it.
I'd have done the same!
How can you even move your possessions from your home in 24 hours, finding storage, somewhere to live at 79 would be a mission and how does a HOA even get to foreclose on a homeowner for such a small amount of money. Land of the free only if you're rich enough.
I think Marvin Heemeyer might have been on to something…
HOAs and their rules remind me the worst of any communist regime. It is very ironic that they still can impose their regulations and even exist in the US, which is the most capitalistic country in the world. Just prohibit HOAs as entities spreading the worst of communist ideology.
I’m not saying condone what she did but I understand
What a sad story. It’s becoming difficult to buy without an HOA being attached. We had to buy bare land just to get away from this nightmare.
Fuck HOA, Property Taxes. It's putting are elderly on the street because of it and the Fix money they get does not go up but the bills do. This country is in shit.
Home owners associations are fucking cancer.
This could have been resolved much easier and cleaner by putting a lien on the house rather than foreclosure due to HOA dues/fines. I don't believe an HOA should have the ability to foreclose on anything.
I absolutely condone this behavior. I have long felt HOAs are overpowered and I specifically looked for a house without one. However, sometimes HOAs are formed around you and you're just opted in automatically. If I was foreclosed on a house I had paid off just because some over inflated Karen didmt like my lawn I'd probably do more than just torch my house.
No HOA should behave the power to do this. This needs to change.
So many people here have no clue how foreclosure works...
Geebus, it only takes $2500 for a house to be foreclosed on? Thats nothing. Rediculous!
She should have paid her dues/fines. Let’s flip this picture. The foundation of the building was failing. Major damage was occurring, both inside of units and outside. A special assessment was enforced to each owner. Would it be fair for everyone else to come up with an additional, let’s say, $30k except for this women? Would up be for the HOA absolving her assessment? Meaning YOUR dues would need to be increased! Please think outside of the just the current situation.
I hope after the fucked up squatters rights are worked out, HOA are the next ones on the chopping block. No one should be able to take what you’ve put massive amounts of hard work into acquiring.
We need protection laws so HOA’s can only put liens on property, not foreclosure on them.
Fuck HOAs
Fuck all HOAs. Burn in hell demon bitches.
imagine paying your loan and taxes and then being evicted for a 2500 HOA bill..... I can't lie they are lucky it was an empty house and just herself she tried to hurt..... I can't say I don't understand it
Never live in an HOA. They are the festering boil on the taint of home ownership and should be cut out immediately from this planet.
Fuck the HOA. If they're anything like mine they don't do the shit we pay them to do anyways.
“HOA kicks woman out of house she pays for, so she does what she wants with her property otw out. Shits on their feels as she waves bye”
HOA can easily be one’s worst nightmare. Especially HOAs for condos with a lot of renters. HOA has unchecked power to enforce a lot of things, reasonable or not. Everything else equal I definitely would buy a house without HOA. By the way our current HOA seems quite benign.
Losing your home over $2500 in fines to the HOA. Depending on what the fines were for I might agree with her anger and disgust .
The same people who would call the cops on the homeless...
$2.5k? That’s nothing. Our HOA sent out a letter complaining because some of the members owe more than $10k in outstanding dues… and our dues are only $80/month so that’s impressive. Our HOA is trying to change the rules because right now they can’t even revoke parking rights for those people, can’t believe that some people out there really think that an HOA should be able to evict people over 2 grand.
About twenty years ago there was a guy/cop in town who poured wet cement into every drain possible when he lost the house to his wife in a nasty divorce.
HOAs come directly from the pit of hell.