> The idea that an entity other than a mortgage lender you owe can "foreclose" and seize the home you live in is total lunacy.

What consequences are sane for a member who does not pay dues, water bills, etc., for a prolonged period? Turning off the water is illegal here. Liens get ignored. My HOA will avoid foreclosure for years, and has only resorted to it twice in twenty years, but it's the ultimate recourse. Should the other members just suck it up forever?

I'm not sure how Florida has managed it's "free state" image. I've lived across the south and midwest my whole life and Florida was easily the least "free" state I've lived in.

Hi, previous neigbor! I’m in Broward too. It’s insane here but also in Miami-Dade. My condo maintenance cost went x2 over the last few years and the pool where the water isn’t yellow with you know has been shut down for at least 3 years. Meanwhile the “board” argues about the carpet patterns for about as long as.

The municipality that collects property taxes, utilities, contractors/mechanics liens, etc. have had the ability to foreclose everywhere since time immemorial, so it's not too crazy really...

There was a fairly crazy case in Georgia recently where a lady stopped paying her annual dues over a billing dispute. The amount worked out to be less than $3,000.

The HOA hired a law firm, forced a foreclosure, held a foreclosure auction where the HOA itself bought her house for THREE DOLLARS, and continued to charge her HOA dues (even though the HOA owned the home now) before evicting her later.

The HOA then sold the home to an employee involved in the foreclosure, whose partner was on the HOA board that had voted to foreclose, and voted to accept the three dollar ($3.24, to be precise) bid, though they hid this behind an LLC that didn't actually exist when they did it. The employee then reactivated her real estate license and sold the home to another family several months later.

There are fewer greater lunacies than HOAs, and the type of people drawn to run them.

That's cause Broward is a BLUE country unlike the north half of Florida that is RED. BLUE counties are the worst down here when it comes to HOAs. Almost every development or neighborhood has them and they are AGRESSIVE. In the northern RED areas of Florida, there are either no HOAs OR the HOA only has authority or the communal shared spaces (ie, club houses, pools, common esways) and leave the home owners themselves alone in terms of dictating their lives.

I came in here gung ho to defend HOA’s because I’ve seen neighborhoods without them and they’re never really stunning. That being said the ability or the power to foreclose on your home because of that should not be allowed.