compasion at work, as usual...

[acroyear]

Florida community wants to evict 6-year-old:

Kimberly, a 6-year-old in the custody of her grandparents, is facing eviction by local law enforcement because her grandparents live in a retirement community. The child has lived in the house her whole life, as her mother is unable to care for her due to unspecified drug problems. Now authorities plan to remove the girl from the only home she’s ever known and place her in foster care with strangers due to a homeowners association policy.

Kimberly’s grandparents, Jimmy and Judie Stottler, have been unable to sell their home and move elsewhere due to the housing market crash. The Stottlers have even lowered the price from $225,000 to $129,000, willing to get completely hosed on the move just to keep their family intact, but no one is buying. The battle has been going on for several years, the better portion of Kimberly’s life, but the Stottlers are of limited resources to fight the situation.

Comments

[ladylyonesse.livejournal.com]

And that right there is a shining example of why HOAs should be illegal. Unbelievable.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

I'm of two minds. The foster care angle is crazed, but retirement communities exist as a place where people of at least [usually 60] move to, without live-in grandchildren.

It would certainly be clearcut were they to be living in Assisted Living, no?

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

except when the HOA is not the arbiter, then who is?

The whole origin of the HOA is the preservation of the value of the property. If someone looking for a home to buy sees 5 houses on a street (one being for sale) looking prestine, or at least "typical", and 1 house where the lawn is unmowed and a foot high, the fence is in pieces, and a '78 Datsun is up on cinder blocks, nevermind the paint job clashing with the rest of the place, well guess what: they're not going to buy.

so now MY house has lost value, MY MONEY, due to someone else's carelessness and negligence. That is, basically, a form of THEFT.

Thus, the authority of the HOA, to establish regulations and enforce with the power of law so that the law itself doesn't have to get involved in such otherwise petty measures until the perceived problem escalates.

The issue is the question of what goes on inside the home vs what goes on outside. My having a kid, who stays on my yard only, doesn't scream to the point of violating noise ordinances, or leave her toys in the middle of the street, does nothing to change the value of *your* house...especially as, at that age, you're not really interested in selling in the first damn place.

And the fact that the family can't sell in spite of trying (at half-off??? dayum) is proof that the whole neighborhood has been overvalued for years: the HOA's raison d'être is really no more.

[shalandara.livejournal.com]

Around here a lot of the age-restricted communities were built with the proviso of being age-restricted so that the local community would not be burdened with escalating costs for the infrastructure (i.e. schools and such) needed by the (non-tax paying) children.

Most have some clauses to allow a younger spouse, but all specifically prohibit children.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

except that is pretty much meaningless because taxes aren't subdivided at that level. in order to pay lower taxes, you have to intentionally lower the value of your home. in any case, you're paying for the school across town, like it or not. yes, it's "socialist", but the alternative is worse. there's no such thing as not paying for something you don't use as soon as ANY government is involved.

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

So, if I put in a nice improvement on my house, upgrade the landscaping, etc.. and thus make the neighborhood nicer, do I get money from the neighbors for increasing the value of their homes from my hard work? I don't think so (which reminds me, need to look into having our HOA changed so that you can have X number of small pets rather than Y cats, Z dogs, etc.. so hopefully in the far and distant future when my Mom dies I'm not in violation for having excessive cats).

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

it's called the american way: you are permitted to do whatever you want to add value to your holdings, but you are not allowed to do anything that might take away value from someone else's.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

The idea of the HOA makes good sense. The implementation often does not. No flaming pink houses with neon signs on the roof, good idea. Penalizing someone for the wrong shade of off white on the trim around the garage door, stupid. That said, my current HOA actually provides enough service to be worthwhile, and has been entirely fair in their enforcement.

This HOA is trying to get rid of the small child to preserve property values. This has caused the grandparents to lower the ask price on their home by alomst 50%. Any other home in the neighborhood that tries to sell will have to deal with that asking price. The actions of the HOA have had the end result of trashing home values.

The family is doing all they can. It's not as if they have options.

I get why HOAs exist, I just think they go way too far

[ladylyonesse.livejournal.com]

See, I get the idea of an HOA from the perspective of property value protection, but they're allowed to infringe WAY too far on somebody's right to manage *their own purchased property* because of the contracts they force people to sign at purchase for the supposed "privelege" of living there. It's one thing to say, dude, don't park 87 rusting cars all over your front yard indefinitely, it looks crappy. And it's quite another to say, you can't have xx person living INSIDE your house where it presumably affects no one; you can't hoist a standard-size flag on an upright flagpole even if you're one of the last living Medal of Honor recipients in America; you can't have a fence that color or that style to contain your dog, etc. It's allowed to go WAY too far, was my point

[ladyaelfwynn.livejournal.com]

The lack of compassion in those people's neighbors is astounding. I certainly hope that the judge understands compassion better.

[ladylyonesse.livejournal.com]

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