A GROUP of homeowners were stunned after each received a $60,000 bill.
Families who are part of The Villas of Carillon HOA in Pinellas County, Florida received a letter informing them of the new fee.
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“I was in shock, I immediately started texting other neighbors,” Tammy Rodeffer, who lives in the HOA community, told the CBS News affiliate. WTSP.
The letter informed all 165 HOA members that they would have to pay about $60,000 for a special assessment.
Each family was given choices about how they wanted to pay the exorbitant fee.
“I thought, wow, is this real?” the home’s owner, Chris Hu, told the outlet.
“A total surprise. It’s a shocking surprise,” he said.
The new pressure on families in the neighborhood comes as the HOA faces a “significant financial challenge in the future,” states the letter seen by WTSP.
This comes after the same mistake was made by the council for 20 years by failing to fully fund its reserves since it was formed.
An assessment of the HOA’s reserves reportedly concluded that it does not have “adequate funds” to address local problems that the “association has struggled for years to adequately resolve,” the letter said.
It informed homeowners that the HOA is at a “critical point” regarding improvements and repairs.
“The Association is now at a critical point regarding capital improvement projects that require community-wide porch repairs, waterproofing, flat garage roof replacement and painting,” the letter states.
There are also concerns from the board regarding its future status in relation to insurance as it faces these “critical” issues.
The 165 families overseen by the HOA were given four options to pay the $60,000 bill.
One of them is to pay the total amount in four quarterly installments starting October 1st.
The second is to pay it in 32 quarterly installments of $1,875 over eight years.
Or they can pay $11,650 in four quarterly installments to find immediate improvement projects.
The final option is to accept an increase in monthly HOA fees from $575 to $1,200 for eight years.
A meeting was scheduled for June 20 for residents to vote on the special assessment plan.
What is an HOA?
One in five Americans lives in an area with a Home Owners Association – or HOA. But what exactly do they do?
- An HOA is a homeowners association – an organization that aims to maintain a clean, cohesive place for its residents to live.
- Entire neighborhoods, subdivisions, condominiums, single-family homes or townhouses within “a planned development” will often constitute an HOA.
- They also serve as a regulatory body for the tenants, who manage and finance the HOA through monthly fees.
- Its main goals are to keep the community functional and visually appealing and maintain property values.
- They focus primarily on a neighborhood’s common areas, like roads, parks, and pools — but they can also stipulate what residents can do with their property, like yards and sidewalks.
- These restrictions often impose uniformity on properties, for example, ensuring that most houses look the same and that all sidewalks are free of weeds.
- An HOA Rule Book of Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CC&R) is distributed to all residents, and an elected volunteer board of directors enforces these regulations.
- Violating these rules can result in penalties such as fines and even litigation – as most HOAs are incorporated and subject to state law.
- HOAs are often the subject of controversy, with some members feeling that the rules are too punitive and restrictive, or that the leadership has too much power.
- But other HOAs like this give communities the power of self-government and can ensure a degree of harmony among residents.
Rodeffer expressed his concern for all members of the community as he questioned why the HOA is demanding such a large amount of money out of thin air.
“There will be a lot of people who will lose their homes, or have to sell their homes, or won’t be able to make those payments,” she said.
“They will have a lien on your house, foreclosures.
“I’m concerned about the community in general,”
“As we get older, as buildings get older, you need more maintenance, you need more reserves, and I think the tin may have been hurt a little bit in that,” added owner Nancy Radde.
The HOA’s attorney declined to comment on the matter when approached by WTSP.
On the HOA website, the board that took over in 2022 addressed some questions raised by disgruntled homeowners.
“How could this have happened? Why weren’t we notified about the Assessment sooner?” an owner asked.
“I have no confidence in the council,” they added.
“The current reserve funding situation is the direct result of the budget planning practices of previous Councils and the general feeling of complacency among communities in allowing volunteer Council members to act on their behalf with little community interest or attention in the financial preparation for long term for large capital expenditures,” the board responded.
“This Council is, for the first time in over a decade, trying to ‘right this ship’.”
The US Sun has contacted the board’s management company for comment.
Meanwhile, other HOA members are expected to benefit from a new law that will be introduced in a few weeks.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
