On a plane flying home a couple of weeks ago, I read an interesting article by the Mayor of Ketchikan, Alaska, which was made famous by all of the media surrounding the "Bridge to Nowhere". The mayor explained that he understood why people might get riled up by the way it was funded, and by the appearance of it seemingly servicing very few peop...Read More

The nation is finding out what we here in Michigan have known for quite awhile. Things aren't going too well for the economy. Blame is flying everywhere, but when you get right down to it, we're all too blame. We paid too much for housing, we charged for things when we should have paid cash, we elected the people who are making the decisions,...Read More

The California legislature has passed another law because "the state receives complaints that associations do not fulfill their obligations to homeowners or abuse their power, but state government currently does not have any oversight power and a homeowner´s only recourse in disputes is to sue their homeowners association." Let's see, a fr...Read More

States continue to pass legislation designed to "fix" the problems with condo's and HOA's. Whether they fix or compound the problems, only time will tell, but one thing is for sure, the people living in associations will pay more because of the laws.

The majority of legislation proposed every year is usually a response to a problem wi...Read More

Like science, community associations also have certain immutable "natural" laws that exist outside of state or federal legislation. You are welcome to your opinion on any of them

1. Community associations are going to continue to be the major component of new development

Unless the American populace makes a com...Read More

People often ask me why the CAN news feeds are so full of bad news about associations. The answer's quite simple - we get our news from other news feeds and by definition, "news" is something out of the ordinary - so, in reality, bad news about associations is something "out of the ordinary". People who work with or follow associations know th...Read More

Two issues are showing up in the news - the first being the foreclosure crisis and its impact on association finances; and the second is the continuing intervention of state legislatures with respect to energy conservation issues. I believe that both issues will touch just about every association in the country before too long - so this is a re...Read More

I took a couple of weeks off from writing to take care of a few other things, but I couldn't stay away forever - there's always some luncacy that has to be written about. The latest comes from one of my favorites - the American Homeowner's Resource Center (AHRC). This is the largest of the "rant" sites (a "rant" site is one that gives people w...Read More

Julio Robaino, legislator and main advocate for changing Florida's community association laws, proposed some major legislation, that, if enacted, will probably make being a board member for a Florida condo, co-op or HOA, not worth the effort or risk. Let's take a look at what he's proposed:

- Creates civil and criminal sanctions agains...Read More

Florida, Arizona and Connecticut are all looking at some form of oversight of community associations involving state appointed commissions or something. In Florida, Rep. Julio Robaina, R- Miami, worked hard holding hearings all over the state to make sure everyone who ever got a violation letter or was behind in their assessments got to blast t...Read More