Is this legal?

If you had to name the state where a Vietnam war veteran almost lost his apartment for owning the wrong kind of dog; in which a ring of thieves made off with millions of dollars of residents’ money they were obligated to look after; and where a family was threatened with legal action over decorative garage door hinges, intuition would lead you to Florida.

Such absurdities from homeowners’ associations (HOAs) abound where the nation’s highest concentration of condominium developments, gated communities and upmarket resorts blend seamlessly with an abundance of petty bureaucracy and outright crookedness.

But now, thanks to a bill promoted by a Republican state congresswoman and signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis last week, things are about to change.

On 1 July, there will be unprecedented new curbs on the power and excesses of HOAs, the ultra-local panels of government that decide what color your front door should be, and how clean you need to keep your mailbox, in pursuit of high standards of maintenance and aesthetics.


No more can residents be cited or fined for trivial transgressions, like leaving their trash cans out beyond collection day, or having holiday lights and decorations still hanging long after the last visitors have returned home – at least without 14 days’ written notice, a hearing and appeals.

Anyone seeking to become an HOA board member will be required to be trained and regulated, a blow to Florida’s army of overzealous and autocratic apparatchiks who revel in controlling even the smallest details of residents’ existence.

“These associations tend to be full of Karens who don’t just want to speak to the manager, they want to be the manager,” said Craig Pittman, a veteran journalist and popular culture expert whose book Oh, Florida! chronicles the extremes of the nation’s quirkiest state.

“They want to micromanage what everybody does and dictate who can park where, and what kind of Christmas lights you can put up. Basically anything that is different from what anybody else does, you’re not allowed to do it. It’s all about uniformity……..




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...sociation-rule-changes?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other