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WHAT SHOULD WE GIVE THANKS FOR?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
November 23, 2012
Even
if many of us just call it
Turkey
Day, the original name on the calendar is still Thanksgiving Day.
Many of you might still have a stomach-ache from gobbling down
too much turkey and sweets as dessert!
Maybe
you should consider – a day late – that there are really a
lot of things you could give thanks for – especially if you
are one of the approximately 2.5 million homeowners living in a
Florida
homeowners’ association.
Honestly,
you may be really hard pressed to find anything you could list
on your Thanksgiving chart – but how about these suggestions:
-
Be
thankful that House Bill 319, sponsored by Representative
George Moraitis, didn’t pass. Your wallet would now be
even thinner and your association board would soon be
meeting in order to levy another special assessment to cover
the ever-increasing budget deficits caused by the
strengthened
Safe
Harbor
provisions protecting the banks that caused the whole
foreclosure disaster in the first place.
-
Be
thankful that House Bill 1013, sponsored by Rep. Frank
Artiles, only protected developers against so-called
“implied warranty.” It could have gotten much worse
since our legislators are treating community developers like
a protected species. When moving to
Florida
you shouldn’t expect any consumer protection in the first
place.
-
Be
thankful that not all of CITIZENS’ insurance money
accumulated over the last few years with no hurricanes was
given to private insurers – just about $350 million of it?
Don’t our legislators feel sorry for all these “poor”
insurance companies fleecing
Florida
’s homeowners – according to the profits they all post?
-
Be
thankful you still have a home, even if you are forced to
pay your neighbors’ bills – you know the neighbors who
have stopped paying association dues and watch TV for free?
Just imagine that some legislator whose campaign was
financed by banks would sponsor a bill forcing you to pay as
well your neighbor’s overdue mortgage payments. Remember,
banks are so poor that they can only afford to pay their
former CEOs, responsible for the collapse of our economy,
golden parachutes of $100 million plus. Shouldn’t these
incompetent CEOs deserve better than that?
-
Be
thankful that many counties appraised your property much
higher than it’s really worth. Newspaper reports (fueled
by political propaganda) show that our property values are
going up again – slowly but surely. And since our county
governments spent our tax dollars like there's
no tomorrow, an increase of 10-15% of your assessed property
value should really be considered reasonable. Imagine they
would have raised it by 25%?
-
Be
thankful that for another year the hurricanes bypassed
Florida
. Because make no mistake, many homeowners’ associations
don’t have the necessary insurance to cover possible
hurricane damages without levying big special assessments.
And imagine all the fines levied by your association board
for having “blue” roofs – blue not being among the
allowed roof colors?
Just
think about, isn’t all that enough reason to be thankful for?
It could have been a “hell
of a lot worse!”
And
please don’t eat too many turkey sandwiches – overeating is
not a suggested remedy for depression!
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