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MOTHER’S DAY AND HOAS?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
May 15, 2015
I spent this year’s Mother’s Day with my Mom in Hamburg,
Germany. We drove to a pretty famous CAFÉ at the river Elbe,
famous for welcoming ships arriving in the port of Hamburg. On
our way we drove through some of Hamburg’s suburbs and admired
the well-kept front-yards: Green lawns, lots of nice flowers and
well-manicured bushes and trees. It was pretty obvious that the
owner of these single-family homes take pride in keeping their
homes and gardens looking great.
But guess what? There are no HOAs fining owners for violating
any quickly made-up rules. No HOAs claiming to increase the
property values of these homes. In short: Homeowners’
associations are actually illegal in Germany and people will
look at you like deer in the headlight if you mention that such
“organizations” exist in the USA.
We always here from the trade-organization Community Association
Institute that HOAs are imperative to keep the neighborhood in
shape.
Driving through Hamburg’s suburbs is definitely proving them
wrong.
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Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice,
Florida
's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group.
CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in
community
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associations. He moved to
Florida
in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the
developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues
for his own purposes. End of retirement!
CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in
Tallahassee
- finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a
member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.
The organization has two websites to inform interested
Florida
homeowners and condo owners:
News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.
Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all
service providers surely have a different interest! We are
trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are
useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking
in
Florida
!
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