TAKE ACTION! Misguided Sacramento Legislation Could Start Civil Wars in HOAs – Center for California Homeowner Association Law

Wanna hear a crazy idea?

A Sacramento lawmaker wants HOA owners who bought their homes at full price to subsidize the assessments of owners who bought affordable units with government help.

Yes, you read it right. AB572 would reduce the assessments on affordable homes and shift the balance owed onto owners who bought at full price.

Why is this a bad idea?

For one thing, the law would start a civil war in every association with below-market-rate homes (BMRs, they’re called.) These are homes produced by public and private developers and redevelopment agencies and sold to first-time homebuyers and other families trying to get a foothold in California’s housing market. San Francisco alone has thousands of these affordable homes. Cities and counties give developers price breaks if they set aside some of their new homes for first-time buyers, e. g. a city might speed up the permitting process, thus saving the developer money in holding costs.

As we know, assessments are outrunning the ability of ALL homeowners to pay them. But AB572/Haney focuses only on the owners of BMR units. The bill caps at 5% over the prior year’s assessments the amount that BMR owners will have to pay — and shifts the balance onto the other owners.

So, if last year’s dues were $200 a month and the HOA raised it this year by the legally permitted 20% — to $240 – the owners of BMR units would have to pay only $210. Their neighbors would have to come up with the other $30 every month to make up the difference.

We have tried to talk sense into the author of this bill – Assemblyman Matt Haney of San Francisco – that this plan will start a civil war in associations, but he doesn’t care. He’s sticking to his guns.

We’ve also tried to convince the sponsors of the bill – the San Francisco Housing Development Corporation and the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California – that it’s a bad idea. But they’re also digging in their heels, probably because they don’t know the first thing about how associations work. Nor do they seem to care that the bill will set neighbor against neighbor.

Neither sponsors nor author will listen to the fact that ALL homeowners are having a hard time paying assessments. Lawmaker Haney could do a great public service by using AB572 to reduce the legally permitted 20% cap. The 20% figure is a totally arbitrary number that somebody pulled out of thin air. (Why not gauge assessment increases instead to the Consumer Price Index (CPI)?)

We can safely say that few working people get a 20% salary increase every year. And for sure seniors relying on Social Security don’t get a 20% annual increase in their checks, so how are working people and seniors supposed to come up with extra dollars to pay their own assessments let alone the dues of their neighbors?

AB572 is a bad idea for a lot of other reasons, like it’s going to trigger lawsuits. If it becomes law owners of full-price homes are going to rush to the courthouse to sue the HOA – and their neighbors. Owners of homes bought at full price didn’t buy them with the legal requirement that they subsidize their neighbors’ assessments too.

So, what’s to be done? ONLY HOMEOWNERS CAN STOP THIS BILL
JOIN US IN SACRAMENTO FOR ITS HEARING BEFORE THE ASSEMBLY HOUSING COMMITTEE NEXT WEDNESDAY THE 26^TH AT THE CAPITOL!

Can’t come to the Capitol on Wednesday? Then PHONE the Committee Chair Assemblymember Buffy Wicks in Sacramento at 916.319.2014 and PHONE the bill’s author Assemblymember Matt Haney in Sacramento at 916.319.2017

PHONE NOW – over the weekend, while the lines are open. DON’T EMAIL – your email will get buried among the thousands going to these offices and won’t get read.

Here’s the link to this very short bill that would do a lot of damage to homeowners — one of those bills more important for what it leaves out..
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB572

Questions/comments? Email us at [email protected]