Category: Airbnb Updates

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Ready To Pull My Hair Out On This HOA Issue! – But Time For A Political Response

I am ready to pull my hair out on this HOA Issue! But time for a political response. If work has taught me one thing, it is to understand your audience when you are communicating. This is part of the fun of real estate investing. I hope I can help share this story with any, but if there is one thing I hope you learn is that this is apart of real estate investing. This is what I signed up for when I purchased an investment property. Although I want to blow up on the HOA for a few reasons, it is time for a political response to them and see what they come back with. In tonights article, I want to share exactly what I responded to the HOA with.

Before going into the email, get caught up on the story danggit! There has been so much that has gone on to this point. Again, can’t believe this is Part VIII in this saga and it is only continuing!

 

Now Time For My Email Response!

Before my email response, make sure to checkout Part VI specifically to read the HOA response to my first email. If you didn’t read my first email, well damn! Go back to Part V: Lawyered The S**t Out Of The Final Email To The HOA & Board.

Ok, hopefully you are now up to speed on everything going on. So a quick recap:

  • I lawyered the shit out of an email (thanks to a lawyer editing it) to send to the HOA and Board outlining my stance
  • This lawyer read the law as I did. She didn’t spend much time, but she read and interpreted the Executive Order like I did
  • The HOA responded saying I was reading the Executive Order wrong and they confirmed that with their attorney
  • I spoke with a local attorney to get her interpretation of everything going on, and she agreed with the HOA attorney. She did mention the executive order is horribly written and even in Section B of the Executive Order it excludes resorts, which my place seems to claim to be

Anyways, a lot of crap going on. And it hasn’t stopped. I am not trying to egg on the HOA or be difficult. I am simply trying to rent out my home legally. I don’t plan to ask the government for assistance to pay my mortgages. For one, I think it would be too complicated for me to figure out how to qualify and secondly, I just want to fight through it and get rental income at all my properties to pay my expenses.

The Actual Email I Sent

Here is the actual email I sent to the Board and HOA in response.

 HOA Board, 

To say I am disappointed with how the community leaders have handled this matter wouldn’t be doing the word justice. Communication sent to homeowners has not been clear with specific dates and timelines. The board has not offered other options to us investors instead of shutting us down. Not allowing investors to pivot their business model due to the current situation in the world, from my perspective, is not right. I own in another resort as well, and they have allowed investors to pivot their business models.  
I get safety is the top priority. Allowing people who are stuck in Orlando to quarantine in my safe and relaxing home does not put others in the resort at risk. These are individuals who are either snowbirds or have been down here for months on end and don’t want to return to their homes in the NE until things slow down. The virus spreads through close proximity with others. If people practice social distancing and stay in their homes, these individuals would not be posing a health risk for others. 
-TheYoungRetireeBy33

Hopefully that can be read. Here are the main points I was trying to get across in the email:

  1. I am disappointed in the overall communication from the HOA. Typically, I wouldn’t expect much of any response from the HOA’s I own in based off the situation going on. Maybe just one email saying what they are doing if anything, but when the HOA decides to shut down the resort to any new guests, my expectation for their communication is at a whole different level. I plan to write an entire post early next week on HOA’s and more thoughts on this.
  2. They have offered 0 options for investors who make up 80% of the community for things we can do to rent that they will allow. That is right 0!
  3. I get safety is a priority. This one is going to be a long bullet point, because I take safety seriously. I also have received feedback from multiple people saying I am inconsiderate for trying to rent my place out right now with everything going on. Here is my stance. Yesterday, I was on a meeting with our supply chain team. We had the Senior Vice President of Health & Wellness join the call and give us an update on everything going on. In the conversation he wanted to be clear on how COVID-19 is transmitted. He said what we do know right now is it is transmitted from human to human mainly through someone sneezing or coughing. There are three spots it can enter into your body, the nose, mouth and eyes. COVID-19 can stay in the air for 2-3 hours and can exists on surfaces for up to 72 hours. He ended with saying this, there is significant evidence showing you must be around another individual having COVID-19 for more than 30 minutes to be able to contract it. For all of these reasons, having someone new come into the resort, checking in at security for less than a minute (while practicing social distancing) and then driving to my home will pose no threat to anyone’s safety in the resort.

I Am Still Lost How New Guests Put Others In Significant Harm

Again, I will be the first to say safety is my top priority, always. But with everything that I heard from our Senior Vice President, I am confused how new guests pose a significant risk to the few who live in the resort. While all the resort amenities are shut down, and everyone practicing social distancing, I am so lost as to how my guests will pose a threat to people living there.

Something I Learned From Speaking To A Homeowner In The Resort

I would also like to point something out that one of the homeowners  who is an investor pointed out to me. He told me that the resort, when it opened, was only for investors renting out properties as short term rentals. He mentioned somewhere along the people who got on the board, who also happened to own a property in the resort, added a clause in the Bylaws allowing people to live in the resort full time. This then started to create a very tight knit group of individuals who were always in the community. This group slowly took over the entire HOA board and always have immediately gone to the front desk to speak to the GM whenever they had an issue. Mainly because they were onsite.

Him and I have been going back and forth for the last three days. He said how he believes the homeowners who live onsite all talked to each other and went to the GM of the resort requesting him to immediately shut things down to new guests upon the Executive Order being signed into law. Per this other owners words “the homeowners who live there want to use the resort as their own Alamo of security and we can’t stand by this shit.” Not my words, his.

Anyways…The Plot Thickens

This is not the end to this plot. Just wait till you see what happened just 5 hours after I sent this response email to the board. I keep thinking shit can’t get crazier, but I continue to be more and more amazed around the actions of the Board than ever.

New article coming tomorrow! Stay tuned…cliff hanger 🙂

In all seriousness, it has been fun putting these posts together even though they take a long time to write each night. It would be greatly appreciated if you subscribe to the blog! Each time you go to a new post, you should receive a popup asking for you to subscribe. Thanks in advance for reading and looking forward to tomorrow’s post!

Want to check out the next post!? Click the link below!

My Decision On Moving Forward With A Lawyer – To Pay Or Not To Pay, That Is The Question

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Time For Legal Advice From A Local Florida Attorney – Will See What Guidance They Provide

It is finally time for legal advice from a local Florida attorney. Late last week, I had the opportunity to have a friend’s wife quickly review the information and provide her interpretation. It is now time to get a local attorney who is very familiar with the Florida law to provide their interpretation and guidance.

Before hearing what the attorney had to say, if you haven’t had a chance to get caught up yet on everything going on, check the links below for the first 6 parts to the series!

Getting On The Phone With The Attorney

I had never spoken to an attorney before to talk through potential guidance on an Executive Order. Prior to speaking with the attorney, I had put together some information for my agent to pass along. I essentially put together a short summary of

  • What had happened to this point?
  • All communication that had been sent from the HOA/Board to homeowners
  • And a copy of Executive Order 87 that walks through the restrictions placed on short term rental owners

The attorney asked me for the case I was trying to argue for which is where I referenced Section A (i) that I had referenced previously in the Executive Order. For reference, below is a snip of the Executive Order and section I was referencing.

Executive Order

How I Interpreted Section A(i)

I recently polled my followers on Instagram to see what their thoughts were for how they would interpret the Executive Order. This was more for fun than anything else. I am by no means a lawyer and I know that probably 99.9% of people who have been reading this are not lawyers, but I thought I would go ahead and poll anyways.

Poll of instagram viewers

Here were the results from the poll. 90% of people agreed that 30+ day rentals are allowed based off the Executive Order and 10% disagreed. This at least had me not feeling crazy about how I interpreted the Executive Order.

Here is how I interpreted the Executive Order. I interpreted Section A (i) as you are allowed to rent out your place for over 30+ days, but short term rentals are banned for the time being. This would mean any new bookings I received for 30+ days would be allowed to stay in the resort. Again, this was my interpretation of the Executive Order.

Time For The Lawyers Interpretation

Before explaining the Lawyers Interpretation of the law, I would like to say one thing. The lawyer read and re-read the Executive Order. Prior to going into her interpretation of the law she told me this. She said this was one of the worst written Executive Orders that she had ever seen the governor write and sign into law. More than likely, that was due to how quick they were trying to act to get something signed and put into law.

Here is why she thought it was horrible. First, she said the Executive Order looks to contradict itself in a few different areas. There is a lot of technical verbiage in the Executive Order, but there is a lot you must understand about terms like “transient lodging establishment” or “non-transient lodging establishment.” She had to look up the definition of each of them to which she determined that my place would be considered a transient public lodging establishment.

The biggest point of confusion she said is based off how the entire section reads. She stated there is an AND clause to begin point A which then constitutes the OR clauses to act as an AND clause in a sense.

I was so confused, I had to ask her to break it down for me in laymen terms. She talked me through the fact that the AND clause prior to the OR clauses makes it such that all the OR clauses have to be true in order for the exception to be okay based off the Executive Order.

Goodness gracious, even trying to explain it as I type this out right now I am confusing myself as to how to interpret it properly. I believe the correct interpretation is no new guests are allowed to check in because my place is a transient public lodging establishment, it has been rented out prior this year for less than 30 days, it is advertised to the public on Airbnb, and it is regulated by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation as a vacation rental pursuant to section 509.241. I believe since all of those had been true then I could not have anyone check in for the duration of the executive order.

Well S**T!! That Wasn’t The Answer I Expected

She again stated it was one of the worst Executive Orders she had seen written in a long time. She said it is extremely confusing and stated there is a lot more research they would have to do to confirm there are no holes in her initial interpretation, but it would cost $385 per hour to research further. The conversation ended up lasting 20 minutes and at the end of the conversation I asked for her advice to understand whether it was worth them doing the research.

The lawyer told me she would be more than happy to do further research to confirm her initial thoughts, but said she felt 80% confident my case wouldn’t hold up in court. Although hard to say, she said she agreed with the interpretation the HOA attorney had on the law.

To confuse things even more about how the Executive Order reads, I asked her to look at Section B of the Executive Order. I hadn’t read down to Section B of the Executive Order yet. Mainly because I thought Section A gave me a valid case for having someone rent.

Here is what Section B states in the Executive Order:

Section B

The community this rental is in considers themselves a resort. So if that is the case, then all resorts are excluded from the executive order. And if resorts are excluded from the Executive Order, would this apply to our resort at all?

In my communication to the HOA and Board, I have only stated reference to Section A(i).

I asked for the lawyer to give me her interpretation of Section B and that is when she said she would be more than happy to do further research, but it would need to be on the clock to do a full interpretation of the case. At that point, I asked her what the best path forward was.

She quickly scrolled down to the bottom of the Executive Order to see when it expired. The Executive Order is set to expire later this week. With that in mind, she told me to wait it out to see if the Executive Order is extended on the expiration date. If the Executive Order is extended on that date, then email her and we could talk through more details on what a legal pivot would be for investors in the community based off the Bylaws of the HOA, Executive Order, and any other relevant information.

Overall Outcome Of Speaking With The Lawyer

Okay, so that didn’t go as I thought it would go. I thought I could read, but I clearly can’t interpret law based off my interpretation of this Executive Order. There has to be a way to pivot this in ways that wouldn’t consider this rental as a short term rental, I just need to figure out how to pivot properly based off the law. There is much more research I need to do and some clarity I need to get with reviewing the Bylaws of the HOA association on long term rentals.

This isn’t where things stop though. The story continues getting even juicier after the response back I sent to the HOA and Board this morning based off their response email yesterday’s article.

Just wait till you see this craziness. Got me fired up! More to come in the next couple of days.

Stay posted by subscribing to the blog and following me on Instagram!

Don’t worry, this is not where this story ends. I may have lost this battle, but we have not lost the war!

I have much more fun that has happened as of today. More posts coming over the next four days!

To check out the next part of this series, click the link below!

Part VIII: Ready To Pull My Hair Out On This HOA Issue! – But Time For A Political Response

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The HOA President Responded With The Board Decision – Prime The Popcorn

The HOA President responded with the board decision. It is now time for some fun to begin.

Before going into the response from the HOA President with the boards final decision, there is too much going on in this crazy story to not start from the beginning! Below are the first five parts to this wild story. Make sure to read to get caught up prior to reading this post!

Time For the HOA Response

At this point, I am getting butterflies in my stomach each time a new email comes across. I have never gone through anything like this and the reality is I don’t want to have to seek legal action against the HOA. The last thing I want to do is cause any problems or issues. My interpretation of the executive order is that I can rent my home out for more than 30 days. Again, I could be reading the document entirely wrong. I am not a lawyer and I don’t plan to become one anytime soon.

So here we go. I received a response from the GM of the Resort. Butterflies are racing in my stomach. Hands started to get a little sweaty. I had no idea what to expect as a response. This could be the email response that leads me to go down the path of filing a lawsuit to seek damages of rental income for the resort HOA not abiding by what I believe to be the law.

GM First Response

At this point, I have to believe that the GM realized from reading my email that a lawyer helped me put it together.

Time To Take A Deep Breath

It was now time to sit down and relax a little bit. There was nothing I could do to control what the board comes back with in an email response.

It was now a waiting game.

Woosah

 

8 Hours Later…A Response From The Board

8 hours later, I received a response. However, this response was from a different email I had not seen before. It was an email directly from the HOA on an email address I had never seen before. Again, the butterflies are going in my stomach.

Here was the response

Board Response

There you go. Dagger. According to this email, the HOA board reached out to their attorney and confirmed that I am reading the state executive order wrong.

Why do documents of law have to be so complex. I went back to read the state executive order again and at this point I need to stop making my own opinion on what the executive order says and I need to get a local attorney to review.

At the end of the day, as I have said before, I want to follow the law. And I have interpreted the law as I can rent my place for over 30+ days.

Next Steps!?

Now that I have officially received a response from the HOA, it is time to speak to a local attorney to ask for guidance on the executive order. I simply want someone to be able to tell me what I can and cannot do based off this law.

There is additional research I still need to do. One thing I do want to research is what is considered a long term rental in Florida and see if I can abide by that as the executive order (I believe) makes it clear that long term rentals are fine.

Check  back tomorrow to see how the conversation goes with the lawyer! This has been a wild journey so far. I am continuing to learn new things every day this continues.

I am looking forward to how this makes me stronger as an investor moving forward.

Again, THANK YOU FOR ALL THE SUPPORT AND MESSAGES! I have been trying to document this journey so hopefully others can learn or at least gain insights into some of the real challenges that come with real estate investing. Probably learning a few things about not wanting to buy in neighborhoods with HOA’s as well haha.

I will post in the coming week on my overall viewpoints on HOA’s. I am sure you have developed your own opinions of them 🙂

Want to continue reading? Next article in this series posted below!

Part VII: Time For Legal Advice From A Local Florida Attorney – Will See What Guidance They Provide