Central Florida HOA Obtains Questionable Court Order To Commandeer Possession Of Owner's House, Then Rent It Out To Tenant

In Wesley Chapel, Florida, The Tampa Tribune reports:

• Joanne McCarn owns her home, but her homeowners association has taken it over and calls the sheriff's office if she comes near the property. What's more, the Bridgewater Community Association evicted her tenant, changed the locks and moved in its own renter.
  
  
• "This is not a foreclosed house," McCarn said. "This is still my house. It's unfair how much power the HOA has. It's so surreal to me."
  
  
• The association's president and attorney aren't talking. Public records detailing the steps they have taken show McCarn's house is just one of six the association is seeking to rent out. That doesn't count homes the association has taken in foreclosure and is now renting.
  
  
• It's a tricky legal path for a group that has gone to extreme measures before to recoup money it lost in the housing downturn. Last fall, the Bridgewater Community Association made headlines by charging hundreds of dollars in fees to people seeking to purchase houses in foreclosure.
  
  
• "Taking possession of the property and renting the unit out, that part is not something afforded by the law," said Ben Solomon, a south Florida-based homeowners association lawyer. Solomon works on behalf of associations nationwide to collect past-due fees from homeowners. He's typically in favor of forcing delinquent homeowners to pay up. But in this case, Solomon said, the Bridgewater association and its president, Mark Spector, went too far.
  
  
• The association did persuade a judge to issue an eviction order for McCarn's tenant and order a receiver appointed to manage the property. In Solomon's view, that doesn't make it right — or legal. It's more a measure of how complicated the housing bust has grown.
  
  
• "Judges rely on what rights attorneys tell them their clients are afforded under the law," Solomon said. "If there's no attorney on the other side to argue that it's wrong, the judge most often takes the word of the attorney and grants the motion. Plus, these judges hearing these cases usually are not experts in real estate law."
  
  
• Solomon and other legal authorities contacted by the Tribune say the eviction may be legal. The reason: McCarn moved a tenant into the house without paying off a lien the association had imposed. But there are no legal grounds, Solomon said, for the association to change locks and move in another tenant.

For more, see Homeowners association rents home it doesn't own.