HOA Nut House

By Elizabeth Alvarez | FOX 35 NEWS

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35, Orlando) -- Another community has slapped with an emergency fee by their Homeowners Association.

Homeowners in the Toscana community in Orlando are being told they'll have to pay $1500 by December first.

Residents just got their notices in the mail.

The developer, Deluca Homes, currently controls the association and said the emergency HOA assessment was implemented mostly to replenish the HOA fund that's been affected by foreclosures.

In addition, homeowners have learned their regular HOA fees are going up more than 30 percent starting January first.

“This is really a bad time for this,” said residents Dorina Lora. “That's almost $3,000 in less than a month. We’re being hit directly when we could have even known at a different time sooner that they weren't getting their payments or some communication but there was no communication from the management company nor the board of directors.”

Then, during my interview with Lora on Monday afternoon, the management company which was hired, by Deluca homes, returned my calls.

According to James Heart, the owner of Sentry Management the company hired by Deluca the decision to implement the emergency assessment was made on November 10th and not sooner.

He added that the budget is always fromulated in the months of October, November and December and that most financial reports aren’t made available until now. None of that is very comforting news for homeowners.

“The options are very slim,” said Lora. “Because they are saying we will be penalized or they'll put liens on our properties. It doesn't look good. You've got professionals working on this they should have been able to see this coming.”

Toscana homeowners are having a meeting Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. They are looking for a lawyer who is willing to review and interpret the HOA contract.

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