HOA Nut House

by Michael Mayo

Last month I wrote about Ida and Tony Pizzuti, an octogenarian couple from Dania Beach and longtime tenants of a condo who faced eviction because the building no longer allows renters.

I followed up with a column today, explaining how they might be able to stay when their lease expires tonight. The unit’s owner is willing to work out a complicated legal arrangement that will give them part ownership as long as they live.

Instead of monthly rent, they’ll make monthly equity payments (wink, wink).

The Pizzutis are fortunate that they have a landlord willing to take this step, so it looks like they’ll get a happy ending. At their age, they don’t need disruption and stress, especially after they’ve been model tenants for a decade.

The whole situation serves as reinforcement to me about why I’ll try to avoid condo living.

I thought the whole point of home ownership is to be king of your castle, and to have control of what you do with your property.

But when you’re in a condo or homeowner’s association, you’re at the mercy of somebody else.

There’s another condo story I heard lately that I thought would resonate in these difficult financial times, but because the woman didn’t want her name used I couldn’t write a full-blown column about it.

But it bothered me.

The nutshell story: A woman’s father had a unit in Century Village in Boca Raton. He died last year. Because of the current market conditions, the family hasn’t been able to sell it or rent it. She also lives in Century Village, in another building.

The family wanted to put the vacant unit to good use. The woman’s 38-year-old daughter has two children, 11 and 14, and has been struggling financially after a divorce.

The woman let her daughter and two granddaughters move in. Makes sense right? Why have an empty condo and a potential homeless family when you can put the two together? Especially when you consider the struggling family’s relative actually owns the unit.

But that’s not how things work in condo-land. The building is age-restricted, meaning only people 55-and-older are allowed to live there. So it didn’t take long for some folks to start complaining about the kids living there.

The condo association took action and told the woman her family would have to go.

Now I understand rules and everything, but I also understand hard times and the Great Recession.

Where’s our humanity, our compassion, our common sense?

“We have people in this country losing their homes, living in tent cities,” said the woman. “And now we have a perfectly good condo that is going to sit empty.”

Should condos ease up on the rules for hardship cases?

Feel free to discuss.

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