Florida Homeowners Association Terror

I remember one day I was minding my business outside and someone approached me and asked about my neighbor. Stranger Danger! After a few questions, the person identified themselves as a member of the HOA Board. Then, they provided me with some information. The whole time I engaged enough to appear cooperative, but was playing along responding with details that this person already knew. Why would the HOA put me in this situation?

I didn’t really think about this again until last summer when the roof tarp became my latest hot issue with the HOA (And the roof tarp issue was during the time the HOA was also foreclosing on my house. I am still getting to that story.). This is what the “HOA” wrote to me in a July 2025 email in response to my email query about a violation of which I was unaware (in-paragraph emphasis mine):

Any alterations to the exterior of the home must be approved via an ARC/ARB application. The tarp has been there for a long time and we have witnesses stating that. Any repairs that need to be done should have been done by now and will need to be done in order to bring the issue into compliance. Tarps may not remain on roofs and repairs must be made. What is the scheduled date of the roof repair? This issue was about to be sent to the attorney for further enforcement actions.

Thanks,

Roger Kessler, LCAM

The HOA had sent me an e-mail notice that I had an “architectural violation”. I don’t frequently check my emails over the summer because I spend 10 months of the year checking emails incessantly for work. Also, the CDD emails flood my inbox with junk. So, imagine my surprise while in the middle of the HOA foreclosure, I see a string of emails from them.

In this case, what the HOA claimed was wrong. They insisted that I had my whole house tarped for almost a year. I did not. I got at the end of May—right at the start of that same summer. When I asked them how they know when I got my roof tarped, as you can see above, they said they had “witnesses”.

I went on to inform the HOA that I could provide proof that their witness testimony was false. How did the HOA respond to that? They moved the goal post from:

You have had it on too long.

to

You didn’t appropriately submit an ARC to modify the house.

And so they sent it to their attorneys, Mankin Law, anyway.

The only conclusion I have come to is that somebody wants my house. And they have been waiting to buy it with the HOA’s help.