September 20, 2025 | Mark Luis Foster
Florida was always on my wish list of places to move to later in life, but given what is happening down there with insurance rates, the idea of ever owning property in the sunshine state is on pause, at least for the time being. One wonders what it would be like to worry about tropical storms and hurricanes all the time. I guess I’ll take a good old fashioned snowstorm over those Florida storms any day if the choice is mine.
Florida certainly has other problems. HOAs are now under fire by a lawmaker who proposed banning them altogether.
Turns out that nearly 9.5 million Floridians live in HOAs, but that didn’t stop Juan Carlos Porras, state representative for Miami, who said that HOAs are a “failed experiment” and should be abolished. But there’s now pushback from others who say the abolishment of these mini-communities that dot the hot Florida landscape would be expensive and economically dubious at best.
Porras feels that rising costs, monthly fees and expensive lawsuits are the recipes that fueled the bad taste in his mouth for homeowner associations being in business at all. Porras suggests that he will repeal the statute that allows HOAs to be in operation, but he has yet to craft his legislation. It remains to be seen if other lawmakers are interested in repealing the law, which would be incredibly expensive for HOA residents who live in them. Some are already speaking out against the idea.
WPTV of Palm Beach filed a story on the issue a few days ago. They also fuel the fire by talking to a resident who’s mad at her HOA (and actually, what she describes is in fact disturbing). Needless to say, there’s always a bad HOA apple in the bunch that spoils the whole apple cart.
Watch the report here.
