On May 7, the POHOA Board sent out a letter telling homeowners not to visit this website. While we have a mailing list that reaches a majority of homeowners in the subdivision, there are plenty of new homeowners who have not yet signed up – and probably didn’t even know about the site. It took about a week, but all of a sudden, there’s more visitors to this site than ever!
Not sure whether the Streisand Effect from 2003 is memorable to most, but maybe the more recent “Don’t Look Up” movie is a better analogy. It sure seems like the POHOA Board didn’t think through the effects of their mailing!
Many are digging deep into the site, but it appears the most popular article is the one about when the HOA decided to write a violation for having a yard sale with plant seedlings. Since there are so many HOA governance oddities to choose from at POHOA, however, we can see that the new visitors are going back through the years of documentation. We have yet to receive a negative comment from any visitors.
While I suppose that the intention was to declare this site to be full of falsehoods, one cannot escape the objective reality of the documents and recordings that are objective, verifiable, and factual. Whether the attempt to hide such proof is worthy of inference, or whether my opinions and analysis are something readers may agree with is secondary. The reality is that this site demonstrates the many flaws with HOA Governance in Colorado under CCIOA, and why we are starting to see the home buying market turn away from HOAs.
But, the Board in its letter below seems to indicate that if buyers knew the truth, it is the truth-teller who is driving down demand and perhaps prices. But, that would mean that in order to get the highest price for a home, home buyers have to be made blind to the deeds of an HOA Board of Directors – transparency is a threat to home prices, under that theory.
How absurd that full disclosure of what is going on in an HOA is a problem. In fact, it’s the basis of the concept of fraudulent inducement to a contract. If reality is something you have to hide to close the deal, then the problem isn’t those who document the issues. The Board should really rethink their approach to the matter, and recognize that it’s their poor management practices and fiduciary duty that are doing the harm.
