Fund for Property Rights in Sedona!
Donation protected
We are asking for you to join us in fighting to restore our property rights that were infringed upon by our home owners' association (HOA). Specifically, our right and our neighbors' rights to use our homes as vacation or short term rentals (STRs) for families to enjoy the natural beauty, amazing hiking & biking and local arts of Sedona. It is our fundamental right to use our properties to generate income, much of which is reinvested in the property to make it attractive to prospective visitors and sometimes is necessary just to pay the mortgage! We have sued our HOA to restore these rights and would appreciate any contribution you can make to offset the mounting legal costs.
What happened? In the Fall of 2016 our HOA passed a new amendment to our master declarations prohibiting rentals less than 30 days with a simple majority of votes. This is in direct conflict with AZ state law passed earlier in the summer of 2016 that promotes a "sharing economy" and does not allow government bodies to prohibit STRs. Since HOAs are not bound to the new state law, ours proposed a new amendment banning STRs and removed the daily limit on fines. The HOA gave themselves sole authority to define a STR: if a friend stays at our house and leave s a gift or give us some cash for cleaning/groceries they could call it a STR! They set a $250 a day fine for violations, which is excessive given our assessments are $180 a year!
Why we need your support:
This issue is larger than our particular case and impacts the rights of all home owners. By banding together we can affect possitive changes on our community. While in our case, we comply with the 30 day minimum rental requirement, we lose over $20k a year in revenue; others are similarly impacted.
Not only are property owners harmed: The state loses revenue as long term rentals aren't taxed, families are limited on choices for affordable vacation accommodations, and local businesses (cleaning companies, groceries, pizza delivery, mountain bike rentals, etc) are negatively impacted. Our fight is for all members of our HOA including those that are on fixed incomes and depend on income from renting a room to pay their mortgage, Canadians who don't want their properties to sit vacant since they can only be in the US a limited time each year, and those that are running accounting, computer repair & jewelry making businesses out of their homes!
We are grateful for your contribution to restore the fundamental rights that come with property ownership!
What happened? In the Fall of 2016 our HOA passed a new amendment to our master declarations prohibiting rentals less than 30 days with a simple majority of votes. This is in direct conflict with AZ state law passed earlier in the summer of 2016 that promotes a "sharing economy" and does not allow government bodies to prohibit STRs. Since HOAs are not bound to the new state law, ours proposed a new amendment banning STRs and removed the daily limit on fines. The HOA gave themselves sole authority to define a STR: if a friend stays at our house and leave s a gift or give us some cash for cleaning/groceries they could call it a STR! They set a $250 a day fine for violations, which is excessive given our assessments are $180 a year!
Why we need your support:
This issue is larger than our particular case and impacts the rights of all home owners. By banding together we can affect possitive changes on our community. While in our case, we comply with the 30 day minimum rental requirement, we lose over $20k a year in revenue; others are similarly impacted.
Not only are property owners harmed: The state loses revenue as long term rentals aren't taxed, families are limited on choices for affordable vacation accommodations, and local businesses (cleaning companies, groceries, pizza delivery, mountain bike rentals, etc) are negatively impacted. Our fight is for all members of our HOA including those that are on fixed incomes and depend on income from renting a room to pay their mortgage, Canadians who don't want their properties to sit vacant since they can only be in the US a limited time each year, and those that are running accounting, computer repair & jewelry making businesses out of their homes!
We are grateful for your contribution to restore the fundamental rights that come with property ownership!
Organizer
Karen Caggiano
Organizer
Sedona, AZ