https://x.com/actionxander/status/2079062759078043935 This is a news video about the situation.
Apparently, daughter had been living with dad as a caregiver. Dad willed her the property. The hoa is now applying legal pressure to get her to go.
Im sorry, but that’s what needs to happen for the community, all of whom bought in with the understanding of age restrictions, which have been legal for over 40 years. If the neighbors wanted to live around younger people, they would not have made the same choice that her dad made.
Thoughts?
It’s weird for 20somethings to even want this.
According to Geatons info, all she would have to do is move in someone 55+. As you can see from the Twitter video, there’s a two car garage on the property with the house being at least a 3/2. Or she could rent the whole house and pay for a nice apartment. Or sell it (the developments website estimates homes from the high 200s to low 400s). Thats enough to buy something with a family friendly hoa or no hoa. She’s had three years to pick one of these options but instead seems bound and determined to take it all the way to scotus. Even with no one other than her followers to cheer her on.
The woman asserts that it was “only five people” in the community who voted to assess residents 1k each to sue her. Those five people are the hoa, itself elected by all dues paying residents. Their legal team will almost certainly be demanding that she pay their costs should she lose, given that they can collateralize the house she inherited.
Heres her Instagram as documented by local news. This is reportedly her career. https://www.instagram.com/wubzgrubz/?hl=en Not one person moves into a 55 and up to have a neighbor like this.
This is interesting. Me, I would sell the property and use the money to buy a house somewhere else instead of going thru all this.
Look at the amenities. The activity calendar. What is there, here, that would be of interest to a twentysomething, especially one whose “career” is “social media influencer” I’m surprised she has money to pay that hoa.
It increasingly seems this is a social media stunt designed to engage the fury of gen z toward the boomers/gen x. After all, sm is supposedly this woman’s profession.
Based on what Geaton said, the woman could stay if she had a 55+ roommate. She doesn’t have to caregive. If the roomie was born on this date in 1971 or earlier, it would seem the hoa requirements are now met per the hoa’s own guidelines.
The lawsuit is still pending, and residents say the outcome could influence how families structure inheritances that involve homes in age-restricted neighborhoods. Michel told the station she hopes her situation pushes other homeowners to read their community covenants closely and to think ahead about what will happen to their properties and their loved ones later on. For now, both sides are effectively in a holding pattern, waiting for a judge to decide who actually gets to call the Arbor Mill house home.
Perhaps Bethany needs to take her own advice instead of waiting for the HOA to sue her. They likely will be asking for legal fees on top of it. If she loses, she would likely have to sell the house to pay that off. Versus selling now and investing in a condo where she’s actually welcome.
My dh used to work for a 55+ condo community that was mostly independent living. Those units were willed to younger heirs all the time. The 5000/mo hoa fees provided ample incentive for the heirs not to hold on to them.
While he was working there, we happened upon this 55+ community while road tripping near Sacramento. They had a softball game going. Pickleball courts. A pool. They maintain nine holes of golf. The single family homes there start at about 100k less than non 55 properties, but you’d imagine that’s a privy hoa with those amenities
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville social media influencer says she’s being forced out of the home her late father left her after a homeowners association in an Oakleaf 55-and-older community sued to remove her from the neighborhood and proposed charging residents a $155,000 special assessment to help pay legal fees.
Bethany Michel, 28, inherited the home in Arbor Mill after her father, a disabled veteran, died in October 2023. Michel said she moved into the home in 2020 to care for her terminally ill father during the COVID-19 pandemic after restrictions at his assisted living facility made it difficult to provide his dialysis care.
Now, nearly three years into a legal dispute with the homeowners association, Michel says the fight has become about more than just where she lives.
“I 100% am being forced out,” Michel told News4JAX. “They’re trying to rip my office away from me, too.”
Michel, who has built a large following by posting restaurant reviews on social media, recently used her platform to bring attention to the dispute before homeowners voted on a proposed special assessment. She said the HOA wants each of the community’s approximately 155 homeowners to contribute about $1,000 toward legal costs associated with enforcing the community’s age restrictions.
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The story goes on to say the hoa requires every occupied home to have at least one resident over 55 with none under 20.
Another media source writes According to News4JAX, Michel inherited the Arbor Mill house after her father, a disabled veteran, died in October 2023. She says she actually moved in back in 2020 so she could provide dialysis care for him during the pandemic. Michel told the station that the builder had assured her family she would be “grandfathered in” after his death, although she said she has never seen that promise in writing. She has since leaned on her online following to spotlight the dispute and says the fight has become about more than just keeping a roof over her head.
People buy into these places because, well, they’d rather not be living next to a twentysomething “social media influencer” and the friends she brings by. And if she doesn’t have this alleged promise in writing, she can’t prove anything. And how dare she “express concern” for the “people on fixed incomes” who now have to pay a 1k lawyer fee to preserve the community they bought in?
I think the valuable take-away in this article is that anyone thinking about a 55+ community needs to have an attorney review their governing documents first to see where unpleasant or expensive surprises may lurk. I think it would be money well spent.
Does the 80/20 rule near that 20 percent of homes FO NOT have to have someone 55+ or does it mean that up to 20 percent of the community population can be under 55 as long as they’re living with someone who is?
Th
There is a 80/20 rule about the ages of residents in such communities without the HoA losing 55+ status. But residents might be bitter in thinking, "why allow her when it could be someone from my own family".
She herself will also have to pay the $1k assessment.
The $1k assessment might still not be enough if this case drags on. What then? Are residents going to go broke and lose their homes over it?
The 28-yr old can come to a compromise with the HoA in many other ways if their governing documents allow those solutions (rent it, or be allowed to stay for X number more years then sell it, no additional under 55 occupants move in, etc).
At the end of the day, the money issue will dictate what the HoA does. Residents can sue their HOA, including over a decision to spend association funds on litigation. Whether they would win is a completely different question. The HoA is between a rock and a hard place.
https://www.news4jax.com/news/local/2026/07/17/she-should-move-jacksonville-55-community-split-as-hoa-lawsuit-against-homeowner-28-draws-national-attention/
Every household in the how is now being asked to pay an extra 1k to affo d the legal fees to evict the woman.