Do You Belong to an HOA?

I'd live in a tent before I'd belong to an HOA.

Yes, strict, yes, full of Karens, no you do not have to go to meetings unless you are contesting something or need some special approval. The pros are, at least in my neighborhood, they keep things neat/tidy, etc. You can't just leave your recycling bin out on the street, you can't keep your trash cans in view, no one can paint their house some fugly purple, yards must be maintained, etc. The downside is - way less freedom to do some of that. I wanted my house painted a slightly different blue than what was an approved color and was denied.

I was also on vacation once, and the day I left, I apparently got a notice that my mailbox had rust on it, and that wasn't allowed, In the ten days I was gone, they replaced it, and charged me $50.00 because I only had a week to respond. I was supposed to let them know if we were gone longer than a week, should something come up.

I moved into a historic district. I can't do shit to my house without approval from a Historic Review Board. I can't even change the paint color.

Yes, for a condo in SF. Fortunately most people here are busy working and there is a pronounced lack of Karens. If anything, our HOA begs for more resident involvement.

Our board has some residents but also our General Property Manager and Assistant Manager.

I'm thankful for them as left to their own devices people will do whatever the fuck they want (or don't) without regard for any community well-being. Americans couldn't stop to think about someone else for a pandemic, do you think they care if their property looks like shit next to yours?

Strictness varies greatly. I’m in one and it really isn’t strict at all. Keep your grass cut and don’t store broken appliances or rusted out vehicles in your front yard, and they don’t bother you.

You do have to get approval for things like fence replacements or if you want to build a pergola or something, but it’s not a big deal. I’ve never had to attend meetings. I’m not sure if they even have them.

I like order and yes I live now in a community where enforcements are strong-armed,, compared to my inner-city rehab house experience in KC where it was constant trash (literally and figuratively) for twenty years

No, thankfully. I live in a van down by the side of the river.

What happens when a member or resident refuses to pay HOA fees? Refuses to abide by the rules? Does the community have power to enforce compliance or eviction?

Forget all those silly rumors about Nazi leaders fleeing to Argentina and Brazil -They all emigrated here and live in my neighborhood, running our HOA. One of their recent actions was to eliminate warning letters, and just fine people for anything they see as wrong. You have to attend a meeting and petition to get your money refunded if you were within the rules or corrected the problem within ten days. Their enforcement is haphazard to say the least. I got fined because you could see my trash cans behind my fence (if you walked up my driveway to peer over the fence). Those cans had been stored there for 25 years without being considered a problem.

The worst thing is that I live on the edge of the HOA, and there are trees that straddle the line between my property and the HOA land. The association never trims them, saying they are my trees. But if I trim them, I get a bill for vandalizing association property. I've saved all the correspondence on the matter, but every couple of years there are new board members, and they insist that the previous board made a mistake about the ownership...

I moved into a brand new subdivision that hadn't put down infrastructure for cable or internet. Nobody would tell me when they were gonna get around to doing that. I got fined for getting a DirecTV dish.

R8 Litigation (after extended attempts to rectify informally), including referral to collections.

They tack on all sorts of interests and fees and penalties.

Usually those who don't pay truly don't have the money to, otherwise the process is a huge PITA. They usually can't keep the property for long anyway.0

[quote] What happens when a member or resident refuses to pay HOA fees? Refuses to abide by the rules? Does the community have power to enforce compliance or eviction?

The HOA can issue fines, which of course then the homeowner doesn't pay so the HOA puts a lien on the property which they may have to wait until the house sells to enforce. They can also take the homeowner to court but even once they get a judgement it is still difficult to collect.

I live in a HOA with detached houses, the HOA takes care of the lawncare and snow removal, they are pretty lax with the rules but they will enforce the worse offenders. The main thing I hate is all the bitching at the HOA meetings, I may stop going.

I do, and in fact I’m on the board of directors. We try to be accommodating to the wishes of our neighbors, while keeping the appearance of our neighborhood at a high standard ( I live in an inner ring affluent suburb ). We do a lot for security too. I enjoy working for my neighbors.

[quote] Do you have to go to meetings?

No you don't, my HOA has such a problem with people not coming even though it is only once a year that they went several years without having enough show up to pass anything, you need 50% by our rules.

For those who don't pay, this might result in another thing that needs to be settled when trying to sell the place. A HOA might be able to put a lien on the place, which has to be taken care before escrow can close.

I also lived in fear of HOAs until we had to accept being in one because we wanted a certain house. It's actually not bad at all. You pay a fee and the community landscaping is taken care of, the trash gets collected, and the snow gets cleared. Our neighborhood always looks nice. Maybe we just got lucky that ours is not oppressive, but I like being in an HOA.

They can vary in how strict they are based on the bylaws and community participation. My HOA is tolerable but I have friends in other subdivisions that make nazi Germany look tame by comparison.

A friend lost their home due to daily fines imposed by their HOA. He had a car parked in front of the house that was broken down, and had a broken convertible top that had been covered with plastic. It looked shitty and neighbors complained. The bylaws indicated that you can’t have a car in this situation out front. Since it sat out for a few months the daily fines increased until the lien caused the mortgage company to force a foreclosure.

It sounds ridiculous but it’s a true story. Don’t ever buy in a neighborhood without knowing more about how the HOA operates and read the bylaws before you sign on the dotted line.

Small people who get off on having a bit of power over their neighbors. If I knew I was dying on Tuesday, I’d take my HOA on Monday.

^^^ take out my HOA on Monday .

R17 your friend should have dealt with it. Her selfish laziness brought about her own problems.

I have been in an HOA and it has its pluses and minuses.

Pluses include great buying power for shared usage items - we were able to negotiate lower energy rates and get a good contract for an internet provider that was half the cost of the cable company.

It was nice to never have to worry about any sort of maintenance issues outside. If there is a big ticket item repair (our HOA was for a condo) it's nice to share the expense of that, too.

We didn't have too many issues with fellow neighbors complaining. We did have two very nice lesbians who tended to get a little bitchy in meetings about the fact that no one broke down their boxes before putting them into recycling but I kinda agreed with them.

Our board was a mess, though. We had two presidents who were just awful and argumentative about everything and everyone. One was a Chrissy Metz lookalike that took everything deeply personally, and the other....well, I'd like to think I am not even the tiniest bit anti-Semitic, but if there was a tree of unpleasant Jewish stereotypes, this guy fell out of that tree and hit every SINGLE branch on the way down. He would shake with RAGE at meetings and would argue with vendors with so much rage that he chased away a number of companies we'd tried to work with to make repairs.

We just looked at a house in an HOA where we were told the HOA wasn't too overbearing, but they had a list of approved paint colors and I was not really feeling that at ALL.

My first condo back home in Georgia was a learning experience about HOAs. Dues were a "whopping" $38/month, and we had a pool, weekly lawn care, and the upkeep of the painting of the 80s wood siding. The HOA president owned a house a couple of miles away and the lady who cut my hair happened to rent her front sun room as a hair salon. (I know, very small town.) The HOA lady took an odd liking to me, but the next thing I knew, she had removed a huge piece of my wood siding right by my front door without telling me. I knew they were about to repaint, so I went to the hair salon (at her house) and asked her about the missing siding. She said she knew I wouldn't mind, since I was young. Wtf?!? The siding was missing for nearly two months and only got put back on at the end of of the repainting project. I moved away and my father continued to rent out the condo. He became involved with the HOA board and it turns out this HOA lady had been stealing money for like 30 years. They had to sue her to step down and repay a portion of what she'd stolen.

Fast forward to two years ago, and I rented a condo in an HOA community where I still live. My landlord pays $220/month for essentially nothing except pool upkeep (and the pool is closed now due to corona). I had to get a replacement pool key when I moved in, as the previous tenant had lost hers. My landlord had warned me the HOA was essentially run by the mob, and my partner and I had already encountered the "parking Nazis" (unemployed and retired residents who took it upon themselves to ticket those not parked in the right spots, or any visitors staying more than a few minutes). I went to the HOA office to get the pool key, and was told it was $25. I laughed, but said I had no choice. The guy said I had to pay cash, and I told him I only had a credit card. He sighed and said there would be a $10 fee for that, and it would take 20 minutes to process. I laughed again and told him I had all the time in the world. He begrudgingly processed it in about 10 minutes, and when I noticed the charge on my AmEx statement, it literally said the charge was from "MOB HOA." I've also been repeatedly reported to the HOA for being an AirBnB tenant (which I'm obviously not), and I had no idea why until I realized no one else in the complex ever takes trips. My partner and I used to travel twice a month, and his mother would come to town and stay with us frequently. One of the parking Nazis obviously saw all the suitcases coming and going and jumped to conclusions.

[quote] no one broke down their boxes before putting them into recycling

Is that a lesbian thing?

R20 Agreed. They could have avoided the whole issue by taking my advice and not buying a home in that specific subdivision that is known for its strict HOA.

We have a HOA and neighborhood committees each run by a dedicated Blockleiter. No flags, no basketball hoops, no pickup trucks, no on-street parking overnight, mandatory colors for house repainting, mandatory house repainting, mandatory types of flowers/shrubs, mandatory plantings/landscaping twice a year. I got fined because the grouting and roof tiles were slightly different shades (after a couple of years they had weathered differently). The result is that the neighborhood looks pristine.

The person who lost their home in R17's post had far, far more issues that had to have led to them losing their place.

If they couldn't scrape up the fucking money to tow their automobile away, that's a big ole issue right there.

HOAs are a caldron of prisspots and scolds who get off on controlling every fucking thing. I'm not saying they don't have their place, but my god, lighten the fuck up. I bet a lot of DLers are on HOAs.

I live in a gated, HOA community. Very strict. Mail, UPS, Fed Ex delivery trucks not allowed inside. Vendors are subject to a trunk photo going in and out. Security is armed response. HOAs are not for everybody. But I do feel super safe.

It sounds like you are living in a prison R28.

R27 don’t forget about the “mincing” prisspots!

R28 Is that in CA?

We were looking at gated communities in Palm Springs and saw some of the same. I don't mind anything you listed, it's good to be secure. It's the "your paint is two shades too dark" bullshit I would hate.

R28 Why are delivery trucks not allowed inside the gates? Too much traffic?

I work at a library in a small resort city with many condo associations. The library has meeting rooms. When. a new director tried to enforce policies about their use, the various HOAs around town raised hell about it and pulled every string they could with friends at City Hall. My director took a lot of heat, but she stood her ground as much as she could. The rooms are meant for nonprofits and the condo owners would say that HOAs are nonprofit (even though it was the property managers -- a for-profit group -- that would book the rooms). The "no commercial use" rule was always ignored as they HOA would interview plumbers, contractors, etc. in the rooms. No more than twice a month, seven day's notice required, booking requests no more than six months in advance? They always have to have "emergency meetings" and cried whenever a rule that the library had was enforced. The kicker was they would often use the meeting rooms to discipline non-compliance by some owners. Fundraising letters to HOAs are almost universally ignored, or maybe -- maybe! -- get us $50.

Like almost anything having to do with real estate, rules are for other people and there is no moral dimension. I worked closely with her trying to reword the policy to stop this abuse, but it was like drug addicts bothering doctors. The constant pleas and whining just wore her down. Many small community groups get locked out because of the way they act and how they exert their influence. So whatever goes on internally is nothing compared to how HOAs represent themselves externally. HOA? More like POS.

USPS, FedEx, Amazon etc are allowed in to my community, thankfully. I would be very annoyed if I had to go to the post office to collect my mail: it's several miles away.

I worked with an odd guy who lived in West Virginia and complained about how he signed away all of his freedoms to live in an expensive HOA neighborhood. He brought this up too many times and I finally asked him what things they restricted that bothered him. He searched in his mind and finally said that "because it's West Virginia, they prohibit upholstered (indoor) furniture on front porches."

Most HOAs are some version of that story. They move to a place because of the lawncare and home maintenance and decoration and property use restrictions, then object because someone complained that their adult son and his girlfriend are living in one of three RVs and a llama parked in his driveway.

[quote]We did have two very nice lesbians who tended to get a little bitchy in meetings about the fact that no one broke down their boxes before putting them into recycling but I kinda agreed with them.

Why would anyone think the HOA would have anything to do with lesbians’ boxes?

Historic district/preservation commissions and review boards have very different powera depending on where they are. The smart ones don't give a damn about exterior paint colors.

90% of the conflicts that arise are because homeowners try to conceal changes that they *suspect* might be a problem until work is completed or well underway.

Coop boards I like. The difficulty with them arises in trying to balances the big spenders and the tight wads, but a certain conservatism is not bad when you own a percentage share of an entire building, down to the fireplace moldings and bathroom tiles in your neighbors' apartments.

Yes, and it's quite sane, thankfully. The rules aren't odious, nor is the enforcement. It looks nice, and the people are very nice.

They hate the gay.

Mine don't hate the gay. Why my next door neighbor made a point of telling me just other day that her grandson had just come out.

If you live in Texas, do NOT ignore fines from your HOA. The fines for nonpayment will be added on and soon you will have a bill that's out of your budget. In Texas, when the HOA sues you to collect, you will have to pay the HOA lawyer's fee. This is no joke. I knew a partner at a local firm whose sole practice was representing HOAs. He had a paralegal and a secretary who managed the paperwork. He made a lot of money off this entirely legal racket.

I have close friends that have been harassed by their HOA for about 3 years about their landscaping. The HOA was carved out of the side of mountain, portions of which had been scraped at some time in the past (maybe for growing hay or wheat). There are large meadow-like areas and some large patches of pine woods. There are large swaths set aside as communal areas with hiking trails etc, all to satisfy the rules for minimum lot size of 1 acre or so. My friends' property abuts a large communal meadow area and they wanted to use their property as a transition to the more traditionally landscaped lots above and to one side of them. They envisioned lots of wild flowers, a scattering of shade trees, longer, more drought-tolerant native grasses merging with more sod-type grasses on the other side of the house. All of this was presented to the board in a landscape plan and approved. When the house was completed and the landscape started going in, they were smacked with a $10,000 fine for not installing a traditional, water-wasting lawn, and orderly hedges and manicured rows of shade trees. They protested that all of this was in the landscape plan, which had been APPROVED. It's gotten quite ugly at times, with words like "you're deliberately bringing down house values" bandied about. We're in a the West, which has limited water. My friends are being responsible, their HOA is not. I don't know how it will all end, but it has seriously damaged my friends' pleasure in their gorgeous house which has a spectacular territorial view for 30 miles.

I'll post their vision (not their house) below

meadow house

HOA vision of what every house should have as landscaping

LOL r25! “Blockleiter”! WW for you!

Stepford Zombie Madness

My dream for decades has been to live in an HOA neighborhood but alas I'm a poor and cannot afford that luxury.

What everyone seems to neglect to say is that when a community is part of an HOA, it means that the common areas are owned and managed by the HOA. This usually includes the exteriors of the building (the outside walls and the roofs) as well as the grounds surrounding the buildings. The HOA fees pay for this maintenance (roof replacement, exterior painting, landscaping maintenance and roads and sewers, etc). They may also cover water, trash and cable, depending on the association. A well-run HOA usually has a management company doing all the managing. The board tells the management company what to do, but if the management company is any good, they know all the laws and provides expert advice.

When you buy a unit in an HOA, you are provided with the bylaws, and you agree to obey them. Generally, they are there to make sure everyone takes care of their own unit. In general, most people don't want to be board members, and this means the little dictators in the community wind up be on the board. So the best way to counter that is to join the board yourself to keep such individuals in line.

R42 I think the meadow looks nice. Not sure why the HOA objected.

There's a big difference between HOAs in condo complexes, gated communities, and single-family homes on public streets. I'm in the latter. They can't make rules about parking on the streets (of course they've tried), but they enforce a "no cars in the driveway' rule. They keep up the common areas and green belts, but do nothing for the houses or fencing. They are not part of trash collection or other city functions. When I bought my house in 2002 the monthly fee was $60. Now it is $160, and they don't bill you. You have to either pay the full year at once, or set up an automatic deduction from your bank account. They control the style and color of all fencing, all paint colors and roof styles for the houses, and all landscaping. Basketball hoops are forbidden, as were solar panels until California law forced them to accept them. I had a major run-in with the HOA during the 2016 election, when they tried to limit the number of signs I put on my lawn. Of course, they were really complaining about the candidates and issues I was supporting, because I have neighbors with just as many signs -but for different candidates -who never heard a peep. The HOA board argued that Black Lives Matter was not a political campaign, so it was not protected and they ordered me to take it down. I refused and the sign was torn to pieces one night. I put up a replacement and it was immediately stolen. I fucking hate my HOA!

I have replied to a similar thread here on DL. The HOA that gave me the biggest headaches was due primarily to having a small number of units in the condominium. We have 11 two story town homes that surrounded a courtyard and shared one large, detached garage building. The HOA dues were roughly $400 a month but paid for basically nothing. "Blanket" insurance and the likes. Management companies (we went through maybe 3 different ones and they were all the same) were only required to pay utilities, insurance, etc. but charged a fortune for the privilege due to our having so few units. The scenario was frustrating. I did all of the gardening myself for no charge (and purchased tons of plants, shrubs, planters, etc. with my own money during my time owning a unit there). It took years to get the place up to snuff after it had been basically ignored for decades. I think at best, some lawn crew came in maybe every two months with a weed whacker for 5 minutes. Some presidents were OK while others behaved like criminals. One in particular installed new window screens and paint for her unit (and 3 of her friends in the complex) while leaving the majority of us with the old paint and screens - the resulting look was shabby and exactly what one expects an HOA to protect against. To make matters worse, she had terrible taste and used the community money to purchase tan colored screening and "band-aid" colored paint trim for the doors and window surrounds. The rest of us still had black doors/trim and regular screens. The icing on the cake was that she and her friends also sawed down all of the large trees in the courtyard that provided both partial shade and privacy. It looked like Hell afterwards. Thank God I sold around that time and never looked back. No HOAs for me going forward - unless I have no other living options.

My HOA does not own the exterior of the houses, and does not maintain or repaint them.

My high-rise condo HOA was a rotating group of about 7 people (there are 5 slots) out of 600 residents. The older people had their voting pacts and hardly anyone new could get on the board.

They only passed laws and rules that helped them. Certain maintenance was kicked down the road for a few more years because, as our President said at the time, 'I'll be retired and out of here by then".

The only good was that they got good electric, cable and internet rates due to bulk purchasing. The rest of them acted like they owned the building.

People should not be allowed to sit on these boards year after year.

[quote] A friend lost their home due to daily fines imposed by their HOA. He had a car parked in front of the house that was broken down, and had a broken convertible top that had been covered with plastic. It looked shitty and neighbors complained. The bylaws indicated that you can’t have a car in this situation out front. Since it sat out for a few months the daily fines increased until the lien caused the mortgage company to force a foreclosure. It sounds ridiculous but it’s a true story. Don’t ever buy in a neighborhood without knowing more about how the HOA operates and read the bylaws before you sign on the dotted line.

This is what HOAs are for. So that people don't keep inoperable cars "out front" indefinitely. Friend should have had this car towed.

I belong to a HOMOA. It’s all caftans, rainbows and call-boy overnight parking in the rear.

I had a flood and severe mold damage in my home. The insurance was balking and the contractors seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth once I had signed a contract. The result was a storage pod in the driveway for three months, waiting for little things like walls and floors to go in so I could put things back in the house. My HOA said it was their policy (not in bylaws -just policy) that storage pods could only remain for two weeks, so they fined me thousands of dollars. I pointed out to them that I had no where to put things, and that the pod was hired by the contractor -and that the company would not remove it without the contractor's consent they shrugged and said, "Too bad." Gives you a nice, warm, neighborly feeling, doesn't it?

I do. I like that they keep things neat, e.g., mow lawns when homeowners won’t (then bill the homeowner). They also crack down on air BnB (in a big football college town that’s important to me). But I do see the potential for aggravation, such as other have mentioned, about external changes to paint an landscaping, changes but haven’t experienced it yet. They also limit each home to three cats and/or dogs.

I wouldn’t personally avoid an HOA, but they aren’t for everyone.

R56 - yeah, it's that kind of shit that makes you become a vigilante. I would want to stalk the houses of the HOA board and call violations on them left and right.

Some of these people get off on being inflexible and unreasonable. Drunk with power, I tell ya.

Suckers!

I would never buy a property that has a HOA. I learned my lesson from Del Boca Vista!

The HOA in my town had a treasurer who embezzled over $60,000 to fund fabulous vacations to Italy, Florida, Manhattan, the beach in North Carolina, etc...

I think she got a year's house arrest.

Big Trump supporter so I think the HOA let her off.

[quote]I moved into a historic district. I can't do shit to my house without approval from a Historic Review Board. I can't even change the paint color.

R3 I lived under a Historic Review Board for 35 years. You can't imagine the horror and the suffering they put me through, all in the name of keeping the neighborhood pristine. I bitched and I bitched, but finally, I decided that it wasn't worth the aggravation, and so I acquiesced...

Oh, and I sold my house (that I paid $60K for in 1982) for $3.5M in 2017. Seems that lots of folks were willing to pay big bucks for the protection of a well-maintained historic district. Thank you Historic Review Board

I'm an officer on tfour HOA Boards in CA where I own units, and they are absolutely necessary to maintain the mutually agreed-upon standards of the Association. HOA fees pay for the maintenance of all common areas, which depending on the character of the property can include landscaping, elevators, roofs, parking lots and driveways, pools, fences, insurance, laundry rooms, and maintenance and property management personnel. Prior to closing on any purchase, the prospective owner is given a copy of the declarations of covenants, conditions, and restrictions so they know exactly what they're getting into...this is not a surprise to anyone with the common sense to actually read and understand closing documents. If you follow the rules, you'll usually get along fine; if not, you'll pay the price, and in most cases, the HOA will win.

I live in a co-op with an HOA. They're very frugal, and basically save every penny they possibly can, in case of an emergency. Since I've been here, which is about 20 years, they have successfully paid off a mortgage that we had, switched all buildings from oil to gas, re-roofed all buildings, updated all entrance doors and door surrounds. The landscaping has always been shabby, they don't put money toward it, just the very bare minimum. So my partner and I plant things on our corner and keep it tidy. But I must say, they run a tight ship, and we're debt free. And they mostly leave people alone, no harsh unreasonable rules. They are very strict with the financials of possible buyers, which keeps undesirables from buying in, and becoming a financial burden to the rest of us.

I live in a huge complex. 300 units. Our HOA fees cover Water, trash pick up, basic cable, water secured garage parking, 24 hr security and landscaping pest control and maintenance of the common areas. My fees are $650 for a one bedroom. I'm not on the board, but I do go to our quarterly meetings, read my monthly news letter, and vote.

Just curious, people who bought homes in an HOA subdivision and then complain about it.... You did know what an HOA does riiiiight?

I resigned from our board 2 days ago. Our president is a controlling nightmare. She wanted me to install cameras facing the dumpster and recycling bins to find out who wasn't collapsing their cardboard boxes. Meanwhile, cars had been broken into as had one unit (condos, 18 units). Security cameras had never been mentioned to address that, but she was excited to try to catch one of us doing something wrong with our trash

I volunteered to write the new Rules and Regulations for the trash (she asked for volunteers) instead of installing the cameras like she expected me to do. It really pissed her off that I didn't put up the cameras and she was a first-class bitch when I would turn in drafts of the new rules. No assistance, only vague criticism and passive-aggressive belittling. She loves using ALL CAPS for rage-filled emphasis.

She actually said, regarding another issue and her stance, "I'm just selfish...." I thought, "That's not why we serve," though I didn't say it.

Long story short, I finally realized it was time to stop being, in her view, "the bad guy" by trying to represent interests and concerns of the tenants. She can deal with them herself at the annual meetings. She is unprofessional, passive aggressive, mean-spirited, nosy, selfish, and an aggressive communicator. We never had an out-and-out argument, but one was brewing and I knew something bad was going to happen if I stayed on much longer.

A huge weight was lifted when I turned in my resignation, saying I no longer had the time needed to serve. The two other people on the board have the same feeling about her. The day after I left, one announced he was moving soon and would also be vacating his spot.

We've had great ones in the past, but this one is a Bitter Betty. This Geico commercial sums up the stereotypically awful HOA president.

Someone should kick Cynthia in the cunt.

R66 I swear our former president (the Chrissy Metz alike) I mentioned at R21 and yours are the same people.

I really think most of what an HOA and a board does is good. We also had a great president that led us through demanding repairs from the developer where we had to threaten litigation, and the board banded together and paid the fees for a lawyer to appeal our assessment, which saved us all thousands.

I don't mind general rules. I would struggle with someone dictating a limited palette of paint colors, though, which is what we were looking at recently.

I absolutely fucking refuse. Firstly: I'd rather have a more modest home on a larger plot of land, so if I'm buying, it wouldn't ever be on one of these neighborhoods.

Secondly: I absolutely believe in upkeep of property (and as a result, property values). but if I wanted to be controlled, I'd commit a crime & go to prison. Absolutely not. No way. Not happening.

Americans and their aversion to rules.

[quote]Just curious, people who bought homes in an HOA subdivision and then complain about it.... You did know what an HOA does riiiiight?

Of course they fucking know. And therein lies the problem.

The by-laws go on for pages and pages about landscaping and lawn maintenance and design and appearance, so a homeowner gets on a high horse of righteousness about his xeriscaping scheme (and saving the world) that was installed without any discussion with the HOA.

Or a homeowner loves the uniform architectural standards of his neighborhood, but not as much as his new love for industrial loft style design and pays an architect to draw up plans for an extensive program of replacing all the wood frame windows and doors with chic steel frame windows. Only the HOA doesn't find them chic and has to fight the guy for two years before he relents and undoes his $80k improvement that is specifically prohibited in the three long paragraphs on windows.

There's always a dickhead who loves that others are confined to rules but who feels that he is somehow above it all and knows better. He plows ahead without asking, doing as he damn well pleases, and thinks HOAs are the devil's work when they call him on it.

An HOA is necessary if you live in a condo.

People who type "long story short" are usually their own worst enemy.

“Just curious” is, IMO, usually a preface to something passive-aggressive.

R73, I have a friend who told me a long, rambling story, then said, “Long story short ...” I said, “Too late.”

[quote] “No, thankfully. I live in a van down by the side of the river. —Teri Hatcher”

After I slap some more yellow paint and Madeira cake on my van, we should do brunch.

Rules are fine, but within a reasonable range.

For example, I would be fine if they specified that exterior paint cannot be certain colors - bold ones, I suppose - but limiting it to four or five specific shades is ridiculous.

I am a fines adjudicator in my community. When the HOA imposes a fine, the fined person may appeal to my committee. This is an appeal provided for under state law.

My latest HOA story:

After 12 years in my condo townhouse, I decided to sell last October (I was afraid the bottom was going to fall out of the market, like it did in 2009, what with the asshole in DC and all) at that this was the top of the market.

Put the place on the market on a Wednesday. Got a full price offer the next day. Signed an agreement of sale the following Monday. That Friday, I got a letter from the hired manager of the property (not the HOA itself) stating the my sale was being put on hold unless and until I cut down a sycamore tree that was within my patio enclosure. The tree had been there for a least 40 years before I even bought the place in 2007.

I told the HOA and the manager to go fuck themselves (for real) and was prepared to back out of the sale. For whatever reasons, the owners wanted the place and they offered to pay for the tree removal. I said go for it.

What's a "condo townhouse"?

It's a town house that's part of a condominium, R79.

Not all condominiums are apartments and not all apartments are condominiums.

My Google search reveals that condos and townhouses are quite distinct from one another, which comes as no surprise.

No, and I fought it like crazy. My parents built the house in 1958. It is in Orange County, CA. The landscaping was always designed to use as little water as possible: Olive trees, rosemary, lavender, etc. In the 80s, the area got a HOA. They were generally awful. Only two styles of mailboxes were acceptable (both ugly, over the top, fake cast iron.) Of course, they really hated the fact that the house did not have a lawn. Everyone had to have a manicured lawn of a certain grass. (When the HOA was started, anyone with dichondra had to remove it and plant the grass the HOA chose.) When my parents got ill, they harassed them because I was living with them full time, but when they died, the fun really started. The harassed me like crazy to try to get me to sell. They took me to court. The judge wasn't having any of it. Basically, I have a restraining order against them. They are not allowed to contact me at all. If I need to know something, they have to tell the judge and the judge will contact me. To give an example how bad they are, when CA had the really bad drought, homeowners were required to spray paint their lawns green. Seriously.

Astroturf is your friend.

Cement is your friend, too, then.

Spray paint the cement green. R84 wins!

Condominium (a definition):

[quote] the system of ownership by which condominiums operate, in which owners have full title to the individual apartment or house and an undivided interest in the shared parts of the property.

Sounds like a system of ownership more than a form of a structure. I.e., can be stacked like in a high rise of spread out like in a town house situation. Del Boca Vista is probably a condominium.

The words "apartment", "townhouse" and "condominium" all often have varied meanings depending on who you are talking to and what part of the world, part of the country or even which city you are discussing them. From a legal perspective, Condominium is a term defined as a means of housing and real property ownership that is settled amongst other similar arrangements with a common facilitates area that is controlled by a joint-ownership association. "Townhouse" often refers to a style of attached homes that is laid out in a multi-floor arrangement (2 stories or more). Often times, a townhouse has a ground-level entrance to the residence (verses being a two story residence that is perched on the top floors of a high-rise building. "Apartment" could vary from anything from a tiny one room HUD dwelling to a 100 million dollar Park Avenue co-op - depending on who you are asking. Whatever the case, an apartment is a suite of rooms forming one residence and often within a larger structure containing similar residences. These names mean very little in the grand scheme of things; read the fine print to know what you are legally responsible for when purchasing a home of any sort.

We are a 99 house HOA, which reminds me of the Harper Valley PTA. The same five old white men have been on the board since its inception 15 years ago. The president is a nellie old flamer who rents two bedrooms in his house to "college" kids, but they're not really college kids. I am certain they are sex slaves. They last for a few months then move out. And they park their ratty old cars on the streets overnight, which is prohibited by the HOA's CC&Rs. But if anybody else parks on the street over night, he send them a letter from the HOA to threaten them.

Our community pool was closed for many weeks due to COVID. One day I heard a group of boys in the pool and told them that it was closed. One replied that [HOA President] said it was okay. So I blasted him on our HOA's message board and got a call from the HOA office. (Associa, a large property management company that has HOAs as clients.)

A few years ago, the president allowed himself to be rotated off the aesthetics committee. Somebody submitted an application to repaint their house and it was approved. But the president hated the color and threatened the owners. When they produced the approved application, he went nuts trying to get owners to "recall" the board members who approved it. Granted, it is an ugly pastel shade of pink that does not fit the community at all, but c'mon...

The worst part of this crap is that the president has a serious crush on my husband. He makes up all sorts of excuses to knock on the door to ask if he is around. Then he says shit, like have you seen the jacaranda blooms on your car? They will damage the paint! Or asking if he heard something the night before. He brought a form to my husband last fall and told him he should run for the HOA board. It is funny, yet pathetic.

Our HOA limits the number of houses that can be rented to 9%. That means that only 9 houses can be non-owner occupied. I actually like this provision, since it helps maintain property values, but it also means that there have been foreclosures since people who get in over their heads cannot rent their house out to make payments. They move and abandon the houses, which end up being foreclosed on by the lender and the HOA.

R88 You need to slash that bitch's tires.

I did that once when he was complaining of my noise to our landlord, complaints stopped.

Can an HOA stop you from buying a particular house? Do you have to be approved by the HOA, like a co-op board?

I had problems with my HOA and the management company. At escrow they charged my for HOA dues I already paid and a special assessment that was not handled properly. I couldn't not close because the buyer could sue me for non performance. After closing I sued the HOA and management company for $3500 in small claims court. They had a great lawyer that once I showed him the documentation basically took my side. Including court cost I received a little less than $3400.

Honestly, I never had problems with the HOA and nonsense. They were helpful when we had a neighbor who decided his living room was a nightclub.

The stressful part was getting them to resolve or pay anything. We lived on the top floor of a five story building and our elevators were out of commission for almost a month because they kept pushing the elevator inspections back and wouldn't pay the elevator maintenance company, so eventually the city shut the elevator completely down.

I am not the fattest whore ever, but I do have a bad knee, and a month of walking up and down those stairs almost put me in the hospital.

Elevator knee. A new complaint has been discovered on DL and we knows it affects whores who are not the fattest. Compare gas pedal knee.

It's not the existence of rules that people object to -It's the highly-arbitrary way in which the rules are enforced that upsets us. My HOA board singled me out, saying that because my house was on the corner at the entrance to the subdivision I should be "held to a higher standard" because my house represented the entire neighborhood. I call bullshit on that. I don't mind following the rules so long as everyone else has to follow the same rules.

One (and only one) good HOA story: There was a time about 15 years ago when a resident stepped onto her balcony from her bedroom and crashed through the rotten wood, getting severely injured. The HOA newsletter told people to have their exterior wood inspected, listed five companies/workers who were recommended for doing repairs/rebuilds, and gave information on how to get copies of the original plans. You know-Being HELPFUL for a change!

[quote] It's the highly-arbitrary way in which the rules are enforced that upsets us.

You are being singled out R94 because you represent the entire neighborhood yet do your Divine impersonations at the corner of the entrance to the subdivision, 9-5 every Sunday, while pretending that you're only doing a little light gardening.

^^^ I should be so fabulous and glamorous!

The issue with HOAs is that the people on it have no taste. The people who get on HOA boards are always the have the worst Tuesday Morning/Wayfair taste. Worse, they are always trying impose it on others.

Wayfair = welfare

Best avoided.

[98] No correction needed. Wayfair taste makes perfect sense. Btw, there's only one of these left on wayfair.com for $969! Get it while you can!

R66 is a pussy.