Posted by lovewins 3 hours ago
I (thankfully) live in a neighborhood without an HOA. Just one block away, there is an HOA. No reason to prefer that street (and home values aren't higher there).
This isn't an upper class neighborhood. It's mixed. Half of the residents are blue collar workers.
Over the years, I would think of reasons/annoyances where I'd say "Yes, while I'm glad I don't have an HOA, if we did have one it would take care of this or that annoying problem with the neighbor."
Then I spoke to friends who live in HOA neighborhoods and are on the HOA board. They told me clearly that "No, in practice, the HOA is not going to get involved in those (serious) matters. All they care about is the veneer (house appearance) and really petty rules." They also told me the purpose of the HOA was to justify its own existence. The owners get almost nothing for the funds they collect, other than a 3rd party company driving by and noting minor violations.
Another friend just had to spend $4000 to paint the front of his house. He's temporarily living in another state for a work assignment, and he and several others got notices that the HOA has decided to change the "look" of the neighborhood. Otherwise his house looked fine (not worn out paint or anything). I bet someone in the neighborhood has friends with a painting outfit.
I can stomach the idea of an HOA if they solved real problems (sanitation, etc), and not just appearances, but they don't. Even if it's in their bylaws, they don't enforce the serious stuff. Just the petty stuff.
Someone losing a home because they decided to have a window AC facing the street is plain immoral.
In practice, HOAs generally don't do anything useful, though.
How?
Feels really odd, no one in our area actually wants an HOA. Yet i think people are going to flip when their HOA dues are suddenly required by the city and at much steeper rates (i imagine 2-4x the cost, our dues are quite small atm).
The real, completely arbitrary thing that makes housing expensive is zoning. There is research on this. Zoning, especially in the long term, has enormous effects, including on things seemingly unrelated such as reducing construction productivity, reducing competition among construction firms (fewer contractors) and reducing housing supply (supply vs demand).
I think people generally don’t appreciate how restrictive zoning effectively is. It’s not just what you can build, but how big it is, layout things, and can even reach into aesthetics etc.
You'd think that means they have a gym on-site, but no; the HOA has a contract with a local health club to provide them with gym access. The club is owned by the builder's brother and the builder wrote the gym membership agreement into the HOA bylaws before turning it over to the community for management.
My friend is pretty understandably upset at this petty corruption, but every time it comes up, the HOA board would much rather deal with the "veneer" issues. Part of that is because the HOA board are busybodies, and part of that is because they're volunteers who have no desire to start a legal slap fight with the builder and his brother when they remove the (probably) unenforceable gym agreement from the bylaws.
That doesn't mean, you can't invite your neighbors over pizza or coffee, be friendly and one day mention that you think X, Y or Z and you wouldn't mind helping, and if they they aren't interested you'll totally respect that.
Don't be a Karen. But being considerate the old school way can go far. The rest you just have to live with :)
>Florida ranks 1st of the states on HOA Spy for foreclosure suits brought by associations, with 10,296 of 14,168. The count depends on which courts are indexed in each state as well as on the associations, so it is a count of records, not a rate.
Florida is known for having the strongest "sunshine" laws in the country, that make government records transparent. That makes this statistic pretty useless.
Condo rules are much stricter than HOAs
State of Florida also puts caps on fines - the max is $100/day or $1000 for a single violation. But that’s after a period to cure and then due process meetings (made up of homeowners not board members) who may waive or not fine at all or defer.
A homeowner can also fix the problem and later have the same problem again but not be fined if they fix in time.
The foreclosures are for extreme cases and a lot of HOA attorney shops don’t charge a retainer but will tack on fees that are paid back to the HOA attorney and association.
To get to that point takes a long time
After expressing their utmost sympathies and saying they'd help any way they could, mere weeks later they put a legal "estoppel" on the sale of the house due to some overgrown vines(?), which of course, were never mentioned by anyone.
Regardless, they made a simple issue (which was not disclosed at least to me) a legal hassle.
I’d have no problem with their existence if it was a free market, but I have a big problem with them when they’re being legally mandated.
This is true, and I'd never choose to live in an area like that.
Where I’ve bought houses, HOAs were rare. I’ve always heard about these places where HOAs are the only option but I fortunately haven’t run into one.
Listings:
No HOA fee: 32 up to $500/month: 62
I'm not going to bother because this is an HN comment but I think you can imagine what happens to the results when I specify newer than say 1993 (when my house was built).
I have an HOA, but it seems defunct. Everything we do to the house, if visible, can be interpreted to mean I must get unanimous agreements, in writing, from all my neighbors.
It turns out I managed to land right between two asshole neighbors (constant trespassing, dogs, etc)
What consequences are sane for a member who does not pay dues, water bills, etc., for a prolonged period? Turning off the water is illegal here. Liens get ignored. My HOA will avoid foreclosure for years, and has only resorted to it twice in twenty years, but it's the ultimate recourse. Should the other members just suck it up forever?
Until the house is sold or refinanced. Yes, the HOA has to wait, but can eventually get its money with interest.
An HOA isn't just about neighborhoods of freestanding houses, it's also about multi unit buildings.
For example, they’ve fought for the right to have a “right to work”, so that closed shops can’t be a thing — you cannot compel inclusion in a bargaining unit by nature of employment.
Yet restrictive deed covenants where you are compelled by the state to join a private association are fine.
The arguments for or against them are similar if you dig into them.
Also, once in a decade is not a rare occurrence for events of this significance. Once in 20 years is OK, once is 50 is rare, but once in a decade is not.
I mean, the idea is nice, but it involves humans.
given that an HOA is completely unnecessary... yes. you should suck it up forever. if you want to be part of an HOA and pay dues into it, good for you, go ahead.
if somebody else doesn't want to be part of your little club, why should you get to take their house away for that?
Typically the HOA's I've seen manage community resources. Where I used to live that meant the neighborhood parks, green spaces, 3 docks in the river, a pool, and a few lakes. No value seems a bit hyperbolic.
most HOAs manage a tiny amount of communal green space that should have been turned over to become city property, but was held back as HOA property to give the HOA a reason to exist.
I think we have the wrong units of measure for government size. I live in a county where the lines made sense 200 years ago: Everybody in the county can ride their hose to the courthouse, file whatever they need and be home in time for super. These days everyone drives and can be there in half an hour or less. Instead what I care about is the metro area. I want a unit that ensures my transit system is a coherent whole, the water supply is cheaper to consolidate to one large entity vs many small ones.
There is one suburb near me where some people would have to drive 25 minutes to get to the city library - most of that is uncongested highway. I really need a smaller unit to own and run a library so kids are always in bike distance. That city does a good job of scattered small parks but there is one complex with large fields for softball - if you don't live close maybe you shouldn't pay for something you don't use. I want parks owned by a smaller area government that can bring my neighborhood something they don't have. - HOAs often serve that. They just have a poor legal structure.
If you own part of a shared walls building then a corporation is required to manage that. You have to pay your share of the share costs. However the corporation should be limited in what else it can do, but it must exist.
You can put in a special district, that's an HOA under a different name, with even more government powers and bureaucracy costs. For example, you vote on stuff via the general election, they can seize your home for unpaid property taxes, they can impose zoning laws, and in some places they can impose criminal ordinances (dog pooping in the park).
You are just making this up at this point. Why do you think the city would accept property that they would have to legally maintain and be responsible for, when it is generally isolated and (largely) accessible to only a specific neighborhood?
Mostly I don't understand why an individual neighborhood would need it's own out of band election process (that typically allows people to gain tremendous power and authority without anyone voting for them), and representatives completely decoupled from the state or government but often times acting in parallel.
> they should lose access to the pool, not their house.
To enforce this you have to be able to gate, secure, and prevent them and their guests from using this. That costs a lot more money just to ensure they pay in. The HOA is the least worse option to "consent" and ensure that they do. Taking away the house is a much later step after a letter, 2nd and 3rd warnings, fines, ignored fines+interest, and a lein is ignored.
This is true sometimes, but if you are upset at a specific HOA, look at your docs to see what it actually manages. HOAs exist to pay for community obligated costs; sometimes that is a pool, sometimes it's "water and gas bills", and sometimes it's an entire golf course.
Further, if you're talking about a condo building (which, yes, is technically a COA, but the two get combined all the time), it is literally paying for your roof and elevators to work.
Buying into a "little club" and agreeing to pay your share of expenses only works when everyone participates. If not, your neighbors are just paying upkeep on your property; why should they have to do that?
Such arrangements used to be common, but they have become increasingly rare in the past few centuries. Many were explicitly abolished by law when free markets started getting popular. Often for antitrust reasons, or because people thought it would not be in the public interest to have certain types of contracts the previous owner made also bind the new owner.
I can think of a few similar arrangements in Finland. For example, membership in student unions at research universities is still mandatory, as is membership in reindeer husbandry associations. Those entities perform government functions, and the actual government has chosen not to assume the responsibility for one reason or another. As a consequence, the entities and their officials are subject to the same regulations as the government when wielding powers used to justify mandatory membership.
Condos are another story. If the entire complex is a single property for legal or practical purposes, it makes sense to have a single entity in charge of it.
Because they signed the paperwork saying they wanted to be part of the little club and gave that little club the power to take away their house.
Then "people want a house without dealing with strata" gets misinterpreted as "people want big houses on big lots". Not necessarily true, just that the premium for the BHoBL is the necessary price of not giving busybody neighbours power over your home.
HOA should be allowed to kick out member. And people should be allowed to not be members of HOA.
Even if it’s a very low maintenance and amenity HOA on public roads, how do you resolve the fact that all the fees and costs have accumulated if the home were to be sold, you essentially end up at a similar end point where the home is sold. Usually these are also not individual circumstances, i.e., a person who has ignored all kind of warnings and letters and board meetings over usually years, also has many other issues going on and often they’re just letting the home go anyways and e.g., are just living there for “free” for about 1-3 years of HOA/bank legal proceedings.
There is no need for "HOA owned and maintained street". You do not need HOA to maintain streets.
Just like labor unions (ie. "right to work" states), right?
Also I'm a firm believer that if you're at a union shop and decide not to be part of the union you shouldn't be able to use their pay scales and should have to negotiate everything for yourself. The same with HOA's, I guess. If they do something for the community, like the pool the other poster talked about, then you shouldn't have access. Easy.
They shouldn't be able to take your house for any reason.
At least in theory? Neighborhood "character" (and by proxy "land value").
But also I'm biased.
HOAs don't add value. All they are is an opportunity to power trip for those who have the most free time on their hands.
I'm sure the people who support right to work laws would also claim labor unions "don't add value". On the flip side I doubt HOA supporters think they "don't add value".
The HOA hired a law firm, forced a foreclosure, held a foreclosure auction where the HOA itself bought her house for THREE DOLLARS, and continued to charge her HOA dues (even though the HOA owned the home now) before evicting her later.
The HOA then sold the home to an employee involved in the foreclosure, whose partner was on the HOA board that had voted to foreclose, and voted to accept the three dollar ($3.24, to be precise) bid, though they hid this behind an LLC that didn't actually exist when they did it. The employee then reactivated her real estate license and sold the home to another family several months later.
There are fewer greater lunacies than HOAs, and the type of people drawn to run them.
I can't imagine that a good judge would accept that settlement to scam someone out of a house far below value and leave them with the debt.
Most neighborhoods I’ve lived in have not had an HOA. They’ve ranged from okay to great.
I can think of a few neighbor situations where an HOA with teeth would have been welcome. The most specific involved someone getting a big angry dog breed, neglecting it, and then leaving their gate unlocked so it got out. That one was eventually dealt with by the city, though.
Meanwhile the one HOA I lived under was pretty boring and friendly. Didn’t really bother anyone but maintained a nice common area. HOA board members were friendly and reasonable, but then again so were all the neighbors so there wasn’t much to deal with.
I think the nightmare situation is a busybody HOA that starts going after things that don’t matter, which would be hell.
Net effect you lose money living in a worse location.
In this context, do you still believe that dealing with this fine should involve the work, effort, resources, legal fees, court time, delays in court availability because healthy 40 year old Jim bob was late for work and couldn't shovel their portion of the sidewalk the last 10 times? Or that the Gen Z, not my problem because I don't think it's a problem.
I would wager that the money residents might have paid for HOA fees have largely gone into their own home/yard improvements, and it shows. Adding an HOA in this place, and I think most places, would be a burden rather than a benefit.
There's probably a security aspect too with regular private security patrols in HOA areas that do enough to shoo away encampments from setting up. You don't have to look to hard to find encampments off vine north of melrose but you aren't going to find anything like that south of melrose in hancock park, thanks to the spend on private security, given it's the same LAPD in either case.
I could show you HOA neighborhoods that look like a warzone, and beautiful nonHOA areas of million dollar houses.
This is relative. You might not think native flowers and plants are stunning, and that a manicured lawn is, but I do! And lawn rules might prevent me from obtaining my version of “stunning”. This is something…you want to defend? A lack of freedom to do what one wants with something they own?
But that’s all beside the point, because this article is about how HOAs are bad for people who need somewhere to live, not about what offends your (unusual) taste.
I don't give a shit about a "stunning" neighborhood. If I own property nobody else should have a say about its appearance.
The only exception I'd defend is a historic neighborhood where the goal is specifically to upkeep a historically accurate appearance of centuries ago.
But no, I will NEVER support an HOA anywhere else. These consortiums of Karens that patrol modern housing communities can go to hell.
I will plant the flowers I want, have the Halloween decorations I want, and do whatever woodworking I want in my front yard. What's the point of ownership if I can't own it?
My own personal experience from my wife having owned one condo and she and I having owned four houses is not very encouraging for your claim either. Of the four HOAs involved, the two that were run entirely by management companies (i.e., by people with no personal connection to the neighborhood, with little or no activity from the community members on the Board that we could see) were fine, they kept the common areas maintained and basically did nothing else that affected us. The condo association, while it had a management company, also had a Board filled with community members who had nothing better to do than harass everyone else, which they did with an energy that would have been amazing if it had been directed towards something productive. The other HOA had no management company, just the Board of community members, and was very intrusive, and from what we learned from neighbors, had been a mess for the entire history of the community.
So we now live in a neighborhood with no HOA, we only have to deal with the municipality. We like it.
The latter, because I can kick them out of office, and because silly rules will impact a much larger number of people, and a large number can have their voices heard.
When your HOA has only 20-30 members, variance is high. It's a lot easier for people to abuse HOA power for their own personal gains.
Yes, and then you find out just how petty petty politics can be.
The inconvenient truth, at least for HOA advocates, is that a community of 20-30 people, or even a hundred or so, does not need to be governed at the level of the community. Most people are reasonable and will respond to reasonable requests from neighbors if there is an issue, without having to drag in a higher authority at all. Those who are not reasonable, are not going to be magically made reasonable by having an HOA--indeed, as you admit, they're precisely the ones who are going to end up running the HOA. On balance, you're better off not having "governance" at all until you get to a larger population, like a town or a city.
I showed up to my first annual meeting where basically no one was there other than the president. He asked if I wanted to be on the board because they didn't have enough people participating. I asked what I'd have to do, and he said "just vote on things". I said OK, and he said the rules let him appoint members to vacancies (spoilers: the rules don't), so he "appointed" me on the spot.
At subsequent meetings, I discovered most of the board was completely disinterested in doing anything, other than the president who would probably fall under the "petty little shit" category, but he seemed like he knew what he was doing (spoilers: he didn't), so everyone pretty much just voted in favor of what he wanted to do. I was the only board member who worked from home, so I would be the only one on site to deal with things that involved vendors working on the property, so then I became the guy everyone expected to do everything.
The president got diagnosed with cancer and had to step down. He wanted me to be president, but I was like fuck that. The VP took the role, but she has pretty much done nothing and is clueless, so I keep being the one people expect to take the lead on everything.
I'm honestly tired of it and wished some competent people in the association would get on the board. There were massive mistakes I caught as a board member because I'm the only one who actually reads anything in the bylaws, CC&Rs, and all that shit. The HOA had been paying hundreds of dollars a year for decades on things that didn't need to be performed because our property management company misclassified us under some statute that didn't even apply to us, and nobody knew any better or even bothered to ask, "Hey, why the fuck are we actually doing this?"
I'll not say I'm a "good" board member. I don't care about enforcing house rules, and I don't want to get involved when people complain about their neighbors unless it's something that affects the association's financial health. The only reason I stay on is because I've done enough after-the-fact clean-up of the previous president's mess that I'm terrified of what insane things might happen if no one is keeping an eye on the other members. If you're in an HOA, I'd encourage getting involved to keep the crazies in check, at least for as long as you can stomach it.
Anyway, thanks for listening to my TED talk.
That's an argument not to have HOAs, right?
> You can very easily run to be part of your HOA leadership, and it is significantly easier to do than kicking an elected professional-politician out of office.
In my so many decades of existence, I've yet had a reason to want to kick my mayor out of office. And none of the cities I've lived in have passed laws related to what I can do with my house that were particularly problematic.
But HOAs? The majority have clauses I dislike.
At least for the HOA I was a part of, the CC&Rs were nearly impossible to change. Getting elected didn’t give you the power to change them. They were a contract signed with each individual homeowner - changing them required getting consent from every homeowner individually.
Being on the board gave you power over how budget was allocated within those CC&Rs. I.E. the maintenance and upgrade of shared spaces. Vendor selection for violation detection/enforcement. Etc.
The one advantage of higher levels of government over HOAs is that they are generally impersonal. The faceless bureacrats that are processing your forms generally don't have any personal animus against you. They don't have to live next door to you and they don't have to care what your personal oddities are. They're just executing a bureaucratic process. Whereas with an HOA, every little petty personal grievance gets magnified, and so-called "governance" turns into endless feuding.
If you don’t need an HOA (because there are actually shared common elements that need to be maintained) then why would you want one? And if you do need one, why would you want it to do anything beyond what’s required to maintain the shared bits?
People should instead think in terms of ends. Human beings are social animals. We have obligations toward others (here, the community). That includes obligations that concern the environment that the community occupies. So the fruitful focus of energy and debate should be what this means for the community (what are these obligations, and why) and if and how to regulate them.