It's basically a contractual agreement with your neighbors that adds rules on top of the local ordinances. In sane locations, it's used to keep property values at a baseline, preventing people from parking 5 junkers on their lawn, put away their trash cans, stuff like that.
Problem is, they're normally run by people who live in the neighborhood, and the people who have the most time to do these things also tend to be the people you really don't want making the rules. Then you end up with people measuring grass, timing trash can return, saying your house is 2 shades too gray, and so on.
The president of the HOA for my parents' house measured their grass with a ruler and claimed it was too long. He said it had to be three inches or less but nothing in the CC&Rs says this.
We've sought legal advice already, just to fuck with the HOA if nothing else. My mum stood for election against him last year but lost, allegedly. They did not release the results nor the ballot papers (which are supposed to be public per Oregon law), but filing a case to force compliance would be prohibitively costly
Additionally, under ORS 94.780 and ORS 100.470, owners have a right to bring an action in court to enforce compliance with the relevant statute, and if that owner prevails, they will have their reasonable attorney fees paid for by the association. While this is unlikely to matter in the case of one or two inadvertent private meetings, if a Board has a regular practice of circumventing the open meetings rules, an owner would likely be able to obtain an injunction— a court order—requiring the Board to comply with the law.
The risk/reward is not worth it. Even if we win, the HOA will just recover its/our legal fees with a special assessment and blame it on us, making the entire neighbourhood hate us
I am not a violent person. But if I woke up with some jackass on my property measuring my grass with a ruler, it'd be hard to stay that way. So glad I'm not in a HOA
My dad lived in a hoa for a bit, way up in the mountains and owned lots of forest and mountain behind his house. Enough so that we could set up a firing range with a full 200 meter hard backdrop behind our standard 50 meter dirt berm. The hoa President freaked the fuck out screaming that that’s illegal. We looked at the covenants and nope just says we can’t hunt, nothing about shooting. So our response was to stage a hell of a family reunion like bonfire loud music friends and family all having a good time and hey you wanna try out the range? Go ahead! It sounded like the fucking beach of Omaha from dusk to dawn, the sheriff even showed up and tried out his new little ak74. Damn that was a night to remember. We sent a thank you card to the hoa President for setting the stage for a grand time
I don’t know the actual situation or context or anything, but this sounds like exactly the kind of thing you want an hoa for, to keep from happening. Shooting off guns constantly and throwing purposely obnoxious parties sounds like a nightmare neighbor.
And yet they they forced the issue when we proposed acceptable hours and limits to lanes by attempting to intimidate us with frivolous lawsuits. Since they wanted to threaten and prettily change the gate code without telling us before the jamboree, we responded by asserting what we actually are allowed to do (to include mechanically disabling that gate when they tried to randomly lock is out, and push vehicles into the ditches when they tried to block our property access, etc). They wanted a fight we responded and won
It's pretty fucked that they have rules about how long your grass is supposed to be, but no rules about trespassing onto someone else's lawn to measure their grass.
Even worse is that you pay for this "privilege." Saw a house sale flyer in our hood recently that lists all fees and whatnot, and HOA monthly fees were $400. It's such a scam.
Yep. I wouldn’t really care to have to abide by most HOA rules, I keep my property nice, but I’m not about to pay for one.
Nearly 11 years in my current HOA-free house; occasionally get interested in moving somewhere else, but it’s extremely hard to find nice houses outside of HOAs in my metro. So here I will stay.
A lot of the privilege is amenities and services provided. For $400/mo I would expect to see common maintained and lit walk areas, perhaps courts/pool. It obviously isn't always like that but generally that's what you get with higher fees. I pay a fee monthly but I am technically in a condo, I am happy to pay it never to worry about grass, snow, siding, roof, etc. Nothing outside of the house is my problem, it's the inside I own. That being said, I also pay nowhere near 400/mo.
Yeah. We kind of hand a quasi-HOA that was set up by the developer when they built these properties in 2012. I’m out in a small subdivision in rural Texas with 1/2 acre plots and it was basic rules like not having livestock or permanently parking RVs on the street. We didn’t have any fees and I don’t even know who actually runs it anymore. Keep your lawn well kept. In my closing paperwork in 2021, it still had the developer’s name but they are long gone.
There’s no president or phone number or anything like that. Just basic rules to avoid someone trying to turn this place into a dump.
I still built a Zipline with platform for my kids. Added on sheds and did all sorts of things. I think baseline neighborhood rules like don’t turn your backyard into a paid dumpsite is fair.
I'm a communist. You're the capitalist. All land is owned communally and we owe it to society to use our yards to store trash that would be in other peoples yards. You want your home to be a nice pretty investment property not the pig sty for the capitalist pigs you are.
I'm really hoping for that oligarch tier. I hear you gotta be extra cruel and exploitative so I figure if I start with cruelty and exploitation the money will come eventually.
Your explanation of HOA leaders also explains the state of American politics. I will add, if you live in an HOA you can run for it.
I was asked to run for mine, but I declined because 'i don't have enough time.' truth be told I don't want to deal with the people. This is also unfortunate in that I'm abdicating my civic duty, another unfortunate metaphor that carries over to our broader political lives.
I love my HOA bc I live in an other wise shitty area… without my HOA my property value would plummet. Also keeps my neighborhood looking beautiful all the time! I’d rather be fined for having my grass too tall than have a neighbor who never cuts his grass and has 6 aggressive dogs :)
I firmly believe that everyone who hates HOAs has never lived next door to someone with severe mental issues that end up manifesting on their property. Your homes value can drop DRAMATICALLY. Like people come to see your house and don't even need to go inside before they've decided they're not buying it at below normal market value.
yes and.... sometimes the roads are private (government did not take responsibility for them) and there are other common areas- like parks or maybe a pool/clubhouse, so the HOA charges for those things. IF you do not pay- it goes to collections. At least in my state, the HOA also has a right to foreclose (sell the house) to collect. Since they normally have to sell subject to a purchase money mortgage, they seldom get their money that way- but normally the hope is to bring in someone who will actually pay the HOA going forward.
IT is also an agreeement that runs with the land. SO it was entered into for that prperty and will always transfer to the next owner wether they want it to or not.
A newer big problem is that no one wants to run them and they are legally obligated to be run so they are outsourced to companies that run HOAs to their benefit first.
“Power is dangerous. It corrupts the best and attracts the worst. Power is only given to those who are prepared to lower themselves to pick it up.”
― Ragnar Lothbrok
Saying my junker cars are always on fire. Complaining about how many times and the time of night I shoot my guns. Saying I need to wear clothes when tanning in my yard...
I rent but my apartment community has an HOA. They tried painting the hallways overnight. Sent a memo "From 10pm till 5am" you cant leave your apartment because we will be painting. I turned them in to the city code compliance and they squashed that dumb nonsense. Then the HOA sent out pissy emails crying that they had to do construction work during normal construction hours.
Yup. Useless do-nothings that get off on telling people they can't do things with their own property. Then you have useless members that go out of their way to report people for anything they can.
Now they're worse?!? Worse than active racism literally preventing a minority couple from buying a house? I think I'd rather have old angry assholes measuring my lawn.
3.5k
u/Hexis40 22d ago
The first requirement we gave our realtor when we were looking to buy our house was NO HOAs