Private Governments? Critics Say Homeowners Associations Can Be Too Strict

What happens if, after you move to the community, the HA decides to outlaw motorcycles?

We know a nice lady currently in a dispute with her HOA. She bought her brand-new house two years ago, had the HOA board approved her landscaping plans, which were to plant some shrubbery but not have a lawn because the front yard was really tiny, and she implemented the approved design exactly. It's easy to maintain, saves water, and there aren't weeds. (She had to specify the name and location of every single plant. The board requires approval for the original design and for all changes, too. She won't even change a plant to a prettier one because the approval process is so arduous.)

This month her HOA sent her a letter ordering her to plant a lawn, even though the CC&R's have no requirement for grass or a lawn. They have a restriction against rock gardens, but she has green, well-maintained plants with bark groundcover between the plants -- nothing like a rock garden. Evidently they feel they can retract their landscape design approval at their whim.

Many recent new housing developments here (some places in Southern California) have HOA's. Part of the reason may be that there are Mello-Roos fees to collect for the roads, so the builders add the HOA's to facilitate the collection (and to facilitate obtaining building permits because the city or county does not want to build and maintain more roads).

HOA communities often have higher property values, too, since the "bad" neighbors stay in the homes without HOA's. Another reason for HOA's is that so many new homes have miniscule lots; each house is about 14 feet away from the next, so some people feel they must meddle with their neighbors' affairs, and nobody has enough space for their own pool or tennis court (at least in the cheaper new communities).

Most HOA's around here aren't as controlling as the one I mentioned, as far as I know, and others (even with lower density) sometimes have collective front-yard maintenance to avoid having unique designs.

I just don't grok what is so "unfair" about even restrictive HAs - as a homeowner (and therefore willing signatory to a legal and binding contract), you still have that ultimate veto power of being able to sell your spread and move somewhere else, if the rules are too onerous for you.

The problem with HA's is the extent to which they represent a transferable blank-check. I have no problem with the notion that if someone voluntarily agrees when they move into a neighborhood not to put up a flagpole over 15' tall, they no longer have the right to put up a flagpole over 15' tall. I have a slight problem with the notion that authority can be given to the particular individuals on the HA board, to pass restrictions which were not, themselves, agreed to. Most homeowners' associations go a step beyond, however: if the majority of properties get bought by busybodies, one's property may be subject to the whims of people whom one could not have known anything about when the property was purchased.

As for the notion that a person may move, that is true to a certain extent, but moving is an expensive proposition and it does not seem proper that someone who has lived in a neighborhood for years may be forced to move by newcomers who take over the HA board.

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