What I don’t get about all these HOA horror stories (and I admit, I’ve never lived under one of these regimes) is:
Don’t the home owners have the voting power to elect who they want into the power positions?
And if they do, is the problem that a critical mass of them are always to sheepesque to care about what is being done to them?
Just curious (because I would never in a million years buy property inside one of these organizations).
In some large areas, there are no houses for sale without attached HOA contracts. Board members in some associations take large sums of money from dues for services not rendered. Lawyers enforce the robber regimes and also take large sums of money. In some areas, one either becomes a subject of home owners’ associations by becoming a resident of one or by paying outlandish rent to an HOA resident for a slum somewhere else.
Within a few months pretty much the only people that showed up at the meetings were the board members and a few real estate agents who had bought properties in the complex to make it easier to buy and sell other properties in the complex.
Most residents are apathetic. It's not about being sheepish. It's about being self-absorbed. They somehow find time to write long complaint letters, but can't manage to show up for meetings or hearings.
I've only lived in one HOA and ours happens to be run fine. The members are volunteers who have jobs so they don't go out of their way looking for things to do.
Maybe the worst horror stories are from those places run by retirees with more time on their hands than they know what to do with.
There have been HOAs taken over by certain folks who simply write absentee owners or others that are not all that involved and obtain their voting proxies. Say for instance a very active group wants a new multi-million dollar clubhouse. Of course everybody gets assessed for it.