We have one but it’s pretty low key...basically exists to keep the street lights going and maintain the landscaping at the entrance. I bought a small farm property about 90 minute drive from that house and spend 70% of my time there. Built a practice shooting range and shop building and no freaking building codes or neighbors that complain...paradise!
Same here.
Lived under two HOAs. No problems.
Mow your grass. Don't let your front yard look like a used car lot or your driveway become a year-round flea market. I was fine with this.
Most HOAs exist to keep up property values. Of course, some are overbearing and run by busybodies. But we all have choices. Live under one of you want to, don't live under one if you don't, but if you choose to, you'd better read up on what's permitted.
That's the problem. Either people don't read the rules or they do read the rules but think that they don't apply to them.
And, yes, I realize the original story in this thread is about something completely different.
My farm is in an HOA that used to be like that. When I first bought the place, the HOA’s sole purpose was taking care of the shared driveway that runs through all the properties. A few years ago something changed. 3 members who were most persuasive about keeping the HOA limited moved away. Of those who stayed, the majority just wanted to avoid conflict, which means the one loudmouthed control-freak dominated. He’s an ex-cop from Chicago who had apparently been trying to ban farming in the area since he moved there 20-odd years prior, which as you can imagine didn’t go well in rural Wisconsin. He couldn’t convince the other HOA members to ban farming altogether, but he kept grasping at straws and arguing nonstop until people gave in on minor points just to make him stop.
So, now I can’t sell what I grow there until after I have my house built. I’m attached enough to my land that I’m not willing to sell it and go elsewhere. He’s old enough I doubt he’ll be around much longer, and I’m hoping with the way people feel towards HOA’s, it’ll eventually be possible to get enough votes to change the rules back to where it only covers the shared driveway, or gets dissolved altogether.
That was a long way of saying, keep a close watch on your HOA, to ensure that it STAYS low-key!