Posted on 04/03/2006 11:20:58 AM PDT by iPod Shuffle
I was elected to the board in my community by the people in the community, just like any representative government.
HOAs are the perfect lowest-level form of government, providing for the common good and managing the common assets of a community.
The rules are what the people in the community want them to be. If you don't want to live in a place where a majority gets to rule, don't move into a community handled by an HOA. But some of us like they idea that our property rights can extend to the value and enjoyment of our property through the judicious use of rules which bind us all to a social contract.
I happen to think HOAs are necessary because we have lost our sense of community -- and actually they don't work nearly as well. I wish we could just count on our neighbors NOT to park their cars in front of our mailboxes, not to let their dogs run loose, not to let their grass grow to meadow-like proportions, or to allow weeds to overrun our boundaries.
I wish a simple request would keep them from having a party on a school night until 2am with loud music, or common sense would keep them from painting the house hot pink with a purple roof.
But we have lost that sense of community, and so instead we enter into freely-chosen associations where we make laws based on democratic principles. We for example don't let you park a boat in your back yard, but if 2/3rds of the people in the community want boats in back yards they can change the rules.
Some HOAs are like dictatorships, I just hate the broad-brush condemenations of what is in essense government being passed down to the lowest possible level, which in fact is a good conservative principle.
Following your logic, then, a purchaser shouldn't be required to pay the seller the purchase price either. After all, paying the purchase price is a condition of sale.
No one should have to sign their property rights away to a non-owner as a condition of sale.
Until you buy a piece of property, you have no property rights to it. When you buy a piece of property, you buy it subject to whatever conditions the seller places on the deed. You are free not to buy the property if you do not like the conditions.
We got a letter once to "residents" reminding everyone that the trash can had to be stored behind the fence. I think it was aimed at us. We had been called out of town for a funeral (unexpected) and the teenager we hired to take care of the dog just put the trash can up by the garage. Horror of horrors. Strange, no one sent us a sympathy card.
My brother is a member of an HOA and he and his wife have to travel a lot. As a result of not being able to contantly monitor everything about their house and yard, they are always in trouble with their HOA for something or other. This is the wrong color, that is the wrong size, that is too close, this is too far away, cut that, trim this, etc. It never seems to end.
If the car's a gonner, use the trunk as a flower bed.
When anyone asks, call it recycling!
Unfortunately, HOA and convenants and restrictions are a neccessary beast in todays world if you wish to maintain the value of a subdivision. 99.9% do almost nothing and have little or no problems. It's that 0.1% that make life hell for everyone.
Aren't most of the complaints you just listed covered by municipal ordinances? Noise ordinances, health ordinances etc? I don't get the HOA connection. Do you have a police force?
our association isn't as bad as all that...but I do wonder about the homeowners who have to travel.
I have learned that once the HOA got to "know" us, they calmed down.
I added onto my house, and jumping through the HOA hoops was exasperating, but in the long run, all of my efforts paid off.
That wasn't the HOA- to get the neighborhood declared a Historic District, you need to go to the local government. The HOA doesn't have the power over anyone who doesn't voluntarily join the HOA.
The HOA got the neighborhood declared a Historic District, then they went and complained to the zoning board. It's a little different.
Plant Kudzu.
Not the same as HOA. Thats Zoning.
Actually, we don't need a municipality-wide law if we have HOAs. So if you have a group of people who LIKE to party until 2am, you set up a neighborhood, write up an HOA policy allowing it, and everybody who moves in understands the rules.
That's a poor example to be sure, but that is the essence of HOA policy. Allow each neighborhood to tailor to the needs of its people. For example, our HOA allows old-style TV antennas, many of them don't.
at some level you could control things through county-wide laws, but our county is over 300,000 people. But our county is for example trying to ban parking boats on the street (just in half the county though). We can't in an HOA do this, because the streets don't belong to us -- but if we could, each neighborhood could decide for itself, rather than having a majority of people in the county dictate a single rule which restricts people in places where nobody would mind boats.
Amen! I'm a volunteer on my HOA board and it's certainly not for any feeling of power. I donate my time because there are many people (apparently some on this site!) that believe they can do anything: paint their house electric pink, let their dogs run free, park their cars wherever they want, permanently display yard signs showing their affiliations, etc.
For my donated time, I get nothing but grief from people who are so silly that they shouldn't be allowed out without adult supervision.
To all you anti-HOA folks: anytime you get more than a few people together, you better have some rules of behavior. It's been my experience that the rest of us need to be protected from the actions and self-centeredness of about 20% of the people out there (regardless of socio-economic factors) who, if they were any more stupid, would need watering twice a week.
How it happens is fairly immaterial to me, what mattered is that this woman had lost certain rights to her own property through no action or inaction of her own.
I just thought it stunk.
But I'll consider it to be good news if it's a fact that an HOA can't pull the same sort of thing!
yes I do, and that's HIS problem. if I assert the right to solve his problems to my satisfactcion, he automatically gets the right to solve mine to his.
no thanks.
I don't want to live around a bunch of old trucks, plastic swimming pools in the front lawn, flower pots or garbage piled in front of the house, extra fences being put up, cars parked on the lawn, filthy barrel tile roofs, advertising signs on the cars and homes or dog poop on my lawn....all of which we had to send out letters for and fight homeowners over. I also don't give a rats @$$ what you do for a living or any of your other personal business....I could care less. Just keep your place clean and I won't even know your name....don't want to know your name. I'm just glad that you people who think we are all nazi's and who just want power (it's just a hassle and aggravating work!!) to either HELP OUT ON THE BOARD....(and give me a break)...or just go live in them Virgina hills you are used to and happily hang your laundry outside next to your old pickup up on blocks....and stay out of my community. I like living in a nice neat place...and I like the prices we are getting for our lovely homes because of our lower fee and NEAT appearance....
So shut up, help out or get out.
If you're not a member, a HOA can't do anything to you.
Our HOA is pretty good. They collect the checks and pay the lawn, snow shoveling and garbage companies. I live in DC, so I'm in one of the few neighborhoods in the city with a HOA. Our houses go for about $100K more than nearly identical houses across the street that don't have a HOA.
"I would live in a dumpster before I would allow some tinhorn, power crazed, politbureau to have any say over so much as a single blade of grass on my property."
Here Here!!
Well said!
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