Fighting HOA - anyone have any luck?

[DoubleWasp]

Some people prefer to trade freedom for "security".

You would have to be more familiar with the "I'm calling the police because it's 10 AM and my neighbor still hasn't taken in their newspaper" crowd to understand why people love HOAs.

There are also still holdouts from the Old Guard who fondly remember when HOAs kept out those who didn't look enough like them.

 

[Donald]

The HOA for my community (about 20 houses) is very different. No company. Just a few board members who deal with the people who cut grass, roads or ponds. Very low key. If you do not cut your grass for a few months they will hire someone to cut it. That's about it.

 

[Dave Hess]

My brother has a $1M house and someone in his HOA reported him for working on his car (adding washer fluid).

There's an old lady driving around in a golf cart with a clipboard writing up residents for silly things.

 

[pandus13]

Originally Posted by Mr Nice
My brother has a $1M house and someone in his HOA reported him for working on his car (adding washer fluid).

There's an old lady driving around in a golf cart with a clipboard writing up residents for silly things.

Hmm, I would get sneaky with the HOA:
-1.Was handling a car Safety issue (NHTSA is a federal agency > HOA); no washer fluid, no windshield visibility. Cause of visibility issues: all the dust raised by said lady golf cart.
-2A Change the lock to her golf cart enclosure?
-2B Restraining order against said lady because she is harassing kids/MR Nice's brother, etc.

 

[Dave Hess]

Someone had pebbles added near the entrance of their house... but HOA said the pebbles were too dark and not allowed.

Lots of silly rules and regulations.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Condo living:all the hassles of a house, PLUS all the inconveniences of an apartment...plus a nightmare HOA! All this can be yours!

 

[aquariuscsm]

Originally Posted by Mr Nice
My brother has a $1M house and someone in his HOA reported him for working on his car (adding washer fluid).

There's an old lady driving around in a golf cart with a clipboard writing up residents for silly things.


She sounds like the neighborhood Gladys Kravitz!

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703
Originally Posted by alarmguy
I wouldnt buy a house in a community without an HOA, it was a MUST have when we relocated to this state.

Communities here with strong HOAs are well kept and homes have higher resale values, typically these communities also have pools, playground ect. People just need to get involved and to read their documents. )



They are also

https://www.rareddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/6oz2km/hoa_please_help/



Links like this are just plain silly. Reading a strangers words in a forum and even more so the stranger didnt read the HOA rules ...
You can find this stuff for any subject on planet earth. When people have an issue with an HOA, there is a reason and the other post in here about filling windshield wiper fluid, yeah, ok, right )

Either way, when you buy something, know what you are buying and dont whine about it if you didnt read what you sign. More so when making a MAJOR purchase. Come on already. )

 

[Dave Hess]

What else do nosey old ladies in golf carts do with all their free time ?

Go to beauty salon and get their hair dyed purple.... ?

Yes, some HOA s are worse than the folks on the other side of the 'Berlin Wall'

 

[Rmay635703]

Originally Posted by alarmguy

Either way, when you buy something, know what you are buying and dont whine about it if you didnt read what you sign. More so when making a MAJOR purchase. Come on already. )


90% of HOA rules are subjective and non-binding

This in of itself makes an HOA a very questionable venture,

Further, most HOA rules are stupid and irrelevant, if your gone on vacation a week you shouldn't be mandated to do anything, a visual blemish should have nothing to do with repoing your home. The emphasis on property values has gone to ignorant levels and around here values go up and down 20-30% a year depending on local hiring rates. The beauty of the area has much less to do with steady home values unless you live on a lake but even those boom bust.
To be honest LOW property values with slow inflation is generally good for everyone but the bank, (the way things were up through the early 40's)
the trouble is we've been taught to scoop up everything we can afford to rip off people until we are out wining because prices callapsed again.

Our great grandparents had respect for other people's right to do with their property as they will.
We should still have that concept instilled
to mind your own business and everyone would likely be better off.

Given this my stance has been Hoas need to either be banned or have a list dictated at the federal level of 10 things they can make rules on removing vague or subjective from the list of possible offenses .

Certain daily activities need to be protected and off limits to hoa rules, if the hoa interferes with daily life that is a good indication that what they are doing is wrong plain and simple.

And no you shouldn't be required to abide by HOA rules that are wrong, they should not have been allowed to mandate it in the first place

 

[RDY4WAR]

This kind of stuff is precisely why I refuse to live in an HOA.

 

[opus1]

Originally Posted by Mr Nice
My brother has a $1M house and someone in his HOA reported him for working on his car (adding washer fluid).

There's an old lady driving around in a golf cart with a clipboard writing up residents for silly things.


Reminds me of when I lived in a townhouse and the male version of Mrs. Kravitz stopped by to tell me that I was breaking the rules by changing the serpentine belt on my truck. I told him that since I helped write the rules, I knew I was not violating any of them but if he wanted to be sure he could use my phone to call the management company. He didn't want to take me up on that for some reason, and I never did get a nasty-gram from the HOA so that was that.

To the OP's question, yes, but the HOA was clearly in the wrong in my case. The neighbor in the next unit put a satellite dish on the roof and the HOA was threatening to fine me if I didn't take it down. Their complaint against me was finally dropped when I embarrassed the property manager at a board meeting - he insisted that there was a dish on the roof above unit #2 and I said that may be the case but I'm in unit #3 so how is that my problem to fix?

 

[pandus13]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703
...
Our great grandparents had respect for other people's right to do with their property as they will.
We should still have that concept instilled
to mind your own business and everyone would likely be better off.
...

In our building a teenager played a prank one day: he disconnected (the manual pull) the garage doors randomly. When I went in in the morning, they where at least 2-3 that tried to manually lift a double garage heavy door. 10-16 cars didn't leave the garages that day (building engineer in vacation). I just show two how to connect the pull back.

Those where the same people that complained about my kids playing outside (from my patio).

And the same people why I bought a short-sale because they put themself in a corner in 2008-2009 cutting corners on a building maintenance to cut costs.....
All the families that moved in renovated the original '70s-80s-90s finishes and plan to stay...

But what I am surprised as a glass-wearing, library mouse/geek I am, is how from the "Great generation" of people who knew how to do and fix lots of stuff we end up with Boomers and GenX+Yrs (in my building) that pretty much don't know how to do anything if the power goes out....

 

[MCompact]

One of my friends lived in a subdivision with an HOA; at Christmas some local teens went to the houses with light-up reindeer displays and "rearranged" them so it looked liked the reindeer were mating. There was no physical damage to any of the displays. My friend received a blizzard of emails from the HOA informing him that the HOA had contacted the police and that the HOA was intent on finding the culprits. My friend said from the tenor of the emails you would have thought a murder or armed robbery had been committed instead of a harmless prank.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted by MCompact
One of my friends lived in a subdivision with an HOA; at Christmas some local teens went to the houses with light-up reindeer displays and "rearranged" them so it looked liked the reindeer were mating. There was no physical damage to any of the displays. My friend received a blizzard of emails from the HOA informing him that the HOA had contacted the police and that the HOA was intent on finding the culprits. My friend said from the tenor of the emails you would have thought a murder or armed robbery had been committed instead of a harmless prank.

So... you going to do that again this year? Err, I mean, wait to see if it happens again... Not that you'd ever do that...

 

[pandus13]

Originally Posted by supton
Originally Posted by MCompact
One of my friends lived in a subdivision with an HOA; at Christmas some local teens went to the houses with light-up reindeer displays and "rearranged" them so it looked liked the reindeer were mating. There was no physical damage to any of the displays. My friend received a blizzard of emails from the HOA informing him that the HOA had contacted the police and that the HOA was intent on finding the culprits. My friend said from the tenor of the emails you would have thought a murder or armed robbery had been committed instead of a harmless prank.

So... you going to do that again this year? Err, I mean, wait to see if it happens again... Not that you'd ever do that...

Halloween WWE Edition: Rudolf takes on the Witches....
Don't drink and fly....

Meanwhile, the same complaining people blow a STOP sign by my house and speed by a stopped/RED light blinking/STOP sign deployed school bus....
I'm thinking about raising the height of my backyard fence....

 

[dlundblad]

Originally Posted by supton
Originally Posted by MCompact
One of my friends lived in a subdivision with an HOA; at Christmas some local teens went to the houses with light-up reindeer displays and "rearranged" them so it looked liked the reindeer were mating. There was no physical damage to any of the displays. My friend received a blizzard of emails from the HOA informing him that the HOA had contacted the police and that the HOA was intent on finding the culprits. My friend said from the tenor of the emails you would have thought a murder or armed robbery had been committed instead of a harmless prank.

So... you going to do that again this year? Err, I mean, wait to see if it happens again... Not that you'd ever do that...


Meanwhile, it's probably against HOA rules to paintball the rear ends of the teens if they're caught in the act.

 

[DoubleWasp]

Originally Posted by MCompact
One of my friends lived in a subdivision with an HOA; at Christmas some local teens went to the houses with light-up reindeer displays and "rearranged" them so it looked liked the reindeer were mating. There was no physical damage to any of the displays. My friend received a blizzard of emails from the HOA informing him that the HOA had contacted the police and that the HOA was intent on finding the culprits. My friend said from the tenor of the emails you would have thought a murder or armed robbery had been committed instead of a harmless prank.


They're never going to realize that the only reason the teens did that is because the HOA is so hilariously sensitive in the first place.

 

[aquariuscsm]

I honestly see no difference from living in an apartment complex and an hoa neighborhood. Why not just rent an apartment??

 

[alarmguy]

Originally Posted by Rmay635703
Originally Posted by alarmguy

Either way, when you buy something, know what you are buying and dont whine about it if you didnt read what you sign. More so when making a MAJOR purchase. Come on already. )


90% of HOA rules are subjective and non-binding

This in of itself makes an HOA a very questionable venture,

Further, most HOA rules are stupid and irrelevant, if your gone on vacation a week you shouldn't be mandated to do anything, a visual blemish should have nothing to do with repoing your home. The emphasis on property values has gone to ignorant levels and around here values go up and down 20-30% a year depending on local hiring rates. The beauty of the area has much less to do with steady home values unless you live on a lake but even those boom bust.
To be honest LOW property values with slow inflation is generally good for everyone but the bank, (the way things were up through the early 40's)
the trouble is we've been taught to scoop up everything we can afford to rip off people until we are out wining because prices callapsed again.

Our great grandparents had respect for other people's right to do with their property as they will.
We should still have that concept instilled
to mind your own business and everyone would likely be better off.

Given this my stance has been Hoas need to either be banned or have a list dictated at the federal level of 10 things they can make rules on removing vague or subjective from the list of possible offenses .

Certain daily activities need to be protected and off limits to hoa rules, if the hoa interferes with daily life that is a good indication that what they are doing is wrong plain and simple.

And no you shouldn't be required to abide by HOA rules that are wrong, they should not have been allowed to mandate it in the first place


Your entire post is completely wrong.
The HOA has every right to control everything that goes on in your community. Period. It is 100% "binding" and if you dont follow the rules you will be fined, if you dont pay the fine, the HOA will file a lien on your home. An HOA can even foreclose on your home and you gave permission for all of this the day you bought a home controlled by an HOA

I highlighted this because people read words like yours and take an HOA document lightly, its anything but. Its a rock solid BINDING document detailing the rules that must be followed to live in the community.

RIGHT UP FRONT before you purchase anything you are presented with the documents and rules, including the fact that the rules can change at anytime and you will be bound by them.

If you dont like it, then stay away from HOA communities.
The HOA is a democracy, run by the board who the community elects, it maintains the value of homes and no higher end community with good resale values is without one.
I wouldnt live in community without one.