The heck, you sure you didn't move to PA and be my neighbor across the road? That describes it almost to a "T"
Post your HOA horror stories here
- Thread starter Donald
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The heck, you sure you didn't move to PA and be my neighbor across the road? That describes it almost to a "T"
Generally, but by no means absolute, the HOA are the residents.
Meaning in many many cases board members don’t go driving around neighborhoods looking for violations.
Though they could just like any resident can.
It would typically be a neighbor or someone from the community complaining to the management company about a situation at your home.
The management company will send you a letter as a warning to correct the situation and if it’s not, at that point in time, fines will start to accrue against you and ultimately the property if they are not paid.
So yeah, if people don’t care or don’t care to complain you’ll be fine.
Yes all situations can be different. We bought from the biggest builder in America but a developer is the one who developed the land put in the sewers and put in the roads. DR Horton.
It really depends on who has the property that the builder wants.
While I cannot use power lawn equipment until after 7 AM, my dog can bark for 9 minutes at any hour on any day and I am not breaking any laws. Over 10 minutes and I am.
The HOA board has almost no takers when they look for people to volunteer.
The biggest issue where I live is rain water and drainage. Each lot probably 20 years ago had a slight swale in the front yard maybe 5 feet from the road. With 8" pipes running under the driveway connecting the swales. And there was a grate near the storm retention pond for the water to run into.
Now some homes no longer have a swale, the 8" pipes running under driveways now clogged or crushed from being run over. If your neighbor on the way to the storm retention pond grades his yard and swale a little higher than yours, you are screwed, no place for the water to go in your swale. My house is one of the new houses with a working swale as I am next to the storm retention pond.
AZjeff
$50 Site Donor 2023
I agree but what happens if it is a run down old Winnie on flat tires? Who gets to decide what's acceptable if there's not a rule of some kind?
Wait, didn't you terrorize a neighbor with your drag car for weeks and enlist your friends to join in because he complained about it? Maybe you could have told him it was operational and street legal and he could stop worrying about it instead of all that?
How would this ^ work out in your neighborhood? Serious question.
@R4W You have a beautiful property and obviously you wouldn't have a problem in an HOA situation if the rules were acceptable to you. Good luck getting the 3 acres, having your own range is awesome. We could shoot on the 5 acre property.
I'd have a different opinion if this HOA was doing the things people have posted but they're not. It could be a person's age affects how they view HOAs and town vs country living as well. When we were first married we first had a single wide on 1 acre and no money. It wasn't fancy but it was well kept. I put in the septic and dealt with pulling a well pump that quit in the middle of winter because we had no money to have a well guy come fix it. Next was 5 acres and a fixer farm house. More septic problems and a spring that would go low. Both on dirt roads. Next 3 houses were fixers but in town with water, sewer, and paved roads. When the time came to move to this town for wife's promotion we could have bought an existing house in an older neighborhood, an existing house in an HOA, or a new house in an HOA in 8 months, all for about the same money. We went with the new house in HOA and haven't regretted it for a minute. I no longer work and wife retires in July. No desire to deal with well or septic things or neighbors with cars in the yard or hoarder properties and a paved road is a must and I don't need acres to take care of. We have good neighbors beside us and the psycho barking dog guy behind us moved. Not being allowed to have a flagpole higher than the peak of the roof doesn't matter and I've never wanted to cook in the front of the house. Things could always change for the worse but right now pretty good.
@Donald, it doesn't seem unreasonable to not want to be wakened at dawn by a howling dog. Hope you figure out what he's unhappy about quickly. Do you crate him in the garage because when he howls in the house he wakes you up?
The heck, you sure you didn't move to PA and be my neighbor across the road? That describes it almost to a "T"
In Oswego county, NY you have to have one derelict vehicle or you'll face fines. I passed one house a few weeks ago with both a 3rd gen Camaro and an early 00's Caravan --- both on blocks. That's like royalty here!
But if I were to move to PA , it would be Northumberland County so I could be near the offroad parks
HOAs are generally bored OCD control freak Karens with too much time on their hands, who want to manage everyone's lives to ensure their little worlds are "perfect" with manicured lawns and identical looking houses, cars, trees, etc. Soul-less communities where everyone has pasted smiles but are secretly drug addicted alcoholics with broken empty little lives, overly worried about their "home-equity values." I've lived in them, been the VP of a HOA board, and I generally hate them unless they are extremely behind the scenes and do very little other than common area upkeep...
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You hit this one spot on!
It's like the real life Stepford Wives. Communities of mindless robots who can't think for themselves and are afraid of their own shadows. To me they're just huge apartment complexes.
Thus furthering the stereotype that all subdivisions are look-alike faceless boxes, devoid of character. Apartments with a front lawn.
Most commonly, the developer and the builder and one and the same. In your case, perhaps D.R. Horton offered lots available to various builders to build spec homes or semi-custom homes on. But that is a much less common approach; usually the big national builders like Horton, Pulte Homes, MI Homes, K. Hovnanian, etc are both builder and developer.
Which contributes to affordability. "Character" is expensive to build new and I've had the pleasure of living in both. My stepfather used to quip that the brick facades on the 1-sided brick homes looked like they could just fall off.
LOL You're not supposed to notice the regular siding on the other three sides!
Unless this is a private road, this would be a county issue, you could call them.
This seems to be every house built after a certain year.
No, a separate owner (development company) owned the lots and sold "Phase 1, 2, 3, 4 ect) separately. DR Horton bought the first 2 phases but then the developer jacked up the price on the next two phases so DR Horton backed out. DR HORTON would have had to sue to get the developer to adhere to their contract but just walked away as it was the start of the housing decline.
I have intimate accurate knowledge of this as I was indirectly involved, being one of the first purchasers/owners in the community with the management company, with the builder and with DR Horton along with some other involved owners.
This isnt that uncommon, builders come in pretty much risk free, they try out a couple phases and if things go well they buy more.
There is another huge community (nice also) and was developed the same way with multiple builders some years before one of them also DR Horton. WIth all I am saying, I am just talking this tiny what used to be rural area in our little state of South Carolina. This was by no means some mega giant Community being developed and not disputing what you are saying.
Your certainly wrong on this. HOA boards are the homeowners in the community and elected every year for some positions and every two for other positions. These are unpaid positions.You hit this one spot on!
Mindless robots no one is, people who live in the nicest of communities they are. To me mindless are the laughable comments from others stereotyping people they do not know. That is laughable at best and if you think about it, mindless and uninformed.
I always thought that was just Wayne county, lol!In Oswego county, NY you have to have one derelict vehicle or you'll face fines. I passed one house a few weeks ago with both a 3rd gen Camaro and an early 00's Caravan --- both on blocks. That's like royalty here!
But if I were to move to PA , it would be Northumberland County so I could be near the offroad parks
There are 2 people around here that universally hated by everyone. They are both developers and both own housing construction companies that contract with each other. Under the previous county administration, both of these developers were appointed to the county planning commission. Also on the planning commission was a realtor and real estate lawyer. Combined, they held a 4-3 majority on the county commission. They could literally create and approve their own building permits while the councilmen who appointed them granted them tax breaks, all the while increasing property taxes. To say people were livid would be an understatement.
In November 2020, 4 out of 5 county councilmen lost the election, including the county chairman. New, anti-development, councilmen were elected in, kicked the developers and lawyers off the planning board, and went right to work changing the laws to prevent that mess from happening again.
Under the new changes approved in May 2020, any new development must have 3 public hearings on the matter beforehand and must announce the hearing to the public a minimum of 15 days prior to the hearing with the hearings being a minimum of 30 days apart. New permits have a mandatory 90 day hold period. New lots must be a minimum of 0.5 acre and builders are physically responsible and financially liable for construction of infrastructure to the new homes. Not tax breaks. A grandfather clause was added to protect existing property owners from certain disputes over pre-existing conditions. The new house construction permit price was increased from $500 per home to $1,200 per home. New construction homes can now be subject to random audit by county approved inspectors.
