You can complain but they won't do anything about it more often than not. You need small local government to care about those things. I live in a country without HOAs and it's a nightmare. Everyone does how they pleases: noise, polluting junk cars, garbage in common areas, illegal parking on pedestrian paths etc.
I am lucky enough to be able to afford a large land area to put my future home on and fence the rest. If I ever wanted to allow others to build their houses there I would certainly want a set of rules - that is HOA.
You only hear the horror stories. My HOA is very reasonable and just wants to make sure no one doing anything stupid. They don’t even enforce their own bylaws in most cases or fine people. People outside the US have HOAs they are just called something different in apartments/condos or even when the local city runs things.
Not sure why people complain about HOAs when they bought the house knowing full well what they were in for. I had to agree to the HOA rules well before I bought the house.
People choose to live in HOA neighborhoods. Those people running the HOA are normal homeowners, usually like minded. So to bitch and moan about HOAs is like moving somewhere people think differently than you and being mad you have to follow their rules. I prefer to avoid that myself, so I don't live in and HOA neighborhood.
This has nothing to do with the law and every to do with the HOA that the people in this article from 2009 willing joined when they bought their home.
I know it's fun to hate on the USA at every given opportunity but this is less some systemic issue with the US and more a squabble between a few individuals who are violating a contract they chose to sign, and their neighbors who also signed said contract because they wanted to live in a place without laundry flapping about.
The US doesn’t have national rules on these things. Bring a federal system, the rules are mostly decentralized at the state, county, town, and neighborhood level.
Neighborhood are often managed by a Home Owners Association (HOA). So, not codified laws, just a contract/rules you sign when you buy/rent in that area.
Outside an HOA (typically older or rural homes), you can often do what you want.
Inside an HOA (most suburban development since the 70s), you get rules that span from reasonable to crazy, but as a resident you know the rules up front.
Towns can have some of these rules too, but the detailed “don’t do X” that make the news are almost always HOA things.
In the primary example in the article, it sounds like there isn’t a rule, just neighbors complaining. The women correctly told them to piss off.
It sounds similar to what's known as an Home Owner Associations in the US. It seems very widespread on the internet for people to complain about HOAs. There's the superficial hatred, and then there's people who will tell you about the history and who seem to have deeper reasons for their dislike.
Here in the US you have lots of non-HOA options. Even in the areas with lots of HOA options you can read the rules beforehand and choose the HOA ruleset you prefer.
Myself I don't like any of the HOA rulesets so I avoid them It's never been a hindrance to me. It's largely not a fallacy of choice here.
HOAs are different, and not trying to protect any historical anything.
They are literally a bunch of assholes that bunch together and patrol the streets to annoy people because they believe bullying others will keep their own property values high.
Huh. Some variation of this house exists on any given block in my city except maybe the neighborhoods where the prices are well over $2 million. No HOAs. I guess my threshold for “annoying neighbor” is a bit different from yours.
I've heard about HOAs, and I think you're probably right. There's no such thing over here, and if there was, people just wouldn't listen. I'm regularly amazed people in the US put up with them whenever I heard about them. What would happen if you ignored them? As long as you aren't renting, you can't be kicked out; do they just give a UN-style "Please stop or we will have to give you a disapproving note"?
They don’t even enforce their own bylaws in most cases
Ah, selective enforcement. We know why that's a bad idea when the cops do it, but when the HOA does it it's all good.
Not sure why people complain about HOAs when they bought the house knowing full well what they were in for.
HOA's are like Wikipedia admins, perhaps well-meaning, definitely with an agenda, and 100 % unaware of best practice. Back then, we had civil servants upholding city code. Nowadays we have HOA's where they won't hesitate to fine you for the wrong shade of paint and will do jack shit about the neighbour who breeds mosquitoes in his flowerpot dishes. (For those who don't know, standing water rich in organic materials is mosquito paradise.)
HOAs hate is a fascinating topic to me. Not because I care/don't care about HOAs themselves, but because it really shows how loud a vocal minority can be.
The usual narrative is the evil HOA trustees who enforce their selfish greedy wants on everyone else and rule with an iron fist. The reality though is that in most HOAs, they have very little discretionary power beyond what's in the bylaws. What's in the bylaws is agreed upon by the owners. If "everyone hates being told what to do", it's pretty simple to get the rules changed or to vote out the trustees. But it doesn't happen. Why?
Generally one of three things
A) The inhabitants aren't the owners and thus can't change the rules. Ok, fair enough if that's the situation, that's going to suck.
B) People hate the rules, but they don't hate them ENOUGH to go through the trouble of changing them, and some people who likes the rules are enforcing them. IMO ignoring rules you don't like shouldn't be an option (and is why we have so many bad laws at all levels of governments. If everyone who hates them got together to change them, not even the super rich could prevent it from happening).
C) The most common one from my experience: turns out a whole lot of people actually agree with the rules. All the talk of freedom, but that includes the right of consenting adults to come into a legal agreement about...stuff. As long as nothing they agree on is illegal to put in your contract, why shouldn't they be allowed? If a bunch of people want to sign an agreement to reach a global maximum instead of a bunch of local maxima that make everyone miserable, why not?
Turns out not everyone is cool with the "I do whatever I want and you do whatever you want", and "let's get together and make a compromise so we can both be a little happier" is actually fairly popular too. And thus HOAs are a thing.
But I hear the reply already: "In X area everything's governed by HOAs! We have no choice!". Well, either change the rules (after all, if they're THAT damn, it shouldn't be too hard to get enough votes to get them changed), or buy elsewhere. We're talking about buying here, so it implies a certain level of privilege, after all.
That's just grumpy old man syndrome. My dad had it. My neighbor has it too - our neighborhood doesn't have an HOA, but he still loves to do all sorts of goofy stuff, including put traffic cones on the street parking infront of his house.
I guess the problem with HOAs is they empower these sorts of people with authority.
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