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.
HOA's really aren't that evil. Here's the benefit: You know those neighborhoods where every home has a truck on bricks out front? Where you're trying to sell your home but the guy to the left and right of you have let their garden go? HOA's solve those issues.
We live in an HOA and the people are super chill - we're busy working to build a nature walk through a communal area.
Yeah they can get a little gossipy and there are as many horror stories as there are bad neighborhoods in the country, but in most cases they actually help, especially for lower income neighborhoods. My in-laws live in a more rural area with an HOA and while they're always complaining about the gossipy nature of it, the alternative is clear: A few blocks outside the HOA some guy has turned his front-yard into an actual motorcross track and tears it up on weekends with dirt bikes.
Somehow you have convinced yourself that everybody has to deal with an HOA (and that all of them are nightmares). I own two houses and neither have an HOA. When I was house shopping a couple years ago, I think maybe 1 in 5 that we looked at had an HOA.
Sadly HOAs are mostly powerless in these situations. They can send angry letters to the homeowners and even threaten them with leins against their house, but actually getting those liens is a time consuming and expensive process so they usually won't actually do it. Plus they aren't a penalty to someone who is never planning to sell the property. They'll leave when they die or when the bank forecloses on them.
HOAs only have power of people who actually care about being a good neighbor. They're basically only useful for harassing honest people and maintaining shared spaces. You only need a HOA if your community has a pool/park/community center/parking lot that is owned by said community.
HOAs are part of having freedom over your land. Why shouldn't I be able to team up with my neighbors to set standards for our community? The crazy part is choosing to buy a home that's part of an HOA. That's always been an instant dq for me and I would never consider entering into such a restricting arrangement.
I have a problem with HOA's. They're almost always run by the worst kind of people that you don't want to be around. They're almost always evil to the core and extend their powers beyond reason. I will never buy a house with a HOA.
There are countless stories on how they do more harm than good. I have so much disdain for them, I cannot express. Fuck HOAs.
The thing is, HOAs tend to have little to no power over people like that. They simply don't give a shit. They will ignore every letter the HOA sends and are will refuse to comply with court orders. And those court orders take years to and a not inconsiderable amount of expense to obtain in the first place.
IMHO, the only reason to have a HOA is to pool money for common area maintenance. Anything beyond that tends to do more harm than good.
My old HOA was $20/month in SoCal and got me access to the community pool with well maintained lawn around it. The HOA was basically powerless otherwise. We tried to use it to stop an old, reclusive guy from feeding crows and releasing his pigeons(literally blanketing the surrounding backyards with bird shit), but they couldn't do anything.
HOAs vary quite a bit. The older I get, the more I want to live in a strict HOA community though. I want the stability and improved neighbor relations(the HOA is the bad guy, not me, when the neighbor stops maintaining their property).
I understand why people don't like HOAs. Yes they were born out of racism. I don't think that invalidates the concept.
I've never understood this. I live in an older neighborhood which was built long before HOAs existed. Actually I have never lived in a neighborhood with an HOA, and I'm over 60. I've never seen any of the evils that those folks worry about.
You either own something, or you don't. If you actually do own something, you shouldn't owe anything to anyone. No dues, no rules, no crap. It's your goddamn property, it's your rules. You decide what fence you put, what flowers you put, and what color car you have, and where you park your car on your property. Those idiots who think they have power over your property can get lost.
I'm with you. Read way too many horror stories that I didn't want to deal with it. I'm in the US and when we were looking for a new house a few years ago, one of the hard requirements was no HOA. We compromised on other factors, but not on the HOA!
I think the whole concept of having HOAs in many neighborhoods is a very regional thing. I live in upstate NY and pretty much every single-family homes neighborhood around me does not have an HOA. The only neighborhoods which have HOAs are those with large numbers of multi-family homes, like townhomes.
In some ways it's nice to not have an HOA, no one bugs me if my lawn is looking sad. But in other ways it would be nice to have a unified group to take care of some neighborhood things, like unifying garbage pickup since we have private garbage companies here: there's probably 6 different companies who service my neighborhood on all 5 days of the week, it would be nice if we all just had 1 and probably we could all save some money this way too.
HOAs are also democratic and owned by their members - yet I hear 10 people complaining about their HOA for every person I hear speaking out in support of them.
I'm sure there are extremely strict HOAs out there with insane people on boards that horror stories originate from.
We've always lived in HOA homes (in our 4th now) and they have all been very laid back.
This kind of HOA I belong to is basically the "anti-hillbilly" HOA. You aren't allowed to own 50 cats and dogs free roaming and crapping everywhere, don't leave your rusted out broken down beater in the front lawn, don't let your lawn go to 4 foot weeds (but by all means grow some 6ft tomato plants), your backyard is not your personal firing range, you aren't allowed to have a personal dump of trash that you clear every 6 months, etc.
Our HOA does are for snow/ice services, long term repairs on our private road, and the front entrance maintenance.
Every house is very distinct, some I don't prefer the styling/color, but I enjoy the diversity way better than a cookie cutter subdivision.
Soul crushing to me are people who don't take care of their property and enjoy living in neglect (which plenty of people out there manage just fine without an HOA, I just dont want to roll the dice)
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.
HOAs are just pure evil. I don't understand how anybody would voluntarily subject themselves to being terrorized by them. I'm currently renting a house in one and I promised myself to never buy anything in one.
HOAs are becoming ubiquitous. In my area, nearly every home built in the past 20 years is under a HOA, and of course there are older HOAs too. They're generally created by the home builder, not the home buyer.
When I was buying a house, I didn't want an HOA. I hate them. But the options were extremely limited, and it was a seller's market.
I think local governments like HOAs because they pay to maintain certain common areas, so the cities don't have to spend tax money on that. Also, local politicians are all on the take with... surprise, surprise... the home builders.
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.
While that's true that many (and perhaps most!) HOAs are awful, that isn't categorically true for all of them.
I live in a neighborhood with an HOA. Its purpose is primarily to act as a collective for bargaining with the city government. It also negotiated a sweet deal with the local waste disposal services - they're covered by the HOA dues, which are lower than what my parents pay a mile or so away. It sends out quarterly newsletters about local events and has yearly meetings and elections for its handful of officers.
I was hesitant to buy into this neighborhood when I first learned there was an HOA, but the bylaws don't prevent me from doing anything with my property that the city ordinances don't already prohibit. I've never received any complaints from my HOA, nor have any of my neighbors to my knowledge.
tl;dr: not all HOAs are bad, but it's always a good idea to check their bylaws before committing to a residence that has one.
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.
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