Posted on 04/16/2021 5:11:05 AM PDT by NOBO2012
Yesterday’s WSJ had an article on the inherently hellish nature of homeowners’ associations (HOAs). Like so many things, the author notes that HOAs were born of good intentions but eventually move sideways and end up enforcing the reasonable along with the increasingly ridiculous rules with “equal gusto.”
She notes that HOA rules start out reasonable but quickly proliferate into the sublimely foolish. The people who are inclined to establish such rules often have undiagnosed psychological problems with their mother/father and hold extremely strong views on everything. And they believe that everyone else should be required to share their views. All of which explains why the author says she will never again buy a property governed by a HOA.
I would rather just live in a van down by the river, where at least no one tells me what color I can paint my van, what type of tires I need to have, or what size holiday décor I am allowed to hang from the rearview mirror.
She notes that it doesn’t matter what type of HOA is established they all end up in one in circle of Dante’s Inferno or another. She ranks them from Co-op boards, assigned to the ninth circle, to single-family HOA boards which she places in the fourth circle, astutely noting that
Like any humans given power over others, HOA boards inevitably get drunk on the stuff, so HOA rules and fees proliferate like perfectly fertilized weeds.
It’s strange that people easily grasp this inherent human foible when dealing with a microcosm like a HOA but entirely lose the concept when pulling the lever for politicians who are given ten-thousand times that amount of power over them. Odder yet, homeowners would never let people who didn’t live in their co-op/condo/neighborhood vote in the election of their board members but seem quite okay with anybody and everybody voting, sometimes twice, in their national elections.
Posted from: MOTUS A.D.
Often wrong, but never in doubt.
HOA’s, first invented by both Soviet Russia and Communist China, as means of a village government writing their own rules.
This is not acceptable, if an individual is to be sovereign over what house he chooses to acquire, according to the Constitution.
There was an X-Files episode set in a HOA com munity. A monster would come out of the ground and kill those that violated the rules....
As one lawyer who specializes in condominium law once told me: “If you let one homeowner in that HOA fly an Ohio State flag outside his home, you may surrender your authority to stop another one from hanging a Nazi flag.”
I’m in the process of looking for a home right now, and I’ve made an interesting observation: In general I do not want to live in an HOA, but in a couple of particular areas I wouldn’t buy a home WITHOUT one. That’s because many of the non-HOA homes in these areas are shabby, unkept, and make the whole neighborhood downright unappealing even if I live in a beautiful home next door.
My HOA is totally useless.
None of the rules are followed and the neighborhood is going to crap.
I understand what you’re saying, but you also have to let sovereign people form the kind of relationships they want. The Constitution had to do all kinds of hand-waving to allow for the human slavery that was being practiced at the time.
I think people who join HOAs are wimps. They want a collectivist security that is largely unreal and invites the abuses the author alludes to. But, it is their sovereign choice to join such an arrangement.
If you want to fix it, then get a group of responsible owners together and run for the HOA board.
“In general I do not want to live in an HOA, but in a couple of particular areas I wouldn’t buy a home WITHOUT one. That’s because many of the non-HOA homes in these areas are shabby, unkept, and make the whole neighborhood downright unappealing even if I live in a beautiful home next door.”
That says a lot about you that you probably don’t realize. You are willing to bind yourself to arbitrary rules just so others will be bound by them, too. Where I live zoning laws and building codes are barely enforced, and that’s the way we like it. It’s called freedom. Would you call yourself a conservative, just out of curiosity?
Take my advice: do not buy an end-of-group, or any area where your yard cannot be fenced or hedged, but people will want to cut through to get to a street, park, golf course, hiking trail, pond, etc.
A hat tip ... he gets it!!
And, 2 more points for catching the catch 22 of personal soveriegnty!!
I’m old school: “A man’s home is HIS castle,, whether it be the home on the hill, with every military veteran’ touch to resemble a well-guarded firebase, one of the many cookie-cutter Levitttown homes, or grandfather’s aged cabin in the woods, where he spent his last days waiting for the bear to find him.” It is, after all, a reflection of the OWNER, not the neighbor!!
Do it in self-defense. Regard it the same as you would National Guard duty -- you go once a month, and spend a weekend discharging various obligations. You don't get paid; but you can stop them from highjacking everyone with power trips and fee hikes, so there's that.
Uh no. There are lots of HOAs here in rural Maine. People, like me, who live on private roads. These private roads need to be maintained. Oh BOY do they need to be maintained. The officers collect the fees, hire the contractors, even do some of the work. We work together to save money. About the only by-law we have is you can’t run a retail business from your home, which I don’t think is that unreasonable.
Although, to be fair, I did once live in a condo and that was a nightmare.
1. I wouldn't live in an HOA that was subject to "arbitrary rules" like you describe. I have worked professionally on behalf of a property owner in an HOA where the bylaws can only be changed with the approval of at least two-thirds of the owners, and changes in the restrictive covenants on the properties require UNANIMOUS approval of the owners. That sounds like a good arrangement to me.
2. Whether you like it or not, you are bound to rules and regulations no matter where you live in the U.S. They're called laws, and -- get this -- if you don't like them, it's harder to get THEM changed than to change your HOA rules.
3. I wouldn't consider living in a place with an HOA unless I was in an area where the homes are so close together that "freedom" and "nuisance" are indistinguishable if you have the wrong kind of neighbors. I also have a very different view of property ownership at that kind of population density ... where I see a home as basically a place I'm renting even if I "own" it.
4. If you live in a mostly rural area and zoning/building codes are rarely enforced, then that's one thing. I wouldn't want an HOA in that kind of environment. Once you're in an area with a certain population density, though, zoning and building codes are among the main things that distinguish a civilized society from a Third World dump. I work professionally in a field (civil engineering) where zoning and building codes play a major role in my job. If you think zoning and building codes have no place in a free nation, then just wait until the area you live gets over-built to the point where the roads and sanitary sewers are operating over their design capacity, the electrical grid doesn't supply enough power to keep your lights on, and your water supply is severely constrained because your municipal water supply is overburdened or your well is run dry, and you can only use whatever rain falls on your property.
5. I absolutely consider myself a conservative. I probably tend to be more libertarian than most, in fact.
Related to those last two points ...
Don't take this personally because I have no idea if it applies to you, but over the years I've had plenty of conversations here on FR with people who call themselves "conservative" and insist that they love "freedom" -- while posting from a home that is worthless without all the taxpayer-funded utilities that serve it, while driving to work miles away on public roads, and while sending their kids to public schools that only exist because they can push the burden of educating those kids onto their neighbors.
If you share a common wall or any structural elements with your neighbors, it makes all the sense in the world to have those things maintained and regulated by an HOA.
Anyone who wants to join should certainly be able to, but those of us who object would, in an actual free country, be able to object to it and opt out. I can't put a clause in my deed to say that my property can never be sold to blacks or Jews. Why the hell should someone be able to force membership in an HOA?
I appreciate your response. Your item #2 was a tad condescending, but that’s alright. I have lived in an HOA neighborhood. I had a problem just like your item #3. The HOA was absolutely useless in getting it resolved. Currently I live as far away from an HOA as is possible. Personally, I prefer freedom. To each his own, I guess.
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