” to a self righteous group of managers “
Aren’t those managers voted in?
.
They are voted in, but they are normally the only people willing to do the job. When someone takes the job and lets his inner Nazi out, it can be ugly. We had a committee (of three) go rogue several years ago, and I had to run in the first competitive HOA election we had run. I won, barely, even after it was clearly a choice between the strictest possible interpretation of HOA terms (14 cases that went to a lawyer in the two previous years) and a lenient interpretation.
Once I won, there were zero cases that went to a lawyer. The guy who broke both legs and didn't take his Christmas lights down in time? No lawyer. The guy who changed the color of his shutters (different shade of dark green) without approval from the diagonal neighbor? Again, no lawyer. Still no trash in the yards, but a lot less nonsense over controlling each other.