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Being forced to sign away property rights as a condition of sale is not voluntary.

So why not make them voluntary?

That would be moronic, and defeat the whole benefit enjoyed by the owner who adopted the restrictions.

When I buy into a HOA, the developer promises me that the neighbors will abide by certain rules.

Why would I want their obedience to be voluntary? That would be meaningless, I I'd be looking at tacky yard gnomes and far worse.

PLEASE, have some sense of freedom, and let those of us with wealth and taste gather together under rules we wish. Let go of your economic resentment, and just let us be in peace.

Leda and I once owned a home on Burt Lake, MI.

The Deed restrictions were, "Each home may be occupied by one white anglo-saxon family, members of the local Protestent Church, with the exception that each family may have one female black servant as chattel in residence."

I assume you have no problem with that?

(Obviously, it was not enforced.)

(And oddly, it could not be removed from the deed.)

Why would I want their obedience to be voluntary? That would be meaningless, I I'd be looking at tacky yard gnomes and far worse.

PLEASE, have some sense of freedom, and let those of us with wealth and taste gather together under rules we wish. Let go of your economic resentment, and just let us be in peace.

I can't begin to respond to this. Thanks for being honest, at least.

PLEASE, have some sense of freedom, and let those of us with wealth and taste gather together under rules we wish. Let go of your economic resentment, and just let us be in peace.

Your "class envy" argument might carry weight if the people in HOAs were defined by having it. Wealth doesn't buy taste. Have you seen the state of the fine arts these days? HOAs are a method of hiring out taste decisions to a committee.

In SoCal, you have a hard time finding a neighborhood newer than 20 years old that DOESN"T have an HOA involved in some way, and I would hardly classify the majority of those as being bastions of anything approaching taste. With the median price being in the high $300,000s, the wealth descriptor becomes problematic, doesn't it?

When we bought, it was a choice to avoid HOAs, because of the numerous associated horror stories from people I know who had been stung by them over incredibly petty reasons. Frankly, we ended up paying more for a similar house because non-HOA houses were in short supply at the time.

Now, I'm in a place where I can operate a woodworking hobby in my garage and my neighbor can grow a truck garden. If either of us is bothered by that, we work it out. We don't trot over to some committee and try to get the other one's pursuits banned by a coalition of uninvolved people from 3 blocks down the way. I like it like that.

"Why would I want their obedience to be voluntary? That would be meaningless, I I'd be looking at tacky yard gnomes and far worse."

You are it appears the sort of person who believes that you can actually own the beach.

Down in Plymouth, Mass. there were some folks who bought beach view property up on a hill a while back, and then natural erosion took away their yard and threatened their actual home.

Naturally they called for me and other taxpayers to help solve their problems because the beach decided to take over their private property.

I think that gnomes and such are quite tacky, and I despise the fact that my neighbor has them in his yard. I also hate the traffic. I'll move in time, but meanwhile, I respect the rights of people to be ignorant, stupid, and happy, as long as they stay out of my yard.

Someday I'll buy a yard big enough to keep their bad taste from my line of sight.

Meanwhile, it is live and let live.