9 Examples Why You May Want To Avoid Homeowners Associations Like The Plague

[douglas9]

We watch a lot of real estate shows here at Consumerist HQ, especially the many variations on the "show three places and pretend to pick the one that you're already in escrow on." And while home buyers always remember to ask, "Are there HOA fees?", they don't ask the more important questions, like "Why in the world am I buying a place with an HOA?"

This is because homeowners associations, while often well-intentioned, can tend to be directed by a small group of homeowners with an obsessive need for uniformity and a dislike for dissent.

Sadly, those homeowners who don't throw a fit when their neighbors paint their shutters robin's egg blue instead of cornflower are also likely to be the last ones to vie for control of an HOA.

Thus, you end up with the following examples/reasons of why you may want to think twice, and probably thrice, before buying a home within the dominion of an HOA:

http://consumerist.com/2012/05/9-examples-why-you-should-avoid-homeowners-associations-like-the-plague.html

[RiffRandell]

1. Where I live you don't really have a choice.

Subdivision Hell.

[geardaddy]

2. We live in a condo

Our HOA is better than most, but it's still awful.

[phantom power]

3. HOA committees are a magnet for busybodies and control freaks

In fact, based on stories my in-laws tell me they attract your garden variety neighboorhood non-violent sociopaths too.

[RiffRandell]

4. I had a friend who was on our HOA committee.

All she fucking did was complain to me about why I don't complain about a car in a driveway about 8 houses down from me that had a flat tire for a couple weeks, amongst 10 million other things. I killed the friendship because she's a racist wingnut, but drove by her house the other day to another friend's house. Guess what? Her yard looks like shit and her garbage can was in her driveway a few days after the truck came. Violation!

[RobinA]

5. So In Other Words

Since I am the person who give a rat's *** if somebody paints robin's egg blue or cornflower orange, if I'm ever in the situation I should definitely run for the homeowners association.

[gratuitous]

6. At the very least, know what you're getting into

I worked for a law firm that specialized in HOAs and AUOs, and the number of people living in those places who had no idea what they were getting into was staggering. I didn't know jack-shit about them, either, before I started working there, and I'd probably not ever live in a development with an HOA or in a condo association.

But it's those uniform-looking places that attract people in the first place. "Oh look! All the yards are so well kept, there are no junker cars sitting at the curbs, and all the houses look so nicely maintained. Oh honey, let's move in here!" That "look" comes at a price, and part of that price is the homeowners' association or the association of unit owners. The problem with lax enforcement of the rules is that pretty soon, everyone's doing their own thing, and the uniform look of the development that everyone found so desireable is lost. So, most associations are real sticklers for compliance, and folks who bought in without clearly understanding that are in for a lifetime of trouble.

There are pros and cons to living anywhere.

[Baitball Blogger]

20. It doesn't help in my area because most lawyers who the Association hired

were either incompetent or crooked.

[jp11]

7. I thought if you knew what a HOA was you'd know to avoid them at all costs if possible.

The simple fact that a group of people you live near want to make up rules about the house you 'own' is like something out of a bad movie.

The last thing I want is to empower a bunch of strangers to gang up on me over what they think looks better.

[WCGreen]

8. they tried to get us into the Home Owners Association.....

We had the "sign" in our front yard...

But since we could give a rats ass about how green our grass was, they took the sign out of front yard.

Neighbors can be fun but for the most part, especially deep in the bosom of suburbia, not so much..

It's funny, all those times an Ambulance has pulled into our driveway and the preacher next door never once stopped over to see what was the matter...

[one_voice]

9. Our homeowners association...

is pretty relaxed. We pay dues for plowing in the winter. Residents usually volunteer to keep up the front entrance--landscaping and such. We have a summer/fall yard sale, Halloween parade for the little ones, a Christmas lights/decoration contest and someone usually dresses up as Santa for the little ones.

We have no deed restrictions. Pretty much, we all just like the neighborhood to look nice. My family moved here when I was 14. When it came time to buy a house this is where I chose, I'm almost 45 now. Many of the original owners are still here. It's a very nice place. Perfect if you're raising kids or you're retired.

My sister bought in one of those neighborhoods where they tell you what kind of landscaping, fencing, pool, shutters etc you can and cannot have. Screw that, I'm paying for my house no one is gonna tell me I can't have a clothes line.

I'd never buy in one of the newer neighborhoods. Next time I move, it'll be in a urn.

[TrogL]

10. I was president of a condo board - surprisingly I've kept most of my sanity

One board member successfully rammed through a motion banning kids from playing with any sort of ball, including nerf balls and beach balls. He was afraid the board would be unable to make the distinction between a kid playing with jacks (requires a ball) in his back yard and teenagers chucking footballs in the parking lot.

I hadn't yet figured out this was "slippery slope". The man was an encyclopedia of logical fallacies.

[apocalypsehow]

11. I know some can be run by control freaks, and have heard horror stories, BUT...

...I gotta confess our HOA has been by and large helpful. Want to park your cars on your lawn and put up pink flamingo windmills and other kitsch in what was once a flower garden? Go live somewhere else - there are plenty of places that'll have folks who want to trash up their domiciles like that. I pay premium dollar so we don't have to put up with that kind of thing, and the HOA is very helpful with stuff like that.

[Major Nikon]

13. My neighbor painted his house bright pink

The HOA forced him to change it. In his defense he's from India and didn't know any better. He didn't have a problem changing it once he realized the implications of what he'd done. Without an HOA I'd be stuck living next to a pink house with little hope of being able to get market value for my house if I choose to sell it.

[apocalypsehow]

16. That's the key, right there: when what your neighbors do can really drive down your own property

values and often times dramatically, it's then you realize the value of a HOA. Not saying some of them don't get out of hand, but almost every experience I've had with mine has been positive, and same with my neighbors.

The used car lot a group of people tried to open around the corner from me was an eye-opener - they were taking advantage of the housing bust to buy up an underwater mortgage on a nearly brand new house, then started parking used cars on the lawn with "for sale" signs on them! It was a mess, that would never have gotten straightened out without our HOA.

[Major Nikon]

12. I can give you a lot more examples of why you want to avoid neighborhoods that don't have an HOA

I've lived in neighborhoods that have an HOA and neighborhoods that don't. I've had my run-ins with the HOA and am going through one right now. However, it only takes one instance where a deadbeat asshole neighbor moves in next to you and causes your home value to plummet that you realize that HOA's serve a pretty useful purpose. Someone posting a few extreme examples doesn't change that reality. And Steven Seagal is one of the examples? He's a 4 star asshole that I'd never want living next to me in any neighborhood.

[apocalypsehow]

15. Exactly. Especially this part:

However, it only takes one instance where a deadbeat asshole neighbor moves in next to you and causes your home value to plummet that you realize that HOA's serve a pretty useful purpose"

I could relate a horror story from the other direction about what happened to my neighbors in the cul-de-sac around the corner from me when a group of people moved into practically brand new house that was a victim of the housing bust, and tried to turn the place into a used car lot. Without the HOA, they'd have been SOL. That's not what those of us who live in gated communities pay for.

[trof]

14. Our HOA sure isn't like that.

The covenants are pretty lax.
These are single family homes, not condos.
The lots are an acre or more.
many are waterfront.

It's like pulling teeth to get anyone to serve on the board.
I've been on it three times, mainly because no one else would volunteer.
We mainly deal with keeping the grass mowed in the common areas and up keep on our very modest clubhouse.
It's pretty much a ho-hum job.

[Baitball Blogger]

17. If you want to see why you avoid HOAs, follow the link to my website.

If you have a crooked city government that does bother to do due diligence, your entire Association can be undermined by outside forces. It's what happens when Republicans undermine the oversight responsibilities of government. Their little power groups end up taking over the entire community.

[Major Nikon]

18. The last time I lived in a neighborhood without an HOA, it cost me $40K

I don't have any intention of repeating that mistake.

[Baitball Blogger]

23. You would if you saw the other end of the spectrum.

Good ole boys who take over the boards with the intention of scavenging its resources. And once that kind of thing starts, it only gets worse as people become bullies to protect their dirty little secrets.

[Major Nikon]

24. That's just it. I haven't seen it.

I'm on my 3rd neighborhood with an HOA and haven't had any significant problems with any of them. For every bad HOA that you hear about, I'd reckon there are a few thousand good ones that you don't. So does it happen? I'm sure it does. However, there's also lots of bad shit that can and most certainly does happen when you don't have an HOA. I have seen that, multiple times. If I move into a neighborhood with a bad HOA, I can move out with little penalty. If I move into a neighborhood without an HOA, and a fucknut moves in next to me, my options get a bit more limited. Combine that with a job transfer that forces you to sell and you can wind up with some very big problems.

[Baitball Blogger]

25. Florida is becoming a disaster area.

And I suspect it's because collusion is common and acceptable since it speeds up community projects. It's crazy where I live. I pay money to a mandatory Association, but a non-mandatory Association can pull strings to affect my welfare. It's crazy.

[Major Nikon]

26. Florida has all sorts of real estate problems

You also get a lot of crazy shit happening in Florida because old people(many of which aren't even from the area), control many of the local governments. It's hard to say those situations are reflective of the rest of the US.

[Baitball Blogger]

27. If it's such a well known problem,

it could be easily rectified with a few public lawsuits.

They really take advantage of the situation. They're shameless.

[Ikonoklast]

19. Two members of our HOA board lived closest to the pool belonging to the entire development.

The pool was closed after eight o'clock in the evening, but these two and their friends would sometimes open the pool up and have a little private party, usually late at night, and usually drunk and with little or no clothes on.

Finally one little old lady that lived in the nearby condos complained to the board that this was going on, and that the noise was keeping her up at night. Most residents didn't even know that it was going on.

The two idiots on the board tried to make it about her. They couldn't understand that the rules also applied to them, too, and just because the pool was closest to their property did not mean that they were in charge of it, or could use it as they saw fit.

They said that they were just keeping an eye on things after hearing noises, probably some of the neighborhood kids sneaking in for a swim is what she heard.

A homeowner that was an attorney warned the board that they were leaving themselves, and the rest of us by extension, open to a huge potential liability if action wasn't taken.

Anyway, the next time they were in the pool, the police were called, and they were arrested for trespass, public drunkenness and nudity. One of them put their house up for sale inside of a month, the other was gone before the end of summer.

We shit-canned the entire board after that, and replaced them with people that weren't idiots, or would get drunk and go swimming leaving the entire HOA open to a liability lawsuit if someone got hurt or drowned.

The little old lady got the most votes.

[Major Nikon]

21. If you manage the HOA right, things like this are unlikely

We have a property management organization that inspects our neighborhood, enforces covenants, and sees to the maintenance duties. Our HOA board has very little to do other than approve homeowner's modification plans and keep the property management company in check. The property management company costs us money, but it keeps neighbors from getting on the board and carrying out personal vendettas against other neighbors. It also keeps HOA members from using their position for personal gain.

[mrmpa]

22. I live in a condo and the board of directors don't know shit from shinola.

the board of directors don't know shit from shinola. They empowered a management company, who tries to charge residents for repairs/replacements that are the responsibility of the Association. A look at this year's budget shows that the board authorized a $30,000 increase in wages, WTF, a $17,000 increase in natural gas payments, even though the utility company around here has decreased costs by 4% and passed that decrease onto consumers.

I was on the board and when I started questioning payments and bills and bids on work, the management company orchestrated my being voted off the board.

When you live in a condo, there are certain things you don't own, e.g. what is in the ceiling, in the walls and under the floor. The association is responsibile for repairs to pipes and electricity. When you get a bill for repairs to plumbing, you have to fight to stop them from charging you.

They get over on a lot of the senior citizens in the building, who assume that the billing is correct. They've never read the documents and declarations that outline all the responsibilities of the owners and the association.

I am in the middle of one fight myself, and a neighbor started fighting another. I am waiting for the next election, where I think some more involved and smarter people are ready to get on the board, and we can end the contract with this maintenance company.