So shouldn’t there be an appropriate city/county level office that takes care of the problem at that point?
Homes don’t have to be thought of as businesses or financial assets, as much as the investor / real estate class pushes this narrative. They are homes, for giving us a safe, peaceful place to have our private lives. The concept of an HOA, - giving power over to a collective group to maintain the status of the neighborhood as a collective asset - only makes sense if looked at through a business-in-the-public-sphere lens. Businesses can and should be regulated on how they affect their neighbors and the community, because they are a public entity. This erosion of private space, and conversion into a business-like entity, to me, is gross.
That’s one of the reasons I structured my life so that I can live in the middle of 20 rural Ohio acres owned by me. (total cost land and house <$300 K, I’m not in the 1%)
Yep, the neighborhood’s not walkable. Yep, I have to plow a 2000 foot driveway 3-4 times every winter. Nope, no artisanal cupcake shops, Genius Bars, or Ikeas within an five hour drive. But I call it a complete win.
A curse for HOA boards; may your meetings be well attended. The only time we had good attendance was when we had to assess membership to pay for legal fees from taking care of threats of lawsuits. Lawsuits involving the president of the board, by the way. He had a habit of really pissing off his neighbors.
Those meetings were horrific. There is nothing quite like people awakened from permanent slumber demanding explanations for things that have been covered, over and over, in previous meetings. Especially when they show up drunk.
I always advised new board members that low attendance was a good thing. This isn’t show biz.
Some of the new stuff really looks convincing from anything over about 6" away. Though you might find trouble if there is a vacuum cleaner ban instead of a hosepipe ban.
I agree with what you are saying, but that is not how quorihunter put it out there. And yes in the picture he posted that neighbor could easily get the city/county to force that homeowner to clean up their lot (at least where I live). I live in a neighborhood with a HOA and it’s fairly relaxed. There are basic rules about maintaining your property but nothing extreme like what kind of plants you can and can’t have. I have no problems with private space and HOA’s minding their own business and neighbors working out issues among themselves, BUT a HOA also gives the neighborhood legal power if it chooses to exercise it when something is grossly wrong.
Case in point here. Growing up there were three houses all on about 1 to 1.5 acre lots side by side on a country road that my high school bus went by. No neighborhood, no hoa, just houses on land. But the 1st house liked to collect cars, not like actual running cars, junk pieces of shit. The county got involved and basically told the other two neighbors that there wasn’t much they could do because at that point it was a nuisance and not actually a health or safety issue. But once that first neighbor managed to get 10 cars and a bus the county got involved, and it all got removed. Now could a HOA have stepped in earlier yes, could they have been dicks about have more than 2 cars at a residence, yes, could they have been epic assholes about parking your own car on your own driveway, sure… But in general that’s why I read my HOA and talked to my now neighbors before I bought my house. Like many things HOAs can be useful and horrible.
Well, that plus when you get a job you need to move for it really is nice if selling the old house can actually make a dent in the cost of the new house. It would suck if the value took a significant nose dive due to mr. next-door’s trash collection and you can’t actually sell your current house for enough to make a downpayment on the new one (or maybe not even for enough to clear the loan on the old house).
That shouldn’t take an intrusive HOA, but sadly most seem to be (I did have one in VA that was a light touch, but the others I’ve directly experienced have been pretty crappy, and the last 3 places I’ve been had no HOA, but sadly two had various issues with nearby trash farms, fortunately one was a rental so it was cool, I used it to beat the owner’s rent price down, and the other had a preexisting trash farm I used to lower the purchase price, so both of those worked out).
So as far as I can tell if you want the freedom to plant whatever nice thing you want in the front yard you have to take the risk that the guy next door (or actually in my case 3 to 4 doors down) thinks the nice thing to plant in the front yard is broken washing machines and rusted project cars. I’m not convinced which I’ll pick for my next place.
Indeed, the owner was taken to court. Not homeowners court. Magistrates court.
One thing that might change your opinion of the persecuted homeowner: He was doing it for charity
“I want to get it all cleaned up ASAP,” Mr De Masi said.
“It is mainly scrap.
“I have been scrapping it all and giving the proceeds to the Royal Children’s Hospital.
“I’m going to try and get it done in 30 days.”
All things being equal and his house was the exact same as one in an HOA I’d pay 20% premium to live next to junk guy - because I value my freedom.
I guess I’m biased because I grew up in a neighbourhood where we had houses like that picture - some really nice - some kinda crappy. One was painted all purple trim … that guy served in world war 2 and as far as anyone cared earned the right to be different.
One thing I can say - it had character - and not everyone got along but we were able to live together because we respected the right of the next guy to do whatever they wanted without being a damn busy body.
On the political spectrum, HOA members generally rank just a bit below school board members, who themselves are generally a bit lower than the gum on the sole of my shoes.
I too, find the red house - white painted brick chimney disgusting but really, is that enough to start some stupid meddling organization of restrictions. People have different tastes, eehh get over it.
Pretty much the same here. Growing up, I lived in at least two places that had HOAs, and at both of them my abundantly headstrong mom wound up in battles with the HOA b/c our plants were too high, or not high enough, and yeah you can have a fence, but not that kind of fence, etc.
I totally feel this concern, but in reality, I think this problem is part of the larger trend of commodification of homes. The next buyer is probably paying less because they think they will be able to sell the house for less not because their quality of life would actually be lowered. I mean, this all presupposes that the numbers are in on the positive effect that HOAs have on home values, which may be significant, may not, I don’t know. Whatever they are, I don’t think they justify an extremely local group, with an extremely small pool of candidates for membership / election having the kind of power that they do.
