OTOH, the nearest shops are three hours walk away. And there ain’t no bus.
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Does anywhere outside the US have HOAs?
I’ve never heard of them in the UK. I guess this is one of those ‘FREEDOM’ things I’m to Euro to understand 
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They exist in Canada as well, but we don’t call them that. An entity that manages snow removal and sometimes owns the local water system or similar in rural areas. I’ve never heard of them being the petty tyrant nightmare they clearly are in the US, but I’ve never lived under one either, so can’t say for sure.
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“Not all men.” “Not all white people.” “Not all HOAs.” We’ve lived under 3 HOAs in 3 different areas (2 states, 3 cities) and each time it was a nightmare. Our current house, hopefully our forever home, is NOT in an HOA, and that is on purpose. We told our realtor not to even show us houses in HOAs because we would not under any circumstances consider them. She did anyway - and was warned that if she did again we would find another agent.
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After a terrible experience in a townhome, I avoided HOA neighborhoods like the plague, too. Unfortunately, once I had to downsize my only option was a condo. Those come with associations by default.
In my area, the small buildings I visited where limited HOAs only handled snow and garden work all had common areas (entry/stairwell/laundry) in a state of disrepair. Every problem involved water damage or extreme wear and tear (doors, floors, stair railings, etc.). Maybe they were Tenancy in Common, without an agreement that covered upkeep.
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Okay, now you just made me so angry I want to throw something at you. But not 6 hours of walking angry.
Life: full of trade offs.
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That’s kind of a lame false equivalency, but whatever. There’s shitty aspects to any community – that’s just life.
I’m honestly not really trying to defend HOAs here. They all kind of suck, by design. They can attract the worst kind of busybodies and some are really bad. Many perfectly adequate at best. In a lot of cases in the US if you want to live in a certain area, you have little options for living somewhere without an HOA.
Maybe I have a unique perspective here because Mrs. Ficus volunteered for my condo’s HOA for several years and I saw a lot of what happened from the inside. By and large it was simply a small group of volunteers that just wanted to make sure the monthly assessments were wisely spent and trying to balance the wants of the community and the constraints of the budget and rules (which you can’t “just change” if they suck). They handle quite a bit of crap work you may not think about – especially in situations with shared buildings like townhomes or condominiums like making sure the building is insured against fire or earthquake damage, coordinating with insurance and contractors if your neighbor floods your unit because they forgot to turn their sink off, making sure the trash gets collected, and making sure common areas are clean and well maintained.
Anyway I think we can all agree HOAs suck and they have awful people. If you are stuck living in an area with one, you don’t need to just throw up your hands and act like there’s nothing you can do – HOAs are a democracy, not a dictatorship. Activism works.
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