“It’s not that bad” doesn’t ring as a sufficient standard for supporting legally / contractually enshrined powers over the aesthetic of a neighbor’s house. Humans have only a limited amount of time, energy and patience for civic engagement, and having to put this energy into fending off neighbors who are more obsessive than they are about their neighbors’ behavior seems like a waste and an annoyance. What benefit do people derive from these HOAs, generally? Only invasive rule-making to protect their right to speculate on the value of their homes based on their controlling their neighbor’s behavior? Why should a person who derives more value from growing vegetables in their own lawns have to fight for that right, even for an hour a month, if that’s what the commitment truly is? I’m no libertarian by any stretch, but giving fine-grained power to people over their neighbors seems like a power that exists without justification, and I think the existence of any position of power should be justified.
I have always practiced Darwinian lawn maintenance – whatever is willing to grow stays… The rural lawn that I grew up with had many zones: under the big ol’ oak tree was 50% moss, under the copse of giant white pines was almost nothing, behind the old barn was the sort of turf that the obsessive weed-spray/fertilizer folks were aiming for, a large section of the “back yard” was red clover, etc…
In Los Angeles, a large part of the “grass” seems to consist of some sort of vine-like weed (I assume kikuyu-grass), the backyard seems to be relatively normal grass (hardy drought-resistant stuff).
I get it. It’s too much to expect anybody to read their HOA rules before they sign the contract that says they’ve read them and will abide by them. And even though they’ve signed that contract, it’s unjustifiable for the HOA to enforce the agreed upon rules. And it’s out of line to expect anybody to spend an evening a year to attend a meeting of their neighbors to vote for reasonable board members. Because even one evening a year of “civic engagement” is an unreasonable ask.
The ideal is no HOA. But… that’s hard to find if you want to live anywhere that is semi-rural, suburban or urban. So, yes, most people are forced to accept one shitty HOA ruleset or another. And even when you do sign that contract (“or you don’t live here”), HOA rules are ever-changing. What you signed will likely eventually change to something you certainly don’t agree with. You only have so much control. And if you are a person who wants to avoid politics and not be governed by idiots with clipboards… tough! Yes, it is a lot to expect people to do all that and like it.
Maybe it didn’t come through strongly enough in my prior post, but I am genuinely interested in the value that you see in the HOA. Sure, is may be democratic, that’s great, but democracies are messy, and take constant tending to stay fair and, well, democratic. To me there would have to be a really compelling reason to impose this civic burden, assign this power and abdicate this personal freedom to a collective or representative local body. So far, you’ve only made arguments about the size of the burden, and nothing about the size of the payoff, and, like say, I’m genuinely interested in what that would be.
The primary purpose of an HOA is to take responsibility over common areas. For condominiums and townhouses, that’s generally the exterior of the structure(s) and any additional facilities such as pools, lawns, clubhouses. For single family homes, it’s generally to take care of common areas that are mandated by zoning laws. For example, in Glibert, AZ, zoning is such that x% of the acreage must be retention basins (any rainfall on the property cannot run off to surrounding properties - the city has no storm drains). So the HOA collects assessments to maintain, repair, and replace these things as necessary.
In addition, many people feel that city zoning is not strong enough and apply additional restrictions. This is generally done by the property developer who sets the initial CC&Rs. These commonly include things like not operating businesses out of homes. Such restrictions don’t generally affect, say, folks that operate from home offices but are directed at the guy who wants to run an auto repair shop from his garage. They may also include landscaping requirements, colors, additional structures (sheds, treehouses, etc), storage of RVs or unused vehicles, and so on.
People want these sorts of restrictions for a number of reasons, most typically to maintain their property values. You may or may not agree that such restrictions affect property values, that’s a personal value judgement. But you can easily compare market values of similar homes within and without HOAs. For most people, given two similar properties, they’d generally offer less to buy one in a neighborhood full of junked cars, weeds three feet high, and so on. Of course, everybody has different values. That’s one reason HOA rules and covenants vary so widely. For those who prefer the freedom to leave their junked cars in the front yard, or want their neighbors to have the freedom to operate a hair salon in their living room, HOAs aren’t for them.
I’ve never seen any HOA that has CC&Rs that allow changes without a majority of homeowner approval. Somebody above said theirs requires unanimous approval to change the CC&Rs. That’s an extreme I’ve never seen myself. Usually it’s either a simple majority or a 2/3 supermajority. Perhaps you’ve lived somewhere that the board can unilaterally change the rules, but I’ve never seen it. If you’re a renter rather than owner, you’re SOL. But if you’re an owner, you certainly had a chance to vote on any such changes.
HOA boards generally have some leeway in guidelines. These will be things like restrictions on paint colors or front yard landscaping. Most boards recognize that it is impossible for them to make such guidelines stricter over time. It’s almost impossible to allow olive trees in front yards one year but prohibit them later. (Olive trees are quite messy.) Any board that’s at all self-aware recognizes that such actions may result in expensive lawsuits. And most boards are dealing with tight budgets and don’t want to pay lawyers any more than they need to.
Do you have any examples of guidelines or CC&Rs becoming more restrictive? I’ve never seen any, but I’ve never been under the thumb of a bad board for longer than it took for elections to come around.
Do you make a general practice of avoiding your neighbors? Remember, that’s who the HOA is. You are the HOA. It’s you and your neighbors. It’s not some faceless corporation somewhere. The vast majority of people living in HOAs have no problems with them at all. I sat on boards for years. Never saw more than about 2% of homeowners complain about anything in any given year.
[quote=“tawster, post:67, topic:30463”]
But… that’s hard to find if you want to live anywhere that is semi-rural, suburban or urban.
[/quote]I disagree, I think it depends on the place, I don’t think there’s a single HOA in the town I live in and while I was in NYC there were condos with boards, but just about everyone I knew was living in apartments without such things. I’m hard pressed to think of anyone I know in the Northeast with an HOA. There are a few people in DC I can think of but that’s about it.
Thanks, this is really not something I have personal experience in, growing up in a rather rural area, and now living stuffed into an outer borough of an unnamed metropolis…
I can 100% agree on condominium and common area care, rules and upkeep. There is no way around having rules for the treatment of a small, private commons, and indeed, the democratic processes of HOAs are more desirable in this case that a dictatorial developer.
That’s pretty much the limit of it for me though. I do think these arrangements should be very severely limited, in what they can regulate beyond commons, and I think that the one time solution and civic engagement of having laws that limit their powers is just as valuable as, and perhaps more efficient than the ongoing civic engagement of making sure your neighbors aren’t making crazy rules, creating back-room alliances and playing out petty disagreement through the board. It also seems like local laws and zoning would take care of the rest, including running businesses and creating unsafe, polluting conditions, or disturbing the peace. It’s not just that I don’t think that the restrictions cant necessarily always be guarantee to improve property values, I also don’t agree that this is a reasonable basis for giving invasive regulatory power to a group of locals.
I hear your argument that if you don’t like the idea of HOAs, don’t join one, but I think this is a little of a cop-out. Without regulatory restrictions on their formation, ubiquity or powers, they could potentially make avoiding them while also living within striking distance of important centers of commerce impractical. To me, leaving them unchecked represents the creeping notion of all things as a financial investment, rather than tools of survival, comfort and expression. Forcing people to choose to opt out of that system creates a cultural, philosophical and political barrier between people that I think just doesn’t need to exist.
I just finished mowing my lawn with my John Deere lawn tractor: V-twin with a hydrostatic transmission, and chains and a plow for clearing the driveway in the winter. It is a sweet ride, I rode around with the mower blades off and let my little girl steer, she was grinning from ear to ear. I feel fortunate to be at a place in life where I can spend thousands on equipment, and have enough grass to provide what looks like a private park for my children to play in. I’ve taken pride in my lawn since I was a kid in Florida. You don’t need fertilizer or sprinklers there, it grows more than you want. Where I’m at now is semi-arid, so I’m partially xeriscaped, and spent a hard several days installing an efficient watering system. I don’t keep my yard up because the HOA says so (screw those people), I do it because I take pride in it, and take care of the things I own.
But then I read this article. I like reading about grass, and thought it would be good. But it isn’t. It reads like an essay from some college kid who thinks he just figured out what is wrong with the world. Fine, lawns waste water, and have toxic runoff. But when I read things like, a fiefdom for the common man who might be a schmuck at work but, astride his John Deere riding mower, is master of all he surveys, all I can say is fuck you Mark Dery. You are a nihilist asshole who can’t make a point without being insulting. Does writing pieces like this make you feel all superior to the intellectual inferiors that don’t share your awesome sense of enlightenment? Wait, did you hear that? The people in the apartment upstairs flushed their toilet again.
As to the ubiquity of HOAs, about 60 million Americans live in them. That’s about 20% of the population. That’s not 20% of home owners, but I’d venture most apartment dwellers face tougher restrictions than any HOA could impose. Even if that 60 million works out to 30% of single family homes, that’s still quite the minority. In light of that, and the fact that in my own experience I’ve never lived more than a mile from developments that never had an HOA, I’m somewhat amused by hearing so many folks here complain that they can’t get away from them. One could possibly deduce from this that it’s the desirable properties that are covenant controlled.
As to relying on zoning, there are a lot of businesses that are allowed in residential areas by zoning laws. Zoning varies greatly from state to state and even within states, so HOAs often are able to restrict these activities when they’re not desired.
HOAs are tightly regulated. There are restrictions on their formation and powers. Laws vary widely from state to state, obviously, but the trend in legislation the last 20 years is to cripple HOAs ability to place liens on properties, severely curtailing their ability to collect dues. HOAs are far from unchecked.
I’m also somewhat amused by your characterizations of back room alliances and petty bickering. I’m not saying such things don’t happen, but I’ve not seen them. All board meetings are open, any homeowner is welcome to attend. They are scheduled well in advance and that schedule is published to the owners. In states where I’ve been a board member, we could schedule ad hoc meetings but still had to give advance notice to owners. Minutes are published.
Despite the noise on internet message boards, HOA boards spend very little time dealing with rules enforcement. Board members essentially are operating a business. Non-profit, to be sure, but a business that might maintain a million dollars in assets. So board members are dealing with subcontractors, budgeting, activities (like community garage sales or easter egg hunts), insurance, and collections. Rules enforcement is background noise - ever present but not very loud. As I said earlier, there are very few enforcement actions. In ten years on HOA boards, I oversaw the collection of far less than a thousand dollars in fines. In a development of over 550 homes, we probably sent out an average of 5 rules violation notices each month. And a good number of those were 2nd and 3rd notices for the same violation. So well under 1% of homeowners in violation.
So, yeah, HOAs have nearly unlimited arbitrary power to interfere with people’s most basic freedoms. They are nearly unavoidable, exerting these powers over a whopping 20% of Americans, HOAs can, according testimony here, change the rules at whim and without notice. Even if owners are presented with said rules, they can’t be bothered to read them, and so live in ignorance of these arcane and obscure rules. And in my experience we have almost complete compliance. Somebody here will probably say it’s coercive, that people only obey to avoid the fines. But if the rules are hidden or simply not read, they don’t know they’ve broken them until they get a notice letter. Obviously, my personal experience is anecdotal, but I challenge anybody to inspect their HOAs minutes for the number of violation letters sent.
In HOAs, as in everything else in life, you can’t satisfy everybody. But from my vantage point, people have less grievance with their HOAs than just about any other institution. And when they do have grievances, they have to power to deal with them by talking to a few of their neighbors.
Ah, perhaps there’s the rub. Who in suburban America talks to their neighbors?
I do, they’re nice. We share food and fences.
As soon as a neighborhood is reasonably “nice”… HOA. But not “because” of the HOA. But, that’s just the way it is. Unless you move to the country.
As for backstabbing, clicks and power-grabs. Seen it. But usually, what happens is that the people that “care oh so much” are intellectually challenged. Not sure which is worse.
“board members are dealing with subcontractors, budgeting, activities (like community garage sales or easter egg hunts), insurance, and collections”
Why would board members be dealing with any of those? They shouldn’t be. Example: A community garage sale shouldn’t involve a 3rd party. Period. Geez. Collections? For HOA dues? 5 rule violations… PER MONTH! Holy crap. Yeah. No thank you.
I’ll tell that to my town of 25,000 that’s within commuting distance of New York that we’re now the country, they’ll love it. Seriously, HOAs are not that big a thing everywhere.
If it’s not board members who deal with subcontractors, budgeting, activities, insurance, and collections, just who do you think it should be?
A community garage sale shouldn’t involve a third party? Just who do you think the community is, in this case?
Sounds like you’re suggesting HOA dues shouldn’t be collected. That’s going to make it hard to maintain the HOA’s assets. Unless you think common areas mow themselves, sprinkler systems never break or wear out, and condo roofs last forever.
Evidently, you feel 5 violations out of 500+ homes is a lot. That would make you the outlier in this discussion, as most who have posted seem to think anything they want to do is a violation of some HOA rule somewhere.
And you certainly have the genesis of HOAs all wrong. Every HOA I’ve ever dealt with was formed by the developers. That is, the HOA existed before even a single home was built.
Again, if you don’t like HOAs, you should have no problem remaining one of the 240 million Americans who don’t belong to one.
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