Despite our shared preference for apartments over houses, Mrs. Rhymer & I may be moving to a house. One of the places we’re looking at is in a neighborhood currently lacking any sort of homeowner’s association, which is good because I have problems with jackholes telling me how to take care of my property. But it’s been suggested that the community may form such an association, and that if we are living there when that happens we’d be obliged to join it.
That sounds like bullshit to me, but I’ve been wrong before. Eight times today, and it’s not 1700 yet. Any thoughts?
It sounds like it may depend on the state: For example in Texas:
"Subdivision has community center and now want to start a mandatory HOA. Can I be forced to join if majority voted for it?
Attorney answers
Answered April 09, 2014 08:42. The short answer is that if they follow the proper procedures, they can create mandatory deed restrictions with a majority of the lots, a majority of the separately owned tracts, or a majority of the square footage of the lots."
But elsewhere one reads:
“In this case, if you bought your home before the HOA formed, you cannot be forced to join. An HOA must exist before you purchase for require membership.”
Some ex-California Jackholes tried this little maneuver where I live. It cost me $200 to find this out.
The rest of the neighborhood rallied and squashed them like bugs! A Red Letter Day!
In hindsight, I would have been kinda fun to flaunt my non-membership in their face, breaking any rules they made in the most egregious fashion possible.
My husband’s uncle owns a property in a swanky subdivision that used to apart of the Biltmore Estate. You can’t even put a For Sale sign up in the yard because it’s too gauche for the homeowners. The HOA and he battled it out over the years over minor issues, until one day he was issued a demand to remove his garden, as it violated their landscaping requirements. He refused. They actually took him to court. He won because the laws were ex post facto – he’d moved in before the covenants were written, and were unenforceable to him. As a thank you for taking him to court, he’s expanded his garden over the years, to where it takes up nearly the entire yard. I’m not talking an innocent tomato plant. I’m talking a half acre of corn. As you can imagine, his neighbors loooooove him.
Pretty much every CC&R document I’ve seen or heard of contains language on how to go about it. If it’s not in there, it would probably be found it the bylaws. HOAs are simply corporations, and they can be dissolved; if there aren’t explicit instructions already, they can be added, then followed.
a) you amass enough fines as levied by the HOA
b) the HOA files a lien against your property
c) the HOA files suit to collect on fines
d) you either pay the fines, get the suit tossed, or lose and they put the house on the auction block to recover the fines.
e) the lien can also prevent you from selling until its satisfied.
Think of it as akin to a city incorporating around you (with or without your consent) and imposing property taxes and municipal codes. No one would find that unthinkable, and cities are as much creatures of state law as HOAs. It’s less common for states to permit this procedure with HOAs than with cities, which is why it seems odd, but there’s little difference in principle.
I guess if you want to be really safe you should spend some money and talk to a real estate lawyer before buying. Could save you a lot of headaches in the future.
I evidently failed to make my question clear. My apologies.
By what mechanism or legal doctrine can the state tell me that the property I bought, unencumbered by CC&Rs, is now subject to CC&Rs that are enforced by a private corporation, to which I am forced to belong against my will?
ETA:
But, as mentioned above, an HOA is a private corporation. I can’t grasp the concept of the state granting such power over other peoples’ private property to a private corporation.
Legislation. If there existed a law at the time you bought the house that such could be enforced with a sufficient majority, then you bought the house subject to that condition.