Do You Belong To An HOA? Do They Suck?

In My Humble Opinion
61

Funny you mention that, as that was exactly what I was coming to post about.

Years ago I worked for a real estate management company, and some of the rentals were in neighborhoods with HOAs. One HOA had the rule that trash cans could only be at the curb from 7am-7pm on trash day and must otherwise be out of sight. Well it became an issue because the current renter was a medical professional that worked 12 hour shifts, so her trash cans were out from like 6am - 8pm (or later if she didn’t get out of work on time). This became The Hill The HOA Would Die On.

They left notices on her door, so she forwarded those to us. We contacted the HOA thinking we were about to deal with reasonable people. Spoiler alert - they were not. They began issuing $200 fines every week. Us (and the home owner) were constantly trying to reason with the HOA to no avail. Right before I left that job, the HOA was preparing to file a lien against the house. I have no idea how things ended but there was no sign of it getting resolved any time soon.

So you say everyone should be able to comply with that kind of thing, until real life happens.

I’ve never lived in a neighborhood with an HOA (partly due to the issues I had dealing with various HOAs at that job) but if I ever do, I want one like my friend’s HOA. Dues are voluntary and they use them to organize things like a monthly gathering with games and food trucks, a little Halloween thing for kids, etc. I would probably never actually go, but I like the idea that they’re actively building a community.

62

WTF that is wild.

There oughta be a law.

63

I am in one. The quarterly fees have quadrupled since I bought my townhouse in 2003. That said, since I am part of a townhouse community I like the fact that the upkeep is monitored and the paint colors are consistent. Yes it seems like each year they choose one thing that everyone has to do (time to power wash the stairs or repaint the railings or make sure the outdoor lights are all brass carriage lamps). To be honest, I don’t usually take the time to look for early wood rot or check the paint on the rake boards so it is helpful to have somebody reminding me of house maintenance I might not be thinking about. Plus they do a good job taking care of garbage, recycling, snow removals and landscaping. Overall, my HOA is a plus but might not be if it was a stand alone home rather than attached townhouses.

64

Oh, if it were free, i would certainly do it. I live in a single family home, and pay for stuff like that.

That’s crazy! My next door neighbor never takes in the trash cans until sometime the next day. And… That really doesn’t impact my life at all.

65

Not every HOA is a stickler about the rules like this one. My HOA has 24-hour rules for the trash can, but they won’t send out a notice unless it’s been out for days. That situation sounds more like a problem with the rental company. If they are renting out houses in a neighborhood with a “letter of the law” HOA, they need to ensure their tenants know the restrictions and will follow the rules as required so that the rental company doesn’t get fined. They shouldn’t have let this person move into the house if she’s not able to get her can removed in time. It’d be the same if she had 3 dogs and the HOA only allowed 2. It should have been part of the rental company screening process to ensure there the tenant would not cause any HOA violations.

66

I’m in one. Meh. Cost of admission I suppose.

67

Is an HOA forever? Can you just reactivate one instead of just starting a new one?

68

We had a condo in Anchorage that was part of an HOA. We bought the place without ever having any prior experience with them. Luckily for us, this one was excellent, with zero assholes on power trips. We lived there for 12 years without a problem. I know there were a few jerks living there, but none were on the HOA board.

69

Provisions for an HOA were written into the covenants and conditions by the original developer. Turned out that all we had to do to elect a board was to have a majority vote of the residents. I won’t bore you with the legal details, but it was actually effective. The individual removed the satellite dish.

If the dish had been much smaller or mounted on the ground behind the house, I don’t think anyone would have really cared.

70

Unfortunately, there’s no screening process at all that will ensure the tenant would not cause ANY violations. Even the tenant who works the standard 9-5 schedule and always moves the bins on time might end up in the hospital one night without having a chance to go home and move them, or have to leave extra early one morning for a work event, or have any number of other one-offs that mean the bin will be outside during the wrong hours. What works is an HOA that understands that not every household will always be able to comply immediately, and work out a solution. Yours, for example, apparently won’t send a notice unless the bin has been outside for days, so a tenant who gets them inside on the same night, just a little past the deadline, isn’t an issue. This HOA is not your HOA.

71

Right. Not every HOA is the same. While there are some HOAs who will immediately send out fines the moment there is a violation, those are the exception. In most cases, the HOA board is made up of regular people who have lives and aren’t hung up on making sure your can is in by exactly 7pm or that your grass is exactly 2" tall. It’s kind of like how the police can give you a ticket for going 1MPH too fast, but that rarely happens. Regardless, if someone lives in an HOA, they should realize that the restrictions aren’t suggestions. The HOA can enforce them as tightly as they like. Rarely are they super nit-picky, but it all depends on who’s on the board. If someone is in an HOA that sucks, then they should get on the board to change it so that it doesn’t suck anymore. Like in the case with the rental company, they could run for a spot on the board with a platform of relaxing the rules a bit. If enough neighbors want that change, then they’ll get elected to the board.

One other thing about that rental situation is that many HOAs will have a way to ask for an exception for violations. It’s best if you approach the board before having the violation. So with the trash can, if the person went before the board saying they were about to start their 12-hour shift rotation for the next 8 weeks, most HOAs would grant them an exception to the 7pm deadline.

72

I dunno honestly :slightly_smiling_face:. The difference might be that it goes beyond just a check and automatically gets cleaned out (a company is contracted by the HOA to do a quick and dirty routing from the unit to the roof to make sure it is clear).

Now I’m wondering if I can opt out with a heat pump unit. My dryer is kinda old.

Yeah, these are the nightmare stories that fuel the HOA distrust. Rightfully so. A friend of mine got elected to an HOA board in a large gated community for a year or two after he became dissatisfied with the community security contractor (he ended up doing the vetting and hiring of a new one). His term was incredibly stressful and contentious with intraboard cliques and a lot of petty sniping. He eventually found it intolerable and quit to save his sanity.

Bad HOAs can be insanely frustrating, all the more so since they are granted such wide powers by the law. If you’re a rule follower who doesn’t have any adverse situation like the above cited doctor, you generally won’t notice them. They’ll just putter along in the background. But if you’re a stubborn iconoclast or just have an inadvertent situation and an inflexible board (say something suddenly kills a large patch of grass on your lawn, you can’t find or afford a contractor on short notice, you start getting steadily rising daily fines), they can be an utter pain in the ass.

The only thing I’ve ever been cited on was the previous owner left a five gallon bucket of paint in my garage space back when I was still renting and I ignored it (it wasn’t mine and I wasn’t the owner). But the safety committee did a stroll through and left a note on my car reminding me that there was rule against storing volatiles in the garage and gave me a date to get it out by. Perfectly sane rule, so no problem. To a recycling center it went.

What they are sticklers about is rentals. We’re strictly limited to 25% of capacity and there is an official list and waiting list. There is a hardship committee that allows appeals if you’re stuck (say you’ve suddenly been transferred to Europe for a year and can’t afford to maintain two residences), but I’ve noticed at board meeting minutes they turn down those appeals all the time. If you get caught illicitly renting a unit fines appear pretty steep.

73

I think that’s exactly the point that almost everyone is making. An HOA can be incredibly easy and effective with good people running it. Or they can be little tyrants hopped up on a little bit of power and a “but those are the rules, by God!” mentality that makes life for the residents miserable.

Like slash2k said, there’s no way to guarantee someone will never violate an HOA’s rules. I wasn’t involved in that part of the process, but all potential tenants were given copies of any HOA rules along with the lease to review. I could easily see someone scan through them, come across the trash can thing, and think surely no reasonable person would have an issue with it being out a couple of extra hours because of a work schedule. Unfortunately for them (and the owner), the people on this HOA were not reasonable people.

I dealt with dozens of HOAs during my time at that job. The vast majority were easy to work with and just wanted to get XYZ problem solved and move on with their life. But these people were bananapants crazy.

74

If the thing blows over in a storm or something would there be damage to any house but his own?

75

Can’t say for sure, but my house was downhill from his. A 12’ dish being blown off a second-story roof could presumably do some damage and/or injury. This was in NC, where hurricanes do show up on occasion.

76

If it wasn’t built to code, it has to go. Even the most That’s Muh Land people have to agree.

77

Or people make arrangements for their neighbor to move the bins. That’s how we managed when I traveled a lot.

Renters in a single family HOA neighborhood are just trouble in general, if the HOA has any type of enforcement around parking cars on driveways or on the street, colors of curtains, trash bins, lawn mowing and maintenance, shrubbery height, etc. if the tenant doesn’t comply, you’re in a fight in both directions. In landlord-tenant law you have to show that the conditions are reasonable and enforcement is fair, otherwise you’re on the hook for triple damages. On the owner-HOA side the default is that the HOA wins because there are usually fee-shifting provisions and they can put liens on the property.

A former boss of mine invested in a number of single family homes in nice subdivisions with HOAs, but he only rented to expatriate executives. And had the property maintenance done by a property management firm, which consumed a significant proportion of the rent income. Otherwise, even with a “good” tenant there would always be issues.

78

Interesting to find that in Japan, an ordered society where the collective good has traditionally been prized over individul expression, HOAs are by law strictly voluntary for detached housing*, though required for condo and apartment dwellers. HOA fees are dramatically lower in Japan compared to the U.S., running typically between $17 and $75 a year, and used for things like financing neigborhood festivals and keeping garbage collection points clean.

*Sources indicate that there’s a high expectation that homeowners will join neighborhood associations.

79

My neighborhood does not have an HOA, but we do collectively put up a Christmas tree and hold a “tree raising potluck party”. And most of us chip in about that much towards the tree and related expenses. :laughing:

80

This is not correct.

The associations that include detached homes are not HOAs. They are 自治会 jichikai, neighborhood associations, with completely different histories, purposes, authority, etc. They have a different legal status than Japanese condominium management associations, which are similar to condominium associations in the US.

I’ll compare the Japanese neighborhood associations with US HOAs.

Both are “associations” and cover geographic areas, but that’s where the similarities end.

The primary purposes of HOAs are to regulate properties and maintain shared facilities and common areas in private communities. Membership is generally mandatory for the covered area and HOAs have the legal authority to make and enforce certain property restrictions.

OTOH, neighborhood associations in Japan have roots in WWII, where mandatory associations distributed government propaganda, spied on the members and coordinated civil defense and fire prevention among other activities.

After being banned during the American occupation, they came back as voluntary associations, but they retained their primary purpose of being concerned about fostering a social community and promoting common behaviors.

As you said, they keep the common garbage collection points clean and some associations, like my previous one, have summer festivals but others, such as my current one, don’t.

They circulate a monthly 掲示板 , literally bulletin board, with community information. In government owned apartments, they arrange the cleaning by residents and maintenance by residents for flowers, and such.

They do not regulate properties and they don’t have any legal status over residents or properties. They are also concerned about the residents, including renters, rather than the properties.

Because the US doesn’t have formal neighborhood associations, but has HOAs it could be tempting to use that terminology for the associations in Japan, but that’s a mistake.

Incidentally, the leader of a group of residences in the neighborhood associations is called a 班長 hancho which entered English as “honcho” (pronunciated the same as the Japanese word) and I have had to take my turn as a 班長.