The point I make is that very few (if any) municipalities forbid you from parking a licensed functional vehicle or trailer on your own personal property. The right to enjoyment of your property is a common law right that the government can only take away in serious instances. However, a HOA is assumed to be a private contract, you have no recourse; even though from what I’ve read, in many areas you cannot escape such an arrangement because that’s all that’s on the market; not because the market demands it, but because municipal governments want to leave the hassles and especially costs of managing streets and services to the HOA’s, non-governmental organizations.
I am doubtful that a municipality can either stop an HOA and the requirement of signed contracts as a condition of sale; or mandate the forming of an HOA for a real estate development. Do you have any evidence of a municipality pressing for the creation of an HOA?
I’m not aware of developments that have responsibility for virtually everything including street repair. Can anyone point to one?
In our townhouse complex we are responsible for the “road” (more like a big driveway, really) that goes throught the complex connecting all the garages. We’ve had to have it repaved.
I would agree with you Boyo. HOA’s are prevalent not because of municipality pressure. In fact I would expect that in most HOA neighborhoods, the municipal government is still responsible for road and curb and sewer maintenance.
HOA’s are prevelant because when NEW neighborhoods are developed, new home buyers find them attractive to help maintain their property values they are about to plunk down a significant portion of their equity into. Developers create them and then turn them over to the homeowners upon the completion of the development.
The driveway into a condo complex is very different from streets in a neighborhood. My driveway is my property.
I used to wonder the same thing. In Plano, Texas back in the late 1980s there was a heat wave and some of the wood roof shingles on the homes on the fancy side of town were bursting into flames. One person decided to replace him roof with regular shingles and the HOA he was in tried to come down on him like a ton of bricks for violating the rules. Several houses had caught on fire in the city because of those stupid wooden shingles that year and the HOA wasn’t interested in budging.
Now my neighbors across the street are violating a few city ordinances by parking their car on the lawn and having a basketball goal (portable) out on the street at all times. Normally I wouldn’t care, but I’ve come to find that people who don’t care about what their own house looks like often extend that feeling to other houses around the neighborhood. The kids block traffic while playing basketball and they litter like nobody’s business. I’ve tried talking to the parents and I’ve reported them to the city several times for violating the city ordinance. Nothing has happened. I may sound like a grumpy old man, but when you’re constantly picking trash off your lawn it gets a bit tiring.
Everybody is responsible for their own driveway. Is your complex big enough to have actual streets? Do you pay for those?
Well, they are named streets from the post office’s point of view, for our street address. There are even street signs.
Ok, that’s what I was asking for. These are beyond the driveway connecting the garages then? And your association pays for their maintenance?
In NC, the North Carolina Planned Community Act makes it pretty much mandatory for a developer to form a HOA for any new development with more than 20 homes. I didn’t read the whole thing, but I believe the only requirements for the HOA are maintenance of the common areas, most importantly the stormwater containment areas. I don’t know how often the builders forgo adding some architectual oversight in there as well.