To really answer these questions accurately, you would need to scan his HOA agreement and post it online so the GQ people can read it. Different HOAs have different rules.
P.S. In my experience, if you want to find out exactly what you can “get away with”, and have the HOA approve your projects more readily, you (generic you) should volunteer to be on the board of your HOA. In the HOAs I’m familiar with, they are looking for volunteers to be on the board because they have more spaces than people wanting to apply for those spots. In my days on my HOA board I got the impression that people on the board had their requests approved faster: not because the board was necessarily corrupt, but because things go faster when you know exactly who to talk to and how to ask. Disclosure: I was only on the board for a few months because I hated being on the board.
I’ll see if he has an electronic copy of it and if he’s cool with me posting it with all the suitable relevant data removed. My guess though is if they can make him get rid of a shed in his back yard that his retaining wall isn’t safe either…unless he can retroactively ask permission or something like that.
I forgot to say that, if you post it, you then have to convince the people in GQ to read it. I don’t think I’ve ever read mine the whole way through. It’s very long and boring.
This question comes up a lot around here. The simple (and 100% true and correct) answer is that your friend agreed to be bound by these rules. He agreed in the past and now apparently disagrees. But it’s too late, he already agreed.
People bag on HOAs for doing all this stuff they don’t agree with, but they always conveniently forget that they agreed to be bound by the rules in the first place.
I have a friend whose home was recently annexed into an HOA against his will. His home predates both the development and the HOA itself, but he was essentially forced into the neighboring HOA as part of city annexation negotiations with the HOA.
He has recently been bullied into ripping out his 20-year old landscaping to meet with the HOA’s ridiculous standards (st augustine grass in the middle of Texas).
Double check your Constitution - you won’t find anything in there about people not being able to contract for whatever they like, other than indentured servitude and what a debt can be repaid with (maybe some other unrelated stuff).
The whole point of most of the Constitution is to limit what government can do and give freedoms to its citizens - not tell them what kind of property deeds than can or can’t have.
If I rent you an apartment, I don’t have to let you keep pets. It’s not a government created limitation of your rights, it’s a government created freedom for us to agree to whatever terms we both find appropriate.
You have a rather inside-out view of the Constitution. The Framers thought of state legislatures (and the cities they create) as omnipotent; the only restrictions were on the authority granted to the national government. In modern times, we’ve come to think of certain liberties (particularly those enumerated in the Bill of Rights) as so strong that not even states can take them away. And the right of parties to contract with each other was so strong that it’s one of the few things our Constitution forbids states to interfere with:
Section 10 - Powers prohibited of States
No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.
This is the reason why I refuse to live in an HOA. In fact when I was looking for a house last year that was pretty much the one condition I was completely inflexible on. I’ll be damned if I’m going to pay a bunch of fascist dicks to tell me what I can or can’t do on my own property.
In a country where the concepts of limited government and personal freedom are so cherished, I’m flummoxed as to why so many people would willingly submit to what is essentially another layer of government, and one with the potential to be much less democratic and much harder to seek recourse through than the real government.
In every state where I’ve worked (as a land title examiner–in the Southwest, I’ve done a good bit of work in AZ, NV and CA), the HOA is required to notify him if they put a lien on his house. Rules vary from state to state regarding how the HOA can go about enforcing that lien and what steps they would have to take to foreclose on it. If they intended to go that far, they would most likely have to send him a notice via certified mail.
I think it’s great that we can accomodate both points of view. Although if you, like me, want to live in condo - you pretty much have to have an HOA. But you don’t have to live in a condo
I’m going to disagree with this. HOAs are started by developers and not residents as you said so that doesn’t mean the residents prefer them. While theoretically it is true that the residents could get rid of the HOA, the Napoleons that run them usually fold, spindle and mutulate Robert’s Rules to keep their power (illegally) and if the HOA is not run by a mini-dictator, they are so innocuous that getting rid of them is more trouble than it’s worth (just keep your lawn mowed).
My problem with our HOA? To support another of *the developer’s *investment, we have to pay $140 per month on water every month. At a fair rate it would be more like $30/mo.
I wonder if the majority of folks truly hate HOAs. I see 2 opportunities to prove this:
1 – Conceivably, a developer could build up a tract of land deliberately without an HOA to compete with developers that use HOAs (the “master planned community” developers). The no-HOA developer would outsell his properties faster and at a higher premium than the HOA developers. All the other developers would eventually wise up and HOAs would disappear overnight.
2 – For the newly constructed developments that started with HOA… once the HOA is transferred from the real estate developer to the actual residents, they would vote to eliminate all the rules and just keep the administrative functions of landscaping the common areas.
I see neither of those happening so there seems to be a disconnect between the complaints and reality.
Believe me, I know all about this. One of the members on my HOA is a nosy bitch of a lady. When the houses were first being built (doors often unlocked), she would walk (uninvited) through all the homes with her precious poodle. I put up with her petty bullshit because I realize that HOAs attract that type of defective personality. If I moved to another neighborhood with an HOA, chances are good that I’d get that bitch reincarnated as someone else. Different name, same shit.
Overall, I think HOAs are worth it. I know all the negatives and I put up with them because the alternatives are worse. In my area, the only places I could move that didn’t have HOA would be properties out in sticks with septic tanks instead of sewage systems or mobile home parks. Neither of those choices offer Verizon fiber optic high-speed internet connections. It’s all about tradeoffs.
First you should have your friend (or his lawyer) read his agreement. Then find out who the powers that be are in the HOA and attempt to be resonable with them. Sorta like, “Hey I know I didn’t ask but wouldn’t it have been OK in the first place had I asked”? Perhaps the HOA administrators are just pissed off that he blew them off.
Your friend sounds like a bit of a fool - either he didn’t read the agreement he signed, or he just thought it didn’t apply to him. Either way, making changes to your property at your own expense that you haven’t got permission for is a good way to throw your money away.
I assume the same rule of thumb applies to HOA’s as to Faculty Politics at universities…
“Why is faculty politics so vicious?”
“Because the stakes are so small.”
Most neighbourhood politics boils down to “I don’t like to look at that” or “that guy annoys me so I’m going to make his life difficult.”
I don’t know if some areas of Canada have HOA’s but I have never heard of them anywhere where I have lived Yes, there are condo boards for apartments and townhouse developments, but generally the idea that you pay someone a monthly fee over and above property taxes for a standalone house seems kind of alien. Maybe I’ve just been out of touch…
So if it’s a contract - what happens with an inheritance, if the heir does not agree to the conditions? Or is it a condition of title?
We have lots of HOAs in Calgary - I assume they’re everywhere in Canadian cities. I think most of the newer neighbourhoods here have an HOA, to make sure you don’t paint your house anything but an approved shade of beige.
