Well, my area is a bit Homeowner’s Association crazed. The vast, vast majority of Americans do not live in Homeowners Associations.
And yes, it does seem silly and ignorant to me. Fines for painting your house the wrong color, not being allowed to plant trees, even being limited on what type of grass you are allowed in your lawn.
One item that made the papers here was a man who was fighting his Homeowners Association over a fine for not stopping his newspaper delivery. He was called out of town on business, and forgot to stop his paper delivery. He returned 2 weeks later, to find more than a dozen newspapers in his drive - and a whole wad of tickets in his “Community Mailbox” for not picking his newspapers up. IIRC, he lost his case (this association allowed appeals), until he spent thousands on a lawyer.
Also, I personally know of 2 Homeowners Associations that still illegally tell their inmates that they are not allowed to install satelite dishes, and fine them if they install a dish - even a mini-dish. IIRC, the FCC ruled that it was in fact illegal to prevent or penalize a homeowner from installing any satelite dish or TV antenna they wished to have. Homeowners Associations claim it is due to asthetics, and that may be true, but also many of them receive kickbacks from the cable TV companies for limiting or banning dishes. Of course, one could also claim it is not a kickback, but a “discount”, or a “community benefit”. It still is wrong.
I bought my first home in the SF Bay Area a few years ago. Given the prices out here, I did look into condos, co-ops, and townhouses. The main reason I avoided condos & co-ops is that I wanted a “house,” not an apartment.Except for the fact that the deed to a condo describes the “air-lot” you allegedly own (which is presumably some volume of airspace defined by Cartesian coordinates above the ground lot of the apartment buiding), you are at best a shareholder in a sort of corporation to which your apartment belongs. The situation is a little better for townhouses. There, you do own the earthly footprint upon which your dwelling stands, but your ownership is encumbered by mutual obligations with your neighbors who own other units on the larger property, of which your townhouse is a mere “subdivision.” Furthermore, the townhouse concept involves a peculiar construction, called the “party wall.” This is a shared partition wall between one townhouse and those adjacent. Thus, you do not really own the party walls, you share them with your neighbors. A higher level of independence is granted in free-standing homes that are part of an “estate subdivision.” While this form of ownership provides you with the feeling of “having your own Ponderosa,” it still subjects you to the HOA’s CC&Rs, just as do co-op and condo ownership. Besides the HOA restrictions on what you can & cannot do with your “property,” you will also have to pay a regular (usually monthly) HOA “fee.” This fee can range from <$100/month (rare) to nearly $1,000 or more.
When I spend over a hundred thousand dollars for a “home,” I want to own it outright. I don’t want to pay “fees” for things like common building and grounds maintenance.
And I don’t want people (except the local zoning board) telling me what kind of changes I can make to my house. As the owner of property with a fee simple deed, I can do just about anything I want on my property, provided it is not illegal. I pay my mortgage and my utlitity bills, and my property taxes (because of Prop 13 here in California, they are just a bit less than $2000/year). I’ve erected a 50 foot high short wave antenna in my backyard (I’m a ham radio operator), and no HOA can tell me to take it down. Even if my neighbors complained about it (which they didn’t) they would be powerless to make me take it down, since the FCC, which licenses my station, trumps any local ordinances.
I’m sure there are many people who would find “home ownership” under som HOA just fine and dandy. I’m not one of them.
Small part of story below…
$500 debt costs woman her home
“I’m not sure I believed anything like this was possible or legal,” the ex-homeowner says. She failed to respond to notices about association fees.
By TIM GRANT
It does boil my blood - that her $88,000 house was sold from under her $4600, so she still owes the full amount on her loan. But seriously - she made two stupid mistakes:
She moved into the HA in the first place. (no, I’m not saying that moving into an HA is a “stupid mistake”. It is if you are unable to pay the fees, however.)
She didn’t even open the letters from the lawyers??? Here’s a clue - lawyers don’t normally send you letters to say “Hi”. It’s normally for an important reason.
She was Missouri-Mule Stupid, and even though I hate HA’s, I still think she is entirely to blame.
Homeowners Associations is one of the reasons why I rent.
As Billdo mentioned, HAs were notorious for keeping minorities out of certain housing areas. They went so far as to state so publicly. The courts would later tear down such restrictions, but kept the HAs otherwise intact.
From my limited experience with HAs, it seems that the objective is still clear but the method is less direct. They can’t refuse a minority from joining the HA, nor can they stop a minority from buying a house. However that doesn’t stop the members of the HA from applying the rules more strictly to minorities.
Hence a white man could be working on his untagged car in his driveway, but once a black man does the same his white neighbors are quick to report the matter to the HA and levy a fine against the black man. Basically the HA continues to harass the black man until he decides to give up and leave.
The HA will also go against white members when they appear to cause trouble. Then they can hold their heads up high and claim not to be racist.
When you look at real estate with an HA attached to it, look around. Chances are that WASPs surround the real estate. How many minority ran HAs are there in the US?
I bet not many…