I am always thankful when I read threads like this, because my building’s co-op board is run by lovely people who bake cookies. The quarterly meetings are primarily to go over the finances and whatever maintenance projects are underway, and have about as much drama as a sack of potatoes. The same five people have won uncontested elections for something like the past 15 years.
You know the old adage “Never say never”? Well, I will never live in any community governed by any kind of HOA. Never, never, never.
As the old joke goes:
Q: Why is HOA politics so vicious?
A: Because there is so little at stake.
The funny thing about the whole “power corrupts” bit is how little power it takes…
That’s the first thing I thought of when I saw the title!
First off, the pool of candidates is self-appointed experts. Second, the compensation is the ‘opportunity’ to spend money – to which those experts would otherwise have no access. When you have three or more people involved in any activity, you have the potential to see factions and alliances and disputes. With people, money, and disputes, you have politics. If the politicians are involved to benefit the community and its common interests, you may (might possibly) have a smooth-running governance. If the politicians are involved to benefit themselves and/or their special interests, there will be problems, factions, disputes, etcetera. As Jackmanii and the Barbarian* noted, you’ll find these factors and dysfunctions in PTAs, town councils, scout leadership committees, university boards, and any other situation in which representative decision-making is utilized. It seems to be more emotional (and comical?) with the Big Fish in a Little Pond situations.
Yeah, but don’t expect it to get any better.
This is the kind of lunacy that makes political term-limits seem like a good idea – get the entrenched whackos out so the rest can continue doing their good jobs without distractions. I tend to think
However, when the system scales up, formal and informal network-and-exchange systems are developed and become important. When the network-and-exchange systems work well, forcing frequent turnovers ejects experienced veterans and brings in neophytes who are unfamiliar with the protocols and can’t get their constituents’ projects considered, much less approved. When the network-and-exchange systems cater to special rather than common interests, breaking up the cronyism might be better than letting the dysfunction continue to spite the general well-being.
Some would argue that even as the situation scales up, it doesn’t get any better at all. The alternative may be anarchy – which some would embrace.:dubious:
—G!
The field is ploughed with self-importance, seeded with distrust, and watered with other people’s money. The sprouts attract vermin, carrion crows, and stray dogs that prey upon the scavengers. You wonder why the few surviving plants bear an unpalatable fruit?
*When you gonna turn Pro? How long can you stay in the college leagues without someone forcing you to graduate?
Yeah, I think that Loach has the solution:
My proposal is to dump the rules, place severe limits on the power of the committee and wrangle the rights to run the HOA office pool on the outcomes of the fights. That commission should put my kids through school.
Seriously, I’m putting together a proposal to eliminate any real power for the committee just to make sure this doesn’t happen again. The committee will be limited to making reports to the HOA itself which will have biannual meetings.
These people are so into themselves that they don’t see how everything they do not just pisses off people. At the last meeting, the treasurer brought out a video camera to point at the speaker, and sat so he and his wife off camera. Afterward several people mentioned that this pissed them off as well.
Many of us have kids in early kindergarten and elementary school. We’re too busy for these games.
I used to help a NGO by raising money for them. I spend a good amount myself going around to different places, including giving presentations at Rotary Clubs and raised thousands of dollars. The chief guy was an egomaniac who needed to control everything and eventually I stopped volunteering.
Our HOA is in the middle of two lawsuits, one of which is going to end up in front of the Arizona Supreme court.
This was in reference to the meeting which was held tonight.
The three plotters did boycott, but 15 of the 23 owners attended. Two of the guys not directly involved convinced people to wait one more month before taking action. They said they will try to get the committee members to resolve the issue.The owners voted to give them one month to come to an agreement or recall everyone…
The members who boycotted are now having a meeting with the two guys. I talked to Don, he and the reporter (fellow committee member) said they don’t intend to agree to any resolution and expect the attempt to fail.
Thanks to various career moves, we’ve ended up in 3 neighborhoods with associations. The first one was great - minimal annual fee, and I think their one and only big activity was a Halloween Carnival for the kids. The second one was more expensive, but it included use of the community pool, which was really nice, and they didn’t get crazy till after we’d moved (I heard stories from those left behind…)
The third was was by far the worst. It was a pretty cheap neighborhood - definitely working class - and consisted of 48 or 49 houses along one street. The dues were supposed to cover landscaping of the entry and around the retention pond. We were among the first in the neighborhood, and once it was turned over by the developer to the residents, the shit hit the fan.
The board consisted of retirees who had nothing better to do than futz with their lawns all day. They conducted inspections of the yards in the neighborhood - we were gigged because there were weeds in out lawn. It was Florida and we backed up against a wetland preserve - there were weeds everywhere!! The only thing that saved us from all kinds of fines was that we had a lawn service that was supposed to be dealing with the weeds. Otherwise, they’d have demanded that we resod our entire property, because it was our fault that the builder put down crappy, weed-filled sod in the first place.
They also decided that commercial vehicles were verboten, so our neighbor, who drove a company van (not a huge truck, just a full size van) had to buy white magnetic panels to cover the name of his employer when he parked in his driveway. Yeah, the name of a local business was so offensive… :smack: The county wouldn’t allow us to park on the street because the road was too narrow for emergency vehicles otherwise, and the association wouldn’t allow parking on the grass. At least they didn’t require that you park only in your garage (like in a friend’s neighborhood) - probably because half of the board had converted their garages into rec rooms. I was soooooooo glad when we transferred out of there.
Needless to say, we live in an older neighborhood with no association, and apart from one idiot who likes to lay rubber when he leaves the stop sign, it’s a pretty nice place to live. Imagine that!
Sounds like what you’ve got is a couple of wimp-ass moderates who need to be replaced with True Believers.
That’s a shame. How much of your HOA fees will be wasted paying legal fees, rather than paying for landscaping or other actual improvements?
Just for a giggle, I looked up the HOA site from the last place we lived - 10 years ago. The slate of officers looks exactly the same as it did when we left, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything because they haven’t posted any meeting minutes since 2008 and the most recent newsletter was in 2011. If I knew anyone living there, I’d call and ask, but the folks we talked with most have all moved away.
There was an attempt, shortly after I built my house in my current ‘hood, to organize a HOA. The organizers were told it ain’t happenin’ by, well, everybody. As long as there are no cars, trucks, etc up on blocks in front yards, I could not care less what my neighbors do on their own property.
I’m glad it didn’t happen. My royal purple front door would have probably been a violation. 
This is just so f@cking stupid.
At the two and a half hour meeting last night, the third meeting in six weeks on the matter, one of the self-proclaimed Good Guys[sup]TM[sup] who got the yet-one-more month to try to resolve the problem, managed to get people to agree by suggesting that this dissenting party may anonymously call the country on some zoning violations which were brought up.
Grrrr.
This is annoying as hell. I proposed that we simply do nothing. The HOA committee can’t function now, so they can’t do any more damage. The terms of office expire in November so just leave it until then. That way, these petty threats become meaningless.
Unfortunately, people ignored that in favor of being led around by the whims of children.
It’s funny, but around here, I never heard of any HOA. Most developments don’t have them, and don’t have any common areas to worry about. The few that have that sort of things are usually condos that are managed by the condo operator.
Any regulations are those passed by the town or city, and apply to all homeowners.
So I’m wondering why anything things HOAs are a good idea.
I suspect that the legal fees will be in the $400,000 range (!).
Our HOA is very unusual (which is why there is a lawsuit). Their major function is to supply water for irrigating homeowner’s properties (these are all acre lots, with horse privileges). The HOA owns their own well, which is quite a valuable commodity in Arizona. The lawsuit is to determine whether people who don’t want irrigation can be required to pay a monthly maintenance fee for the well and irrigation infrastructure. The majority of homeowners think that this is fair (since it’s a shared resource, and improves the value of the home), a few owners don’t think so.
Anyway, the lawsuits have been going on for years, and seems like they may go on for a few more. We had a very contentious homeowners meeting a few weeks ago - most of the owners just want them lawsuits to be over, but there’s far too much money at stake to just give up now. The absurd thing is - even if the HOA wins (which seems like a good chance at this time) and gets to collect lawyer’s fees, they’re never going to see a dime - the losers are just going to declare bankruptcy.
Depending on the homestead laws in your state, the HOA may be able to foreclose on the homeowners in order to settle the legal fees.
Don decided to bring in the Big Guns and let them know he’s serious. Well, actually, he asked me to sit in on the negotiations with the rebel camp. This will be interesting. The clock is ticking down, at 34 days before the next meeting. At last night’s meeting, the owners voted that if the two sides can’t agree, then there will be a new election at that meeting.
I told Don I’d do it, but there are certain conditions. Before we sit down with the rebels, they have to agree that they will accept yesterday’s vote and accept the will of the owners. If they don’t do that, no negotiations.
My rather simple strategy is to get them to agree to this, then stall a bit and finally have Don say that he can’t agree to whatever terms they offer. This will cause the effort to fail, and we’ll have new elections. In the meanwhile, I’ll work with Don on proposals for new rules.
And the second condition which we’ll demand is that The Crazies don’t file the lawsuit they keep threatening.
We’ll see what happens.
Sounds like one of the new rules is that disagreements are subject to binding arbitration rather than the courts if that’s an option where you are.