Banned is maybe too far, but why should we as a country allow people to have petty power over meaningless things their neighbors do? Could we ban HOAs from being included in house sales, and every time it’s sold the new owners have to opt in?
For the most part, I’m wondering about this in the context of single family homes since for homes like condos, you could make the case that HOAs are useful for shared things like roofs and whatnot. Maybe limit mandatory HOA involvement to things like what’s truly necessary and shared and not how tall your grass is?
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Freedom of association means the freedom to be a member of an HOA. But requiring HOA membership to purchase a specific property should be banned. Freedom of association means that you should have the freedom to not be a part of the HOA.
There’s nuance to it. I live in a townhouse and if some fucker in my row tanked my property value because they didn’t redo their roof on a reasonable schedule, I’d be pissed. There are limited situations where having a collective solution on stuff like this is necessary, but the vast majority of shit the HOA does is just red tape annoyance and platforming the neighborhood Karens.
Maybe the HOA should pay for his roof then? You know, with HOA fees.
I get there is nuance, but times suck, people can afford less, and HOAs have become a way for people with tiny dicks to harm others. If we used them as a a way to identify and address issues in a neighborhood in constructive ways, it wouldn’t be an issue. They are about power.
Roof replacement is one of the things our HOA does, that’s why I used that as an example.
This might be unpopular, but I don’t think HOAs should be banned. WAIT! I, personally, think HOAs suck and I’d never agree to buying a home in an HOA. That said, not everyone feels that way. Some folks genuinely like living in HOAs, and for all the horror stories, there’s at least a few where the HOA simply exists to provide amenities to the neighborhood i.e. playgrounds, walking trails, pools, etc. People should be free to choose the kind of housing arrangements they want, and if they want an HOA, then that’s their prerogative.
The real problem with HOAs is that we’re trying to solve the housing crisis exclusively with single family residential zoning, which means that HOAs are vastly overrepresented in terms of what’s available on the housing market. It’s fundamentally a zoning issue. People who don’t want an HOA or can’t spend $2,000/mo in mortgage plus another $300/mo or whatever in HOA fees should have options, but they kinda don’t. Ask your city why their zoning sucks.
Absolutely ban them as they currently exist. If you must band together for whatever reason, do so en masse not hand the reins to a small handful of people who inevitably go power mad
Fun fact: this also works this way for whole societies!
No. Should they be as pervasive as they are with unbounded layers of beurocracy? Also no.
I think people might not understand how many assholes live around you that the HOA keeps in check. I didn’t until I joined the board. Sometimes you have to litigate, but sometimes you also just need a dedicated (and elected) group of people to go knock on the door and talk out a problem. It’s nicer to have this somewhat regulated (bank accounts, insurance, taxes, and yes even covenants for procedure if they are kept up to date) than to just knock on some doors and wing it.
If your HOA has an old lady measuring your grass and some dude using color swatches to check the paint on your mailbox, move. If your neighborhood has lights, clear sidewalks, fences and landscaping that are cared for, and no dog crap to step in, keep paying into it. They are doing a good job.
The point of HOAs is protecting/increasing property value. We need property to be cheaper, not more expensive. Higher property values benefit speculation, not ownership. Burn them all.
Also, higher property values can mean increased property taxes. As out of reach as it feels, I’d rather my future home cost me less money to just live and grow old in, thank you :c
I wouldn’t ban them, but I would make sure they need continual community buy-in to keep going. Make them automatically sunset if not renewed. Like, every ten years you have to get signatures from 2/3 of the home owners in the HOA in order to renew it. Good HOAs can keep going indefinitely or be reestablished later. Bad ones just disappear when they can’t get enough signatures to keep the thing going.
I don’t have a problem with people volunteering to bind themselves into a communal covenant. I do have a problem with the long dead hand of developers past binding people into a perpetual obligation. I know it is possible to dissolve HOAs, but it requires getting the vast majority of homeowners to come together to actively choose to revoke it. I would use the opposite system. Every ten years you need a supermajority of homeowners to commit to renewing it.
This is obviously in the context of single family homes. They’re unavoidable in condos.
bind themselves into a communal covenant
This sounds like a black magic ritual in a fantasy game. I dig it.
I would support a state law that required all HOA board members to dress in black robes during meetings. Also all meetings must be conducted by candlelight.
Thank God someone in this thread actually knows how HOAs work.
I’ve lived with good HOAs. I’d still rather they dissolve and everything be part of normal city operations.
Plus is it just me or are the same people that say they want small government also the ones who are super pro HOA?
I hate my HOA except that it’s the only thing from keeping my neighbor from filling his yard up with garbage and junk cars. My bar is low, but it’s above that. We live too close for that kinda shit.
City ordinance usually covers things like that. Many even cover decent maintenance of the lawn.
yep, and at least city ordinances are made by elected leaders or direct democracy so if having a used car collection located immediately in front of your house is a popular storage method it will be harder for the nimbys to prevent it.
Don’t ban them, there are some good parts in there
Require yearly elections on who leads
Limit the power they have, especially with giving out citations
Don’t allow to outsource the work. You want a HOA, you do the HOA. Those HOA companies are thr worst
Yes. Housing is tough enough as it is. Linking a lot of properties to the HOA is disgusting and should be illegal.
I think HOAs and Business Improvement districts persist because they fill a need for hyper local government that the existing, formal governments are not fullfilling. HOAs don’t need to be banned, they need to be replaced with something else that better fulfills this niche but is more regulated and accountable.
I think at least HOA’s should be banned from requiring certain plants in your yard. Namely grass. HOA’s should not be able to prevent people from replacing their lawns with native and edible plants.
Yes.
I believe some TIC agreements are structured as HOAs, which is perfectly reasonable — but I’m pretty sure that’s not what you’re referring to here.
Yes
