I knew about some of the stuff, but not all. And honestly, I may not have moved here if I had known. So, I really hate all that “you know what you signed up for”.
ugh this also annoys me. I will admit I naively thought the HOA was professional adults, and had always heard of people complaining about HOA issues like their house color or something fairly benign that I didn't care about anyways. But they're not everything is so petty and rude unnecessarily and rules aren't applied fairly with no explanation.
And also in my area the houses without HOAs are just not really an option. Everything that's not a single family (and then even a lot of single family homes now) have an HOA. So unless you have 1 mil+ for a single family homes you're stuck in an HOA.
My H has been part of the board for both the houses we’ve owned that had HOAs and it’s the literal worst. The first HOA he caught the treasurer embezzling money, and the other has people who’ve lived in the community for 30-40 years and don’t want anything to change and hate the people who don’t live there full-time (that’s most of the community).
So I hope you don’t win only for your own sanity, lol! It’s not worth it!
My H has been part of the board for both the houses we’ve owned that had HOAs and it’s the literal worst. The first HOA he caught the treasurer embezzling money, and the other has people who’ve lived in the community for 30-40 years and don’t want anything to change and hate the people who don’t live there full-time (that’s most of the community).
So I hope you don’t win only for your own sanity, lol! It’s not worth it!
The work car thing is BS though.
My brother is convinced that someone is embezzling money. We pay $120/month and it’s just to get our common areas mowed and shoveled.
Also hilarious is that they just raised our fees by $20/month, and president’s sister had the audacity to say that she hoped the next HOA wouldn’t raise our fees. Lady, your brother just raised them on all of us and we got nothing extra out of it!
My H has been part of the board for both the houses we’ve owned that had HOAs and it’s the literal worst. The first HOA he caught the treasurer embezzling money, and the other has people who’ve lived in the community for 30-40 years and don’t want anything to change and hate the people who don’t live there full-time (that’s most of the community).
So I hope you don’t win only for your own sanity, lol! It’s not worth it!
The work car thing is BS though.
My brother is convinced that someone is embezzling money. We pay $120/month and it’s just to get our common areas mowed and shoveled.
Also hilarious is that they just raised our fees by $20/month, and president’s sister had the audacity to say that she hoped the next HOA wouldn’t raise our fees. Lady, your brother just raised them on all of us and we got nothing extra out of it!
Is there no requirement to balance the books publicly? Pass an audit?
My brother is convinced that someone is embezzling money. We pay $120/month and it’s just to get our common areas mowed and shoveled.
Also hilarious is that they just raised our fees by $20/month, and president’s sister had the audacity to say that she hoped the next HOA wouldn’t raise our fees. Lady, your brother just raised them on all of us and we got nothing extra out of it!
Is there no requirement to balance the books publicly? Pass an audit?
We get a list of income and expenses, but it’s pretty basic and would be very easy to fake. That’s what he says anyway 😆
We must have the unicorn HOA. Really only three rules--no chain link fences, no parking RVs, boats, trailers, etc. on your property for over 24 hours, and no barn-type storage sheds. We even quit mowing half of our back yard to turn it into a meadow; the grass got to be two feet high an not a negative peep out of anyone.
Post by donutsmakemegonuts on May 9, 2024 7:58:45 GMT -5
I live in a neighborhood that has no HOA, which I know is a big selling point for homebuyers. However, there are definitely drawbacks to not having a well run, organized HOA, like people parking their RVs in the street in front of their house for weeks, not moving their lawns until the grass is a foot high, leaving their garbage cans out in the street for days and just generally not keeping up with their property. Luckily, my neighborhood is pretty well kept and the houses that aren't stand out pretty bad. One guy has had his broken garage door on sawhorses in his driveway and a tarp covering the garage for probably over a year now. All that to say, I can see both sides, but your case in particular is crazy. I hope you win.
I live in a neighborhood that has no HOA, which I know is a big selling point for homebuyers. However, there are definitely drawbacks to not having a well run, organized HOA, like people parking their RVs in the street in front of their house for weeks, not moving their lawns until the grass is a foot high, leaving their garbage cans out in the street for days and just generally not keeping up with their property. Luckily, my neighborhood is pretty well kept and the houses that aren't stand out pretty bad. One guy has had his broken garage door on sawhorses in his driveway and a tarp covering the garage for probably over a year now. All that to say, I can see both sides, but your case in particular is crazy. I hope you win.
That’s interesting. I have no HOA and they really don’t exist in my town (the town was first settled in 1667 and was mostly developed by 1960 with little room to grow), but borough ordinances cover all of those concerns. You will be ticketed by the town for tall grass (front or back), parking on street overnight, trash cans out at the wrong time, hell borough ordinance doesn’t even allow outdoor clotheslines.
I live in a neighborhood that has no HOA, which I know is a big selling point for homebuyers. However, there are definitely drawbacks to not having a well run, organized HOA, like people parking their RVs in the street in front of their house for weeks, not moving their lawns until the grass is a foot high, leaving their garbage cans out in the street for days and just generally not keeping up with their property. Luckily, my neighborhood is pretty well kept and the houses that aren't stand out pretty bad. One guy has had his broken garage door on sawhorses in his driveway and a tarp covering the garage for probably over a year now. All that to say, I can see both sides, but your case in particular is crazy. I hope you win.
That’s interesting. I have no HOA and they really don’t exist in my town (the town was first settled in 1667 and was mostly developed by 1960 with little room to grow), but borough ordinances cover all of those concerns. You will be ticketed by the town for tall grass (front or back), parking on street overnight, trash cans out at the wrong time, hell borough ordinance doesn’t even allow outdoor clotheslines.
This story is nuts, though, so I hope you win OP!
There are definitely county regulations regarding the grass cutting at the very least and I'm sure there are others, but I think people would need to be complaining enough to the county in order to get them to do anything. It doesn't effect me directly because this particular home is down the street from me and I can't really see it from my property, but I have often thought about what their direct neighbors think about it. People can park on the streets in my neighborhood all the time but I'm not sure if there is a county reg for the RV. Again, that is in another part of my neighborhood that doesn't directly effect me, but I wonder that those neighbors think of that person as well.
Also, nice job. They need to know that you have eyes on.
Not to be snarky, but this HOA vote sounds like Trump's idea of voting. Didn't go my way? FRAUD, delay, "re-count" (in their favor).
I agree with others that my area is pretty much free-standing (now overpriced) house, or HOA condo or townhouse. It's really not fair. Yes it's great if your lawn is mowed, snow is shoveled, but you can do that yourself or hire a company. People should have more housing freedom to live in a complex without a sh!tton of stupid rules...and fees.
Post by sparkythelawyer on May 9, 2024 14:51:55 GMT -5
I would check the rules in the HOA guidelines regarding elections and whether parties really can "change" their vote. If they called you? They called other people they thought could change their vote to "their" guy. Make them follow their own damned rules.
I live in a neighborhood that has no HOA, which I know is a big selling point for homebuyers. However, there are definitely drawbacks to not having a well run, organized HOA, like people parking their RVs in the street in front of their house for weeks, not moving their lawns until the grass is a foot high, leaving their garbage cans out in the street for days and just generally not keeping up with their property. Luckily, my neighborhood is pretty well kept and the houses that aren't stand out pretty bad. One guy has had his broken garage door on sawhorses in his driveway and a tarp covering the garage for probably over a year now. All that to say, I can see both sides, but your case in particular is crazy. I hope you win.
That’s interesting. I have no HOA and they really don’t exist in my town (the town was first settled in 1667 and was mostly developed by 1960 with little room to grow), but borough ordinances cover all of those concerns. You will be ticketed by the town for tall grass (front or back), parking on street overnight, trash cans out at the wrong time, hell borough ordinance doesn’t even allow outdoor clotheslines.
Same! I don't know anyone with a SFH who lives in a community with an HOA around here. We have all kinds of town ordinances. If you really want to be an irritating neighbor, you will get the town on your neighbor's back to enforce them - happened to me regarding a lawn thing.
Sometimes I watch reruns of Fresh of the Boat and the scenes of the HOA meetings are always so funny. Especially when Evan, the precocious youngest son, participates in them and is besties with everyone on the board while the mom and dad are flabbergasted by the board rules.
SFHs with HOAs are big where I live in SoCal, even in my 40+ year old community. I think part of it is a lot of neighborhoods have pools and tennis courts and playgrounds so there’s a small fee for their upkeep. We’re lucky like a PP in terms of the HOA not being nutty. Good for you OP for pointing out their hypocrisy!
Post by Jalapeñomel on May 12, 2024 7:31:02 GMT -5
My HOA costs an absurd amount of money a month , and they’re talking about a future assessment that will likely cause most of us to have to take out some kind of home equity loan to pay for it. There’s nothing we can do about it save for move, and no one can afford to do that right now (especially here where the market is bananas).