Annual HOA meeting

[kdonnel]

Last night was the annual HOA meeting. I enjoy going just to see what sort of drama exists that might not have already played out on the neighborhood Facebook page.

Years past meetings have been heavy on pet droppings and the inconsiderate people who don't pick up after their pets or on parking in the street, people really don't like others parking in the street or on trash cans being placed, oh the horror, in the street on trash day.

This year was focused on child abductions. Didn't expect that since as far as I knew there had been none. It seems a recent homeowner is a bit paranoid and wants to install license plate readers at the entrances of the subdivision.

Even with only 25 or so of the 380 homes represented there was an instant and angry backlash to the idea of 24/7 monitoring of every car that arrives or leaves the neighborhood. There was so much "discussion" that the meeting ran an hour or so over.

Do you attend your annual or monthly HOA meetings?

Every any good fireworks?

 

[bcla]

Part of a small townhouse HOA. The drama is fairly limited except when it comes to parking. We're also too small for a management company.

 

[FlightlessDuck]

I, thankfully, don't live with an HOA. I doubt I would ever chose to live in a neighborhood that has one.

 

[soccerdad72]

Never attended one in over 15 years in our neighborhood. The neighborhood Facebook page is bad enough (and good enough entertainment).

 

[fla4fun]

I, thankfully, don't live with an HOA. I doubt I would ever chose to live in a neighborhood that has one.

I will never live with one again.

 

[CdnCarrie]

I'm so glad that HOA isn't a thing here. They sound horrible.

 

[kdonnel]

I'm so glad that HOA isn't a thing here. They sound horrible.

There was nothing horrible that happened. I feel sorry for the person who brought it up because she seems to live in fear that her child is going to be abducted.

 

[Moliphino]

I, thankfully, don't live with an HOA. I doubt I would ever chose to live in a neighborhood that has one.

I don't think they're common in my area outside of condos. I wouldn't want to deal with one.

 

[sam_gordon]

I'm so glad that HOA isn't a thing here. They sound horrible.

They are not horrible. They CAN be, but that's anything.

 

[superme80]

When I lived with an HOA I did attend a few times. I basically was told to sit down and shut up since "You don't seem to understand what you are talking about". Basically the president had an issue with women who spoke up and opposed him. I am so glad to be done with my past HOA.

 

[smiths02]

There was a gun brandished at our last one I attended (despite local PD already being there to calm the situation). I do try to have one of us go for voting purposes, though.

We were the unlucky ones who came upon our community pool right after it had been vandalized. Some people wanted to install cameras at the pool (not videoing people swimming but cars and people entering the pool). People went crazy about privacy and what if it is "neighborhood kids" and now we were putting young teens in mortal danger from terrible law enforcement. So people there knew it was their kids and they didn't want them to get caught and get a record.

 

[smiths02]

I should add. We didn't realize how bad ours was until after we bought the house, but still our fault. We will make sure not to have one next time we buy. Things are little less tense than they were 2 years ago at least.

 

[soccerdad72]

They're mostly annoyances more than anything else. Unfortunately, as with many things, the only people that they can usually get to serve on the boards of HOAs are people who are overly involved in people's business.

 

[morgan98]

We are in the Atlanta area and live in a neighborhood with an HOA. I am not on Facebook and don't follow that drama, nor do we attend the annual meetings. There has been nothing in the five years we have lived here that has required our participation, thank goodness. We do read meeting notes and those sorts of things, but we have no desire to get deeply embedded in any of that.

ETA: There always seem to be just a couple of people who are true busy bodies. Let them have at it I guess.

 

[kdonnel]

There was a gun brandished at our last one I attended

That's some great entertainment there!

 

[cvjw]

We are also in the Atlanta area and lived in our first neighborhood without an HOA. Things turned ugly quickly with boats, log trucks, terrible paint colors, owners not taking care of their yards, etc.

We moved to an adjacent neighborhood with an HOA almost 20 years ago, and have no complaints. Yes, there can be drama, but it is much better than letting the neighborhood get rundown because there aren’t any rules in place to stop it. We use a company to run the HOA with local neighbors as board members. Has worked out pretty good so far and our neighborhood still looks great with the homes selling like hot cakes when someone needs to move.

 

[kdonnel]

Every annual meeting I am always surprised by the turnout. 10-30 homes represented max out of 380. You would think with a $270,000 annual budget people would want to be more informed or take a more active approach.

 

[soccerdad72]

Every annual meeting I am always surprised by the turnout. 10-30 homes represented max out of 380. You would think with a $270,000 annual budget people would want to be more informed or take a more active approach.

I have a lot better things to do than waste my time listening to discussions about repairing our pool or random landscaping whining.

 

[kdonnel]

I have a lot better things to do than waste my time listening to discussions about repairing our pool or random landscaping whining.

I understand the value of time but to attend the annual meeting takes 2 hours out of the 8760 in a year. To send in the proxy vote takes even less. Maybe 10 minutes max to read the email and respond.

I remember the first time our annual dues increased by $50 there were 75 or so homeowners who all of a sudden wanted to know why. If they had attended any of the prior annual meetings they would have known why.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I haven't been to one but I know our bigger annual one is Monday. I suspect that one will be more people given that they raised the dues this year (only $25 for the year though) which had stayed the same since 2015.