Does your Community have an association ?

[Mskanga]

If so , may I ask how much you pay and what's included in it?
We have an association, our dues are $135 a year , and up until last year they used to take care of the road maintenance ( snow removal , etc ) , but last year they turned the roads over to the township. Our property taxes ( not school ) have gone up because of that, and honestly , I prefer to pay higher taxes but have my roads taken care of in a timely manner. The problem is , the association insists on billing people for the dues, we have no amenities , nothing is included ( no garbage pick up, no water ) and nothing has been done to the community, so there's nothing to show for our money. There's a big uproar with a lot of people, we don't want an association anymore , we feel we are paying money for nothing.
We are trying to get rid of it, but of course they are putting up a fight.

 

[Steve H.]

We'll have one with our new house -- I think it's about the same dues/year as yours, something like $150 a year. We're going to be debating with our HOA pretty much right away, too -- trying to get our son's playhouse approved for our house. Currently, the unofficial ruling on it is that it's considered a "shed" and thus, not allowed. But we're going to try to argue that it's not a shed and no different, in reality, than any of the monstrous playground structures others have in their backyard.

 

[Minnesota!]

Yes - its $175 a MONTH!!! . Yes, that's A MONTH!! And people are wondering why we are trying to move again after we just bought this place in October 2002.

So, you all have it easy...

 

[FOJMO]

Wow, Minnesota! I thought ours was a lot. We pay $40/month. They do a pretty decent job of landscaping and the streets are city streets, so the homeowner's association does not have to cover that.

I still think $40/month is a lot, but compared to $175/month, I consider it reasonable...

 

[Toby'sFriend]

No - my husband and I always tell our Realtors to steer us away from communities with Associations and Covenants.

 

[scarlett873]

our community will have an association when we move there in december...i think our dues will be roughly around $300 a year...our builder is actually handling the association for now. our community is expected to be 800 homes by the time all is said and done...once they reach 75% occupancy or something like that, they will turn the association over to the community. i'm so excited to move there though...it's all built around these lakes and ponds...there's a play area for kids, a pool, a wading pool for little ones, a big wheels park for little ones (it's so cool!), and a summer house to use. we'll be able to take out non motorized boating equipment out onto the lake when it's done too. so, with all that we are getting, i think that $300 dues is fair...

but we will have to contend with the shed issues though...i'm not looking forward to that...

 

[Mskanga]

Our problem is nothing is included, we have no amenities , no pools, lakes, playgrounds or anything like that. We have no landscaping to do by them , they tell us to call the township if we want the grass around the township roads cut . No garbage pick up, no street lights, absolutely nothing.
We feel like they are making us pay for a bunch of people to sit down and make stupid rules and regulations that the president himself has been caught violating.

 

[Minnesota!]

The only thing that is included in ours is water (which, in reality is only $20 a month), garbage ($10 a month) and they cut the lawn (very TINY - maybe takes 20 minutes). I don't understand. There are about 600 houses - so they are making $105000 a month off us, for what???????

 

[4greatboys]

We live in a rural area and have never had an HOA> after all the horror stories I have heard about numerous ones Im sticking to the county. I do not want to live in a neighbor hood that has one.

 

[FOJMO]

Originally posted by Minnesota!
The only thing that is included in ours is water (which, in reality is only $20 a month), garbage ($10 a month) and they cut the lawn (very TINY - maybe takes 20 minutes). I don't understand. There are about 600 houses - so they are making $105000 a month off us, for what???????

Don't they send each homeowner an itemized budget of expenses? I would think they would have to do that. Then you know what they're spending it on and what's in the account. Do you have meetings you could go to to learn about what's happening?

Sounds like so much money and no one knows what's going on.

 

[Miss Jasmine]

We pay around $150 per year. Our association was just turned over from the developer to the home owners and I am not very happy with the board that has been put in place. We are a community made up of young families and retirees. The retirees dominate the board and we have to read such articles in the newsletter such as keeping our kids quiet when they play in the yard, etc. It really burns me and I am considering running next year just to be a young voice on the board. Anyway, now that I have rambled on about that, my dues cover the costs for a management company, landscaping of common areas, maintenance of lakes (glorified water retention), and I think that's pretty much it.

 

[Credit Man]

We pay $140 per month. That includes garbage collection, snow removal, unlimited golf, pool, club house, excercise room.
All in all, a pretty good deal.

 

[CEDmom]

Ours is around $100 a month, but I think it includes a lot:

snow removal - streets, sidewalks & driveways
lawn care - cutting grass, trimming hedges and trees
garbage services
twice yearly large item pickup
exterior house maintenance (roofing, siding, gutters, painting)
playground and tennis court upkeep

Within the last 2-3 years all the garage doors and gutters/drain spouts have been replaced.

 

[binny]

This is our first experience with a HOA and I hope our last!

THey send around notices al the time saying "remember to replace your lights, its part of the CC&R's, you must have 2 trees ( NOT shrubs) in your front yard, NO fireworks, oh and watch for the GOLDEN FLAGS to see who wins the "coveted" Lawn of the month award!"


Whatever.

We pay I think $225 a year but all we really get out of it is Irrigation which is $75/ year. the landscaping of the common areas even though they cant manage to find a decent company, and someone to watch our every move!

UGH

 

[DVC-Don]

We have one on paper only. No dues, no officers. Soon as the developer turned it over it died. Over on the other side of town there is a very large active one. Lot of money came up missing over there.

 

[DonnaS]

We live in a townhome development and pay $237 per month. That includes all external maintenance (painting, landscaping, replacement of all exterior home parts such as garage doors when needed, etc., pest control, lighting, road upkeep within the development), earthquake insurance on the structure (that's a whopper and accounted for a large increase--but we all voted on that), pool maintenance, garbage, water, sewers, etc. There is also a healthy reserve fund for when things like the roofs need replacement.

We do get a statement each year detailing where all of the money is going and it is very reasonable. Aside from the year that we approved the earthquake insurance we haven't had huge increases in the HOA fees.

 

[ChibiJones]

When we buy our condo, our monthly homeowner's association dues will be about $150. This is for a condo though, not a house.

They take care of all external maintenance - snow removal and landscaping. Every time we've been there, the grounds have looked immaculate. The complex also has a pool, fitness center and laundry facilities. The fee also includes a master insurance policy so we only need insurance to cover damage to our possessions and unit.

 

[MerryPoppins]

Our dues are reasonable. They do landscaping at the entrances to the subdivision, lake maintenance, pool maintenance and lifeguards. The pool alone is worth what we pay.

The thing I hate about our HOA is all the silly restrictions. We are supposed to get any landscaping or building okayed in advance. Shh, don't tell anyone, but we planted some trees without asking permission.

We can't even change the color of our own house without them passing on it. I understand that they are afraid someone will paint a house an outlandish color, but I think it's going a little too far. It's all about concerns that property value will go down. I heard one family got into trouble when they replaced their roof and went with a different shade of shingles, but went up a step in quality. Give me a break! What difference does it make if their roof is a slightly different color? Sometimes I think the people on my HOA need to get a life.

 

[disykat]

We have an HOA in our neighborhood of 27 houses. Thankfully we have some great neighbors (Except the people next door!). We pay $30 a year. The only expenses we have are some landscaping at the entrance (we pay a neighborhood teen to keep it up and pay a small amount for new beauty bark etc. each year) and the power bill for one big light at the entrance.

We have one meeting a year. Unfortunately the family we have problems with never comes. We have found that HOA can't do much to enforce covenants, but at least we have an association so that if things get really bad we can hire a lawyer. We discussed disbanding, but decided to keep going in hopes of keeping property values up and keeping our neighborhood nice.

It's nice to feel like we have some say in what goes on in our neighborhood. Our covenants are not very restrictive.

 

[Val]

We have one for our subdivision and pay about $75/mos for mowing around the retention ponds (excuse me, here in Illinois these are "lakes"), etc.......the "group in charge" is mostly retirees (we have a mix of families and older folks, too. The head is an environmental-nazi and covenant nazi.....leaves post it notes on your front door when you are in "violation", e.g., have the garage door open after 6 pm, have a basketball hoop in the front yard, children's toys left in the front yard, etc......my neighbor behind us and I take great glee in seeing how many "violations" we can acquire each summer!

Other neighbor's behind us's teens (does that make sense?) had a loud and drunken party.....covenant nazi's were out yelling at them and threatening to call the police. I have a much better way.....went over at 8 AM and rang the door bell continuously until a very hung over young man answered the door......said I was looking for my lost cat! (that's what he gets for waking me up at 3 AM discussing/yelling whether or not so and so should hit so and so because so and so said.......)

All in all, the association is an irritation, but has helped us in dealing with the corrupt developer. And in general, the individuals in charge are responsible (just a few are overzealous).