HOA fun...our first TWO violations...yay!

[disneyfans95]

At the end of the day, if you want some HOA to control the clippings on the yard, the color of the paint etc etc, it is more telling for you..

Meaning, you really should worry more about yourself then the people living next door..

 

[bicker]

Actually, that's not true at all. We live in community with others. One of the big problems in this country is that attitude of not caring about the people next door.

Regardless, the point of HOAs is that one of the things some people want is consistency of vision for the aesthetics of their neighborhood. The popularity of HOAs (in other, recent HOA-related threads, some posters have complained that "all" the good places to live are in HOAs in their area) shows that this is a very strongly-favored way of living. Disparaging it just because you don't value it has no merit.

 

[jfoofj]

While I agree that HOA's can be a good thing, my one and only experience with them was awful.

After my divorce, I bought a townhouse on a private road, with approx 25-30 townhouses on it. The unit I bought was owned by an eldery lady who had passed away. It was just myself and my 2 year old son living there. I didn't realize until I moved in that the entire street was pretty much older/retired people. There was one other "single mom" on the street with one child, and a man who had his kids every other weekend and maybe a night or two during the week. As soon as I moved in there was a notice sent around about that leaving "children's toys and bikes" out in the yards was not acceptable. My son was 2, he didn't have a bike, and the only toy that we had even put outside at that point was a big bouncy ball, that was kept next to my back stairs, hidden from view unless you were standing on my back stairs. I thought it was weird, until I met the other single mom and she told me that the older people were not happy about having kids in the neighborhood. Ummmmmmmm, this was NOT 55+ community, it was just a dead end street of townhouses. Whatever.

My next issue came when I realized that the "guest" parking spots were pretty much "assigned" parking by unwritten rule. Each townhouse had a spot to park in front, then there were a bunch of guest spots... no designation as to which spots were for which units, it was just general guest parking. Well, I worked nights (and still do) and at the time my ex and I weren't on friendly terms, and he didn't take my son on the nights I worked all the time. My brother generously offered to stay at my townhouse the nights I worked so that my son didn't have to go to my moms, so he could have some stability and sleep in his own room. Well, at a meeting I guess it was brought up that I was having a "frequent overnight male guest" park in a spot that someone else felt was their guest spot due to the location of it. I was furious. It turns out that no one held specific claim to any guest spot, but the fact that someone was being that snarky pissed me off. I also told one of the HOA leaders that MY BROTHER will park in any guest spot that is open on the nights he babysits MY SON, HIS NEPHEW so I can GO TO WORK to pay my mortgage. I was SO glad to move out of that townhouse 2 years later.

 

[Tinkermommy]

We have an HOA. In fact, my husband was just elected Treasurer at our last meeting. It's taking up quite a bit of time for him, so I don't love it from that perspective.

Ours is not very strict. They do send notices when the yards are not kept up (very high grass, bushes way overgrown), but not for small things.

We have a pool, playground, tennis courts and a small park in our neighborhood. The HOA spends most of it's time on the maintenance of those areas. I can't imagine if you have a "swim/tennis" community how you would get those things taken care of.

And just because you have a house doesn't mean you can do whatever you want to it. There are local city and country regulations that you have to follow or they can take action against you.

They are not all evil. But my in-laws live in a country club community in Florida. My husband and I joke that it is just like the one Seinfeld's parents lived in!

 

[leight]

I found this thread very funny. We got a notice after replanting our front garden and replacing the two topiaries on either side of the garage this summer after many of our plants died due to the frost during winter. We used the wrong mulch. We liked the way the cedar red mulch looked rather than the ugly, brown bark chips that seemed to float away every time it rained. Now, only the topiaries can be seen from the sidewalk since the HOA is not allowed to go onto your property unless there is a visible 'hazard' to the community. My husband & I thought it was crazy that they are riding around and citing responsible homeowners who are maintaining their property (and thus adding to neighbor's home value if up for sale) rather than maintaining the island infront of our cul de sac or grooming the lawns/gardens of short sales, foreclosures and abandoned homes. So I went around and took pictures of common areas that were overgrown, homes that weren't kept up and were shortsales/foreclosures or abandoned and set them a polite notice that I would replace our mulch when the listed properties/common areas were properly maintained and cited the HOA agreement codes that showed these had to be maintained by the HOA. They began working on some of the foreclosed properties and trimmed the bushes on the island, so we replaced the mulch around the topiaries with 'approved' black lava rocks. We did leave the mulch alone on the garden since our house is so far back that there is no way they can visually see it from the street-and most of it is covered by the flowers and plants(all of those are allowed ;-P )

I would love to go to the HOA meetings but they are always on a Weekday morning and I work full time. I've sent notices and posted on our community bulletin board online to try to change the times to evenings or weekends or to try to have some voting online. I can't afford to take time off for HOA meetings. We have many homes that are distressed in our community and I am sure that the HOA fees are not being paid- so they are fining the responsible homeowners for ridiculous things like mulch and garbage pails not being hidden. What's the big deal about a garbage pail being infront of a garage if it is covered and neat? (Our neighbor got a luv note on that) Anyway- thanks for bringing this up as I forgot about the next meeting and since I am on disability this next month due to a surgey- I can attend the next meeting!

 

[bettymae1121]

I lived in a coach/manor home for 4 years (if a town house and an apartment got together and had a baby..that's a coach home!) and of course it had an HOA. Ours wasn't too bad, the rules were simple, straight forward, and mostly common sense and if you did happen to violate, they'd just mail you a polite letter and give you 30 days to correct it before fining you. It was nice having snow removal and landscaping taken care of. I also really liked that one of the rules was that renting wasn't allowed, it was owner-occupied only (I wish I could say the same for the street I'm on now. The only probelm neighbors we have are renters. Three houses all in a row and they are all trashed all time!).

Overall I'd never seek out a HOA to live in, but if I really liked a home that was in one, I'd consider it. But only after checking to see if the HOA rules weren't horibly strict and the board members aren't on power trips.

 

[brerrabbit]

I fully understand the purpose of HOA's and yes you can choose to live in a neighborhood without one. However in our area to live in one without an HOA means essentially living on acreage out in the country (which I wish I did). Ours hires an independent management company to collect dues, hire the yard guys to maintain common areas and rides the neighborhood every two weeks to send out notices of violations. I got on a couple of weeks ago about mold on my siding. I cleaned it up and everything is fine but I questioned the girl on the phone about much more serious violations in the neighborhood and she said those people have received notices as well. One who has not received notice and apparently won't is a guy who cut down a tree and put it at the curb for pick up. Well our town has a rule that trash like that has to be bundled for picjup and since they did not bundle it it has sat there for a month. HOA rules don't address it so no notice. What a joke.

Those are the minor things, life goes on, who cares. My biggest concern is this. In our by laws it states fences must be six feet tall and made of wood and kept in good repair, no problem there. But our current board, 4 people are writing what they call new standards for fences. According to the HOA and the board they have a right to do this. The current fences are cedar with 4 inch pickets and two 2x4 supports with 4x4 posts in concrete. The board has said that the new standard which means anytime you have to replace or repair your fence will be 6 inch pickets with 3 2x4 supports and a 1x6 treated rot board at the bottom and a finished height of at least 6 ft 3 inches. They will do this without a vote and just agree among the board members. Effectively the replacement cost of fencing just went up about 33%. I questioned this because if thats the case then they are free to change the "standards" of anything. The can among the four of them decide that the new roof standard will be metal roofs and the next time you need to reshingle you have to put a metal roof on your house. That's a $20 to $25 thousand job. Without a vote of the full HOA membership. That is where I am drawing the line and will be attending the next meeting with a lot of fellow neighbors in tow to vote the current czars out of office. Situations like this are where a small group of people (4 in this case) become power crazy in the name of protecting the value of homes and go beyond what is reasonable.

Now for those who say well you should not have bought there with those rules I say this. In our area HOA's are created by the developers of the neighborhoods before a single resident moves in. You want to live there you accept the rules. You have no say in changing them and have to live with what is written. I have seen closings stopped dead in the water because a buyer would not sign in acceptance of the HOA by laws. And the seller will not close with you until you do. We loved our house and after reading 20 different set of by laws at neighboring HOA's came to the conclusion that there was virtually no difference between any of them. So the bottom line was if you wanted to live in this area you had to accept the good (the house) with the bad (the HOA).

 

[bicker]

Developers that set developments up as HOAs set developments up that way because it is the way their customers reward them most. In the end, it is still your choice. If you don't like HOAs, then don't live in one. If there are enough of folks who feel as you do, then developers will chase your patronage.

 

[lpereira]

Know what's funny. Trailer park HOAs. There is one near where my aunt lives in Myrtle Beach. As for us I only had 2 rules when we were house hunting. I would not live in an HOA neighborhood and I would not be buying in any neighborhood that had SCE&G as it's utility provider.
Our first bad HOA experience (when renting) we just chalked up to 1 bad HOA. Trash carts had to be off the road by like 7pm at night. Neither of us got home from work by that time. I swear they'd be writing fines at 705. The lady who lived next door to us called the police one time when my husband mowed the grass between our houses while doing our lawn. The second place we rented we was a townhome with assigned parking in front of the unit and guest parking 3 blocks away. When my mother came to visit, my husband would move into the guest parking and give her his space. My mother is handicapped and can't walk that far. Yep- we got tickets at $100 a pop every time he parked there. Our back patio set- non-approved even though we paid like $500 for it. Wicker furniture was not allowed. The landlord was really cool about it. It wasn't his first time. We told him we would be actively house hunting and wouldn't be able to complete the year's lease. We found him another tenant, told him to keep the deposit and left 3 months later.
But if someone else wants to live in an HOA more power to them. I just don't get HOA trailer parks.

 

[ChristmasElf]

In Florida, they cannot put a lien against your home. They can levy fines, but they have very little teeth to collect them. The most they can do is take you to court, but there are so many cases that they rarely do.

I like our HOA (no, I am not a member of the board). They do try to make people keep their homes looking decent. It never ceases to amaze me how people let their homes go. They put so much money into buying them and then they don't even bother to mow the yard. Right now, there is a home next to mine. The owner has simply walked away. The HOA is, at least, trying to keep the yard mowed. It still looks terrible, but they are doing what they can considering the house now belongs to a bank.

Yes HOA's in Florida can and do place liens on properties for either non payment of dues or even having your house painted the wrong color.

http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/condo...grass-wrong-color-paint-or-other-offense.html

 

[Feralpeg]

Yes HOA's in Florida can and do place liens on properties for either non payment of dues or even having your house painted the wrong color.

http://blogs.sun-sentinel.com/condo...grass-wrong-color-paint-or-other-offense.html

That is a relatively new law. And, you'll notice it takes a lot of offenses before they can do this. I know that my HOA tried in the past and could not do it.

 

[book_junkie]

When we were looking for a house 5 years ago, all the newer build housing had HOA's, with high fees and requirements for what you could and could not do with your house, your lawn, where you could park your car, etc. The house we bought we fell in love with it and the neighborhood- we have a neighborhood association that's been running for over 30 years. There's a "lady's meeting" the third Thursday of the month that covers important topics, they organize the annual Halloween Festival, a spaghetti dinner, and a trip every year, as well as a newsletter every other month, and scholarships for the neighborhood teens going off to college. The difference between an HOA and the neighborhood association was a big consideration in our decision to purchase our house, and we couldn't be happier. We'd rather have a community feeling than a policing one, which is the feeling we got from the HOAs.

Besides, I wouldn't have been able to put up my tree faces:

 

[bicker]

<shiver> Those are creepy.