Homeowners Association Rules

[bevtoy]

Wow, that is nuts. We have none and I am very happy wit hit this way! I own my home and the property and I don't have to ask permission to plant anything LOL.. I don't think I would do well living with a homeowners association, most sound like just a bunch of people on power trips!

We only have a few. No burning of anything noxious (we live in the country and can still burn). No building within 25 foot of the property lines, only stick built homes can be placed on any property in the subdivision.

 

[Chris2597]

Our HOA is pretty strict but we were told about and given a book with all of the neighborhood rules before we signed on the dotted line....I think most of the rules are for the good of the neighborhood...I disagree with their citing residents that have Rubbermaid sheds, metal swingsets, decks in their backyards that cant be seen from the street....I mean who cares? and how the heck did they see it...?? One of our neighbors had a plastic shed (I couldnt tell it wasnt wood/hardiplank) and he was cited....It was lower than the 6 ft fence, couldnt be seen from the street or neighbors yards and he was forced to remove it...He went to arbitration and lost....

 

[sm4987]

Your association sounds a lot like mine Let me add to that no drying clothes in the back yard where they are visible. No sheds unless they look like the house or cannot be seen over the fence. No painting without approval, no 18 wheelers with or without the trailer.

Did I mention, can't chew gum, show no signs of emotion,heck just stay in the house where we can't see ya

 

[poohandwendy]

Seriously? No shoes left on the front porch?? No windchimes?? Only white non-blinking Christmas lights??

What's the point in owning your own home if it has to be just exactly like every other one on the block? Like I said before, I just don't get it. There's no way I would put up with that kind of stuff. I like my Winnie the Pooh flag and my hummingbird feeder, thank you very much. And, if my neighbor loves the ceramic deer in her front yard, why on earth should I care?

My sister lives in one of those places where all the houses were built at the same time, all from one of several styles, all the blocks look exactly the same, all the landscaping is very tastefully similar, etc. I seriously wonder how she remembers which one is hers . . .

I am right there with you Gem. I do not have interest in living in a Stepford community. IMO, what makes a community feel like 'home' is the blending of different tastes, styles and interests.

Just a little story, if you will:

There are two women that live a few streets away from us and they have a postage sized front yard that they have always decorated (as long as we lived here, 17yrs) with TONS of lawn decorations for every holiday. (I mean All of the holidays)

They put so much stuff in their front yard and on the house that it looks like a carnival with lights and plastic reindeer on the roof, huge "Happy birthday Jesus" signs made of painted plywood. Seriously, so much stuff you could barely see the grass. We would never see them in the process of putting all of the stuff up,. it was sort of a mysterious thing. One day it wasn't there and the next day it was...lit up and in it's tacky, blinking glory. If you saw how much stuff they decorated with, you would understand how weird it was that we never saw them decorating. It looked like it would take days to do.

When I first saw it, I was like "Oh that is so gawdy/tacky" and I remember thinking whoever did that was out of their mind. We always wondered where in the heck they stored all of the decorative 'crap'. Over the years, I sort of got used to it and my kids would look for the decorations to see how much stuff they put up. It started to grow on us, sort of a part of the flavor of the holidays. We then started to look forward to it and it was like a game trying to figure out what was 'new' this year.

And then every time I went by the house I would say "It looks like someone really happy lives there". Because they really go ALL OUT to get festive about every single holiday.

This past Christmas, there were very few decorations in their yard and I wondered what was going on...and then Valentines day came and again, very few decorations. Turns out, a woman and her elderly mother have lived there all these years and the mother recently became very ill and died this spring. It just broke my heart to hear that. Because now I know a sad person lives there.

I really hope to go by and see the decorations up again...all of the tacky plastic 'junk', blinking lights that don't match and glittery dollar store decorations...I really, really want to see that a happy person lives there again.

Just something that this thread reminded me of.

 

[golfgal]

In my entire life I have never lived in a place where there were HOA rules and everyone has always managed to keep their houses up, yards looking acceptable at least, and we have never really had any issues with neighbors leaving junk places. I think that HOA are ridiculous! They don't really help keep your property values up, the people living in the neighborhoods do that. I think everyone on our street would be fined right now for having weeds in their yards but none of them are bad it is just that we are experiencing a drought and weeds grow better then grass. Everyone's yard is cut and manicured and everyone has lovely flower gardens. The REALLY nice thing is no two houses look the same.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

I like having an HOA!!! I was a trustee board member at my last house.

I wish mine was more strict.

 

[cheerbop]

Most of these rules are also in our HOA. Permission for everything,etc etc....

One that we don't have that I wish we did is the no above ground pools. I mean....we leave in $$$ homes for this area and we have 3 pools above ground right by our home. one on each side and one behind. the ones on the side are only 10 feet from our yard! It peeves me. It really looks like it is IN OUR yard.
And, if any of the liners end up leaking, because our home is on a slight slope, all the water willl drain AWAY from their yards into OURS! UGH!

We want to put up a fence but is HAS to be the new vinyl kind. My DH can't do it himself, so we would have to pay someone to do it...at $34 a foot for installation plus the cost of the fence. The cost for our backyard is $5000. Just not the kind of $ we have laying around right now. Maybe in the next year or 2 if we can take being here that long.
OH! Our neighbors' children ride bikes and battery powered toys in our yard without permission all the itme. We are also the community "walk through" for everyone, so it seems that we constantly have people walking through our yard to get to another street. I could go on and on but that is another thread....

 

[barkley]

no hoa's in our little town, but the city does carry some of the same rules on the books. signs are very limited, certain types of vehicals can't be parked in front of the house (boats, r/v's have to be behind the fence and not visable from the street), no clothes lines period, and one of my favorites- a permit is required for having a garage sale and you are limited to having 2 per year (this is a realy good law-they don't hassle people about it, noone goes around checking for permits but if you end up with a neighbor who is basicly operating a weekly flea market out of their front yard the local police will check to see if they've gotten a permit and can shut them down in absence of it or if they've exceeded their max days-they keep records on file).

i just wish someone would push to restrict those portable basketball hoops-we lived on a double cul-de-sac and out of 20 houses there were at least 15 of these eating up street parking. they also have a nasty habit of tipping over in heavy winds.

i have to laugh when i hear of hoa's restricting exterior paint colors-there was a very highly publicized case in a nieghboring town some years ago. a guy got ticked off at the increasing restrictions his hoa kept putting on him, so he painted his house PURPLE. not a muted purple, a realy loud obnoxious purple. the hoa took him to court and spent a fortune trying to force him to change it-but he ultimatly won-he pointed out that the hoa rules stated that houses had to be painted in "earth tones"-and the judge bought his argument that "purple is the color of grapes, and grapes come from the earth-therefore purple is an 'earth tone' there was alot of speculation in the media that the judge lived in an area with a power mad hoa and was just getting his own digs in

 

[aprilgail2]

In my entire life I have never lived in a place where there were HOA rules and everyone has always managed to keep their houses up, yards looking acceptable at least, and we have never really had any issues with neighbors leaving junk places. I think that HOA are ridiculous! They don't really help keep your property values up, the people living in the neighborhoods do that. I think everyone on our street would be fined right now for having weeds in their yards but none of them are bad it is just that we are experiencing a drought and weeds grow better then grass. Everyone's yard is cut and manicured and everyone has lovely flower gardens. The REALLY nice thing is no two houses look the same.

That is how I feel. My neighbors house was foreclosed on, how does a HOA help with that? It was empty since the town has a set time to do things but we just had my landscaper cut the front lawn and hedges while he did the other six houses he does on the block so it looked alright until someone bought it and fixed it up. I have a big issue with someone telling me I can't have a pool in my own yard. No one sees into my yard anyway thanks to the six foot fence around it so who the heck cares what anyone else has in their yard. Other than that if the grass gets to high the town steps in and makes them cut it or they cut it and add it to their tax bill....and its free to us, no homeowners fees to make them fo it. Cars without plates on them?? Town comes and tows it away, one phone call is all it takes...no homeowners fees there needed either...house colors?? Heck it is your house, paint it purple with pink polka dots if that is what floats your boat....though all the houses on my block are different colors, shades etc...when they were built they all looked alike except for the different colors but now some are 1/2 dormered some 1/4 dormerd. some 3/4 and some full dormers and some are just like they were built...makes the block look not so stepford wifeish...don't you people that live in HOA neighborhoods had town codes that help you with keeping your neighborhood nice and they enforce it for free??? I just don't like the idea of one person with a power trip goverening my whole neighborhood! I can just see that person walking around like the king of the block, "nope you can't do that, nope you can't do that"....UGGGG>.....

 

[barkley]

the whole thing with christmas lights reminds me of that episode of 'roseanne' when they get the letter from the 'neighborhood association' about restricting holiday decorations to 'tastefull white lights'...then they go out and create the tackiest holiday display in history (beer can wreathes, old lighted signs from defunct restaurants, lewd nativity displays 'why is santa leering at mary?'...).

i wonder how an hoa would react to the local teen holiday tradition around here? the kids wait until people have their yards set up and then run around town all night and rearrange the white lighted reindeer sculptures such that the reindeer are 'mounting' each other

 

[pearlieq]

We have a pretty restrictive HOA as well. Almost ever single new development out here has one, and some neighborhoods are going back in and trying to establish one now. I mostly hate it, but I do see some good points.

Our rules:

No fence over 4', and it has to be a cedar shadowbox-style fence
No gardens
No clotheslines
No sheds
Decks & gazebos much be approved
No painting or changes to the front for 7 years
Above ground pools must be skirted
Kiddie pools cannot be left up overnight
No working on a car in your driveway or garage
No boats/RVs/Campers overnight

At first I really rebelled against the idea, but while looking for a house we drove through a neighborhood with no HOA. We came upon an electric blue house with black cowboy sillouettes nailed up flanking the garage door! That was enough to clear up any reluctance on our part. Now anytime we feel frustrated with the HOA one of us just says "cowboy house" and we both remember that the HOA work FOR us too!

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

our HOA also states "earth tones" and I have thought the same thing: that can apply to alot of colors they don't intend.....just waiting for some smartalec to push it here....

 

[juligrl]

4 feet?!?!?!? Wow, guess they don't want you to have any privacy in your yard...well I guess with them limiting the fences to 4 feet tall it helps when they are sticking their noses into your property to see into your yard easily LOL!

There are already a dozen "illegal" fences in our neighborhood with another one going up today. My Jack Russell Terrier could easily clear a 4 ft. fence, so I guess it's a good thing they don't really enforce this one!
And they're only suposed to be vinyl fences at that, but there are both wood and iron ones up as well.

 

[vegasnative]

I don't mind the HOA as long as the purpose is to maintain the neighborhood (no non working junky wrecker cars parked in the street, yard), making sure peoples grass isn't four feet high...stuff like that. However, when they start acting like Big Brother is when it is out of control! We have one here, and it is rather expensive for what it is in my opinion. We pay $32.00 a month, if we want to ask for approval for anything we have to send in another $10.00 with our ARC form. We have to ask for everything, planting new trees/shrubs, changing the exterior of the hosue in any way (paint, additions, adding a security door). We had to ask for permission to put up our kids play set. We are not allowed to have any toys visable through the gate from the front street. So, with 3 little ones, I am constantly making sure their bikes or other toys are not parked in the back near the gate where heavne forbid someone could see them! Ack...kids toys in a backyard...I think I may pass out! Gimme a break. We cannot park boats, RV or any commerical vehicles at all, only for loading/unloading purposes. Lets see, we got a warning letter for having a pile of dirt in our driveway for a week while we repaired some grass in the back. My friend got a warning letter for not taking her trash can back up after the trash had been collected. Oh, ya we cannot have visable trash cans, they must be kept in the garage. No basketball hoops allowed to stay in the street, must be taken back inside. The list really is endless. My mom's HOA doesn't allow Oleanders in their yards, and here in Vegas it is one of the few shrubs that thrives in this heat!

 

[vatmark]

Not all neighborhoods w/ HOA's are the same. We live in a neighborhood with an HOA. It doesn't really bother me. All the houses in our neighborhood look different because their were different builders. You could buy a lot and use your own builder and build the house you wanted. You did have to submitt your plans to the developer but he was not strict.

Problem around where we live is that it is very hard to find a neighborhood where there is not a HOA. Before the house we live in now we lived in a nieghborhood w/o an HOA. We had houses that were nasty bright pink and one shocking blue. The pink house had the SS Minow shipwrecked in the driveway. Some houses had cars parked on the front lawn. Some people let their grass grow to about 3 ft. high. It was all very unsightly. We strived to keep our house and yard looking nice but still had to drive past those houses and yards that just looked horrible. The entrance to the neighborhood became overgrown because noone did anything to maintain it. I would rather live under HOA rules where these types of things are taken care of.

Our HOA is not very picky. We don't have to ask permission to plant something in our yard. Everyone landscaped their yard how they wanted. There is rules about the type of fencing you can have.

I think when looking to move into a neighborhood that has an HOA you should really look over their covenants to see if their restrictions are something you can live with.

Annie

 

[icebrat001]

Shh, I haven't even opened the hoa book, they even gave me a cd-rom. I know it has some crazy rules. Avoidance is the key for now.

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

Annie (vatmark): very true!!!

HOA's do not necessarily mean cookie cutter houses or rows of houses all the same - in some instance an HOA can actually work to ensure there is a mix of styles and colors - and that they are not repeated on the same street or area.....that is how it is here - with the only exception being a couple small areas (we have mixed use...some apts, some smaller homes, some middle of road, and some mini-mansions) where there are very small lots and patio style homes...those tend to be the same one after the other...we also had a mix of builders and people could choose what to put on their lot within reason.

 

[hydster]

Man count me as another one who would NOT do well in any type of HOA. My parents live in a PUD with a HOA and they love it but they are older, fuddy duddy and my dad is a stickler for all things ruled. They get miffed when the other people in their neighborhood don't do what they should.

I love that I can do ANYTHING I want to my house when I want and I don't need permission from someone. The only time I need permission is from the County when I want to build a shed closer to the property line. I would never be able to function in a HOA community.

Some of these stories remind me of Christmas with the Kranks where they had to win the neighborhood "contest" with frosty on the roof. I couldn't stand to be told how or when I had to decorate my house and I would really hate a 4' fence. Mine is 6' and it's still not high enough

 

[LadyyRedd]

our HOA also states "earth tones" and I have thought the same thing: that can apply to alot of colors they don't intend.....just waiting for some smartalec to push it here....

I remember reading a story once about something similar. I can't remember what it was that the homeowner painted (maybe the outside of the house?), but per the HOA rules, it stated "earth tones". He painted it some obnoxious red color and the HOA tried to fine him. He took them to court and argued that it was the red color of some red clay in some red clay pit somewhere. He had documentation as his proof and the court found in his favor, because he had indeed followed their "earth tones" rule.

Kimya

 

[MI mom of 3]

I couldn't handle living with a HOA. Unless you are paying my house payment you have no right to tell me what to do with my house or property.

I understand that buying there gives them that right, which is why I would never buy into one of those.