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If you were doing a volunteer HOA board member job no one else wanted to do, wouldn't you feel entitled to get some money for all your hours of work and listening to complaints every day? No wonder some HOA board members expect kickbacks from contractors they hire.
Wow, I hope that was a joke. Otherwise you just gave a perfect example of what is wrong with HOAs and most small governments. Nothing like a little corruption to spoil your day.
We once lived in an HOA that hadn't been turned over to the owners from the builder (new construction community). One day, one of the builders' trucks backed into my HOA-approved birdhouse mailbox, knocking it over. I saw it! I went over to the office and immediately reported it, and was told "unless I have proof, they couldn't do anything." I had red paint from the truck on the box, but they shrugged and said, "Lots of red trucks, your word against theirs."
We put up a new mailbox, but due to the birth of our baby the next week, we didn't get around to getting the $75 'birdhouse' cover for it immediately. 10 days after the baby was born and five days after I was home from the hospital after an emergency c-section, there was a knock on our door at 7:30 am -- a girl from the builders office telling us that we needed to put up a new mailbox or risk "not being in compliance." I told her, curtly, that we'd do it when we got around to it, but it wasn't a priority TODAY. That weekend, my husband picked up the new birdhouse, but didn't get a chance to install it. On Monday morning at 8 am, the same girl showed up with an "HOA Notice of Infraction", and I told her that if the damn mailbox meant that much to her, someone from the builders trailer across the street could march over, take the mailbox out of garage and install it themselves SINCE THEY WERE THE ONES THAT DESTROYED IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. A week later, they sent a guy over -- but then sent me a bill for $100 for "installation". I walked the bill over to their office, looked the contractor in the eye and tore up the bill and said, "See you in court, if you really want to collect on this B.S." Never heard a word from them after that.
We just moved from a non HOA neighborhood, all the comments we got were "love the house, hate the neighborhood". Very few of our neighbors kept their houses and yards looking nice. Trailers and boars in the driveway, fences half down. Unfortunately for us, we had the nicest house in the neighborhood and to sell it we took a huge hit. After that experience, give me an HOA any day.
I wish more HOAs were VA Approved, so I'd have more variety of Condos/Townhomes to choose from, its tough finding one with VA Approval, so in the mean time im looking at single family homes
I've lived mostly in an HOA communities. I only had difficulty with one. (They hated the owner I was renting from and took it out on me)
I don't know if I would purchase one to live in but I prefer to rent in one and would own a rental in one. Reason why I wouldn't purchase one as I want a rural house on acreage and they tend not to be in a community. If there was, I wouldn't mind if it was an easy going one.
... I find HOAs to be mostly a way for fussy people who pay way too much attention to their neighbors' activities to exercise some power. I was fortunate in the last HOA I was in that their incompetence made up for their oppressiveness; they had rules like "one tasteful lawn ornament", but my neighbor put up a huge Christmas carousel and all they could do is write nasty (and ungrammatical) notes in their newsletter about it.
I WISH my HOA had a rule like "one tasteful lawn ornament." The people who moved in across the street from me put up NINE of them before they even unpacked. One is uglier than the next and they have nothing to do with each other. The cutesy painted cartoon frogs have no relationship to the four-foot hairy bear or the three-foot cement chess pieces. I have another neighbor whose yard is filled with southwest "antiques." Old bones, broken wheels, Kokopelli figurines, etc. And instead of exchanging these things for holiday ornaments, these people ADD them. I can't even imagine what I would have to look at if I lived someplace where people could do anything they wanted with their homes. Call me fussy if you want to.
We just moved from a non HOA neighborhood, all the comments we got were "love the house, hate the neighborhood". Very few of our neighbors kept their houses and yards looking nice. Trailers and boars in the driveway, fences half down. Unfortunately for us, we had the nicest house in the neighborhood and to sell it we took a huge hit. After that experience, give me an HOA any day.
HOAs are a necessary evil. We were sighted for weeds in our driveway cracks. They are a bit fanatical, but it's better than anarchy.
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