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Our neighborhood has to have a property owners association or there would be no one (and no money) to take care of the streets, street-lighting, sewers, golf courses, parks, pools, etc. The local governments don't do this because the roads in our community are private roads and all the amenities are owned by the residents collectively. We are not in a city or even township. The POA is very responsive to calls for service and we get our problems resolved quickly with just a phone call.
Unless your property is part of a condominium, the amenities are owned by the POA corporation and NOT the residents collectively. This is a common misunderstanding that owners of HOA-burdened property have. The maintenance issue could have been addressed without imposing an involuntary membership corporation. The primary purpose of such a corporation is to disenfranchise you and to shift liabilities to you, not to help you or protect you.
Typically the rue is what can be seen in the windows from the street must be white. The inside color can be what any one wants. Picture puke purple drapes but the side seen from the street is white. Not a problem.
...and why would the side seen from the street be a problem?
Do you believe that the unit owners should be falling over backwards to meet the aesthetic whims of casual observers?
...and no the 'puke purple drapes' aren't going to harm "your property values". An appraiser certainly isn't going to reduce the value of the unit with the drapes or the units without the drapes based on the drapes.
I already bought into one. We love it here. We don't have to worry about slobs letting their weeds and cars on jacks lower our property values. Our POA (property owners' assoc) dues are quite reasonable and go towards the cost of maintaining our streets, lights, sewers, and recreational amenities, as well as the offices and employees that are necessary to maintain a neighborhood of this size (3500 homes). We are not in an incorporated area, so all these things are owned by the POA, which is to say us, the residents. I think we get a lot for our money, and except for a few board members who try to play favorites, we think it's run fairly. We have bi-annual elections and if we don't like the way things are being run, we vote 'em out. The system here has been running quite well for over 25 years. Are there things that are a bit too picky? Yes but, for the most part, we don't have a bunch of tattle-tales reporting each other for every little thing. The benefits outweigh the negatives.
No the residents do not own nor do they have any ownership interest in the streets, lights, sewers, recreational amenities, etc. Obviously you believe it but you are incorrect. You have a financial liability to pay for them and that obligation is secured by your house. You have zero ownership interest in them and no say as to how they are maintained, when they are maintained, who maintains them, etc.
Do you have elephants in your trees? No? The HOA is obviously doing a good job of keeping them out for you. Just keep paying whatever the HOA demands, getting permission to do anything on your own property, and that HOA will continue keeping the elephants out.
If HOAs maintained property values then you wouldn't have seen the housing financial crash of 2008-2012+.
We don't have HOAs in Canada. However, I have always looked at them as a way to "police" lower class neighborhoods into looking respectable. If your neighbors are of a certain standard, you should never need an HOA.
HOAs:
some swear by them, some swear at them.
Never the twain shall meet.
Those who swear at them will make every possible effort to avoid ever owning a home where one exists.
those who swear by them will make every possible to buy a home in one.
That is as it should be.
The poll shows a strong anti-HOA sentiment on the part of the readers.
Personally, I am very glad we do not have one. I do not need a Board of Directors telling me I can not have my RV parked beside my house, or I can not use the RV as a guest house for visitors, or I can not put up a 40 foot tower for a Ham Radio antenna, or I can not have horses or chickens on my property, or I have to plant certain trees but not others, etc.
20 pages in, and the same old arguments are repeating themselves endlessly, from both sides.
Yeah, well, that's the way it goes in cyber land...
In my town, you would be hard pressed to find a neighborhood built in the last 30 years which did not have an HOA. And the majority of housing in the area falls into that category due to rapid growth.
Environmental laws make it very difficult to build new housing without an HOA.
Environmental laws make it very difficult to build new housing without an HOA.
Yes and so does local government mandate in many areas. In addition, developers and their financiers prefer them as a mechanism for shifting control away from homeowners. Developers and their financiers also want them because they operate to shift financial and legal liability away from the developer and shift financial liabilities to the homeowners via restrictive covenants. Despite all that equivocally parrot claims that HOAs "preserve property values" (notice the "for whom" is missing), there is no empirical evidence to suggest HOAs "preserve property values" for the homeowners burdened with involuntary membership HOAs and perpetual liens that can never be paid off.
Yes and so does local government mandate in many areas. In addition, developers and their financiers prefer them as a mechanism for shifting control away from homeowners. Developers and their financiers also want them because they operate to shift financial and legal liability away from the developer and shift financial liabilities to the homeowners via restrictive covenants. Despite all that equivocally parrot claims that HOAs "preserve property values" (notice the "for whom" is missing), there is no empirical evidence to suggest HOAs "preserve property values" for the homeowners burdened with involuntary membership HOAs and perpetual liens that can never be paid off.
You continue to overstate your case.
Yes it is of course true that owners do not "own" the common property. But they do elect the Board which does control it. And well run HOAs do a reasonable job.
The HOA also presents a significant risk to the developer. It provides the organization to pursue the developer over construction defects. It may well be that a collective of owners actually does the suit but that organization was a direct outcome of the HOA.
In general the HOA tracts did better than the non-HOAs in the bust. Particularly the well run HOAs recovered quicker and with less damage. Sometimes it is beyond the control of anyone...ie a home presently degrading after the death of the owner with no known estate. But even here the HOA is at least attempting to keep some order...tough though when you cannot get the water or electric on. In this case an HOA foreclosure could be the best outcome. It will apparently take years before the property reverts to the state...the likely end game in this instance.
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