Moving to Seattle and HOA questions

[seattlenextyear]

Ok, but those are banned for actual infrastructure purposes, not aesthetics.

Acer Macrophyllum is a nice tree though. It really makes the leaves of the red and sugar maples around here look tiny.

[obsidian97]

Originally Posted by ArcticPhoenix

HOAs do NOT have their place. If the "law" needs to be enforced, that is up to the government, not a HOA. If you own something, it should be yours to do with, as you please, without intervention from someone else. As long as you pay your taxes, and do not endanger others, who cares how tall your grass is, how large your satellite dish is, or what color your house is? All an HOA does is control how YOU manage YOUR stuff. That would be like Toyota telling me whether or not I can put a bumper sticker on my car.

If you don't like one of your neighbors, or more importantly something that they've done, you go and talk to them. You don't have a group of people force someone into doing something that they don't want to do... or keep them from doing something that they want to do. Like I said, if it isn't endangering anybody, and it isn't against the law, who the fark cares?

I agree, you should be an adult and talk to someone first, but do you honestly think a frank discussion is going to dissuade someone from putting up a huge pole barn in a suburban, small lot, type of environment?

I don't really see any difference between local government and an HOA other than you can set the scope of an HOA much smaller than a government and the HOA is typically limited to things that others can plainly see. If you want to do something with your house that has no effect on your neighbors, then that's fine.

It's not like these things just spring up like weeds or one day you don't have an HOA and the next you do. It's a community action, typically put into place by a developer wanting to protect their investment as they sell lots in a new development. They don't want folks who buy one of the earlier homes/lots to do something inconsistent with the design of that neighborhood. When you agree to buy a home in that development, you're also signing up for the rules and regs of that HOA too. If you don't like it, then don't move there, just like if you don't like the rules that city X has in place, either move in and try to get them changed or don't move there.

Again, this is no different than living in an incorporated city, a condo, or an apartment building. If you want absolutely no constraints on what you can do with your property I don't think there's anywhere in the U.S. that some sort of law doesn't restrict you in some way. You might find places to live where the laws restrict you in ways that you don't care (i.e. you weren't planning on building a plutonium reactor in your backyard anyhow).

I really think saying any sort of HOA is negative is unrealistic because there are already so many other mechanisms around (like code enforcement) that limit what you can do with your property. This is just another form. Fine. No HOA, but you still have to deal with the city, county, state, federal, etc. rules. You also have to deal with your (potentially) angry neighbors. If you want to live somewhere just to irk everyone else around you, I wish you the best of luck.

It really depends on the terms of the HOA and the people involved as to what you get.

[22070Cedar]

I guess I touched a nerve with the HOA discussion.

Our experience with HOAs has been a nightmare. I agree that they can be a good thing, but I have yet to have that experience. Our HOA has cost so much money, now we will lose our home. A lawsuit will cost a minimum thirty thousand dollars. Money we do not have. The city is well aware of the problem but will not get involved. We will move but we are trying to get the FBI involved. Unfortunately our home will be so damaged that it will be unsafe to live in. But here is a list of what this person is doing.

1 - Developer removed our right to vote from the CC&Rs
2 - We have no say in how money is spent (or what has been spent)
3 - Developer is illegally selling off parts of the development and pocketing the money
(We have a gated community within a gated community??)
4 - Sold property not disclosing soil problems. (Our home is sinking, we have to abandon it)
We are not the only home affected. 3 out of 6 phases have bad soil. The city knows about this as well, as they have the soil reports. People have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to save their homes.
5 - He opened up our roads to the public. (Again illegal)
Residents have hired a lawyer and spent thousands of dollars to fight this. We petitioned the city to close the road that was opened to the public, they refuse to reverse their decision.

We will do everything we can to avoid living where there is an HOA.
This entire situation has devastated us. We may never get to own a home again.