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I would say the HOA is less about a small group enforcing its will on others and more about laying out expectations to anyone who is thinking about moving there. Rather than someone thinking they can move in and do whatever they want, the HOA has in writing, what the expectations are. You dont have to move in. Before moving to our neighborhood, you should agree that you are willing to keep a clean yard with no trash, keep it mowed, not keep an RV in your driveway etc. My guess is that 99% of HOA's are fine. Obviously some HOA's turn bad, but lot's of neighborhoods without HOA's are bad too.
In our neighborhood it is a struggle to get people to join the board. Everyone is so busy. I participated a bit for two years and I consider my time simply as a volunteer to benefit the community. I am glad that the people on the arch committee are there, it is a pain and time consuming to review all the plans that get submitted. In the next few years I probably will volunteer because I do think it is my responsibility (it is the committee with the heaviest time committment).
The reason so many developments have HOAs is because they've been forced upon subdivisions by local government and developers - not because they are popular. Local government wants a tax base without obligation for services or maintenance. Moreover, they like to force the creation of amenities marketed as "common amenities" such as an open space. If the open space is owned by the county/city then it would be out of the tax base plus the county/city would have to maintain it. When privately owned, the city/county taxes it and bears no responsibility for care. Developers like HOAs because HOAs create a regime in which they can control the resources and properties of a large number of residents who have no say often for decades. By the way, those amenities are not "commonly owned". They are owned by the HOA. The HOA does not represent an asset to the homeowners, it represents only a common financial liability.
You need to distinguish between restrictive covenants and HOAs. You can have restrictive covenants without an HOA. You can't have an HOA without restrictive covenants. No one needs private police intruding into their property and threatening fines and foreclosure with no accountability.
As to popularity, you have confused numerosity with popularity. According to your logic, cockroaches are tremendously popular with the citizens of Houston. The large number of cockroaches there clearly evidences the popularity of cockroaches with the residents of Houston, right?
HOAs aren't popular - they are virtually unavoidable. What rational person wants to have a perpetual lien imposed by a private corporation that is never, ever, ever paid off on their home? Worse, the "payments" on this lien can increase at any time largely at the whim of a board. These Boards tend to try to increase their authority as well as subject owners to restrictions never agreed to.
Avoiding an HOA is not made any easier by a MLS that doesn't enable you to affirmatively search for non-HOA properties. Also real estate professionals tend to downplay the risks that HOAs represent to the prospective purchaser. Often all you hear is false cliches about HOAs preserving property values - except the speaker never says who this value is allegedly preserved for. The reality is that any "preservation of value" is conferred upon the city, county, developer, and vendors of the HOA, not the homeowners.
Most people don't "prefer" HOAs, they simply have no feasible choice but to live in one.
Last edited by IC_deLight; 02-24-2009 at 10:39 PM..
One thing I try to emphasize to my clients when they are buying in a HOA is, yes, to read the restrictions carefully BEFORE buying, but also, to remember that those restrictions can change in future depending on who is on the board, how they interpret them, how determined they are to get them changed to fit their idea of how things "should be", and so on. In other words, move in informed, and be prepared to keep a sharp eye on the governing entity and the people who make it up.
It was posted right here on city-data about how someone bought a house in an HOA association that had been run well and without a heavy hand for 50 years - they had a friend who had lived there all that time. Shortly after they bought and moved in, the people who had been living there for most of that time (in many houses), being an aging population, sold and moved. Within 3 years, the nature of the HOA and the restrictions and regulations had changed dramatically, and for the worse and more punitive.
I've said several times, HOAs are neither good nor bad, but they do suffer the vices of their virtues. Control is put into the hands of a small number of people, and depending on how well or poorly the bylaws and regulatiosn are written, that can be a blessing or a nightmare. One should be aware of this BEFORE moving into an HOA neighborhood, and that one can't assume that because the restrictions read thus and so today, that that won't be changed next month or next year.
IC-delight, the MLS does, indeed, allow one to search for HOA status, HOA dues, mandatory or voluntary, and a couple of other HOA-related choices. The flaw is that the listing agent has to put that information in - it's not automatic nor does the MLS keep you from moving on until you have entered it, as it does for some data. But the fault is not in the MLS system but in individual agents.
The point is that they inevitably are taken over by the types TexasHorseLady pointed out. Once that happens it is extremely difficult to remove them. These board-types are advised by management companies and HOA attorneys how to disenfranchise the vast majority of residents so that they continue empowering their little club at the expense and even loss of homes of the residents. Since you don't have the right to vote or the right to run in an election, the board can declare you to be "in violation" or cite you for some violation right before an election in order to make sure your vote doesn't count. There is an unholy alliance between the Board members and the management company that "advises" and "educates" them. The currency of exchange for these Board members is ego and perhaps money. The currency of exchange for the management company is definitely money and it comes at the expense of all the non-board member residents.
I hear your remark about MLS, TexasHorseLady, however MLS should have a simple True/False or Yes/No checkbox to indicate whether there is any mandatory (aka involuntary) association that one is forced to become a member of if they purchase that property. After all, that's a pretty major attribute of the property - yet it is treated as less important than the number of bedrooms, year built, or whether horse(s) for example are allowed.
What MLS does is force buyers to have to make inferences (e.g., if there is a fee then there is an HOA, however $0 doesn't mean there isn't an HOA). Also it appears to be a "text" field which makes it more difficult to search. Many agents simply say "see agent about association fee information". The lack of a simple yes/no or true/false field impedes the ability of a prospective purchaser to search for non-HOA property. A buyer should not be finding out about the HOA for the first time at the closing table when a PUD rider is slipped into the stack of papers they are supposed to sign at the title company.
You have however corroborated my point about at least some agents being less than forthcoming about the existence of an HOA in the first place. Should complaints be filed against agents that say $0 because it falsely suggests zero dollars are due AND conceals the existence of the HOA?
Last edited by IC_deLight; 02-26-2009 at 08:48 AM..
Reason: clarification
The point is that they inevitably are taken over by the types TexasHorseLady pointed out.
You obviously have a bone to pick with HOA's and appear to be completely closed minded that they have any value at all. What you are describing can happen at any level of government. city, state or federal. Can a third party realistically get elected at the state or federal level? Are the repubs and dems really that different? Arent they just a good ol' boy network fleecing the public and in the back pocket of lobbyists?
The reality still is that an HOA provides governing rules that encompass a smaller area than a city which allows a city to have a diversity of neighborhoods. Are HOA's necessary? Of course not, but neither are cities or states or countries.
For example, I dont hear you railing about cities, but havent your heard about cities abusing eminent domain or zoning restrictions or watershed restrictions or endangered bird restrictions?
Try to get some perspective. Austin has a ton of HOA's and most people do not have the issues that you are describing.
You obviously have a bone to pick with HOA's and appear to be completely closed minded that they have any value at all. What you are describing can happen at any level of government. city, state or federal. Can a third party realistically get elected at the state or federal level? Are the repubs and dems really that different? Arent they just a good ol' boy network fleecing the public and in the back pocket of lobbyists?
The reality still is that an HOA provides governing rules that encompass a smaller area than a city which allows a city to have a diversity of neighborhoods. Are HOA's necessary? Of course not, but neither are cities or states or countries.
You have really confused the issue again by trying to suggest that an HOA is a democratic form of governance much like a city or county. Nothing could be further from the truth.
When government officials engage in the conduct that is standard operating procedure for HOAs, they go to jail. Except for two HOAs in the entire state (Woodlands and Clear Lake City and even then only because of legislation to address abuses) there are no open records, no open meetings, no right to vote, no right to run in an election, no right to confront an accuser in an HOA, and the list goes on. The Woodlands likely will not even be an HOA much longer since the various Boards have recognized that an HOA does not protect property values. The Woodlands is converting to a "township".
A democratic government is subject to constitutional restraints as a political subdivision of the state. An HOA, however, is deemed to be a private person. HOA proponents argue that they don't have to abide by such things. Your only "right" is to pay whatever the HOA and its agents demand from you.
Quote:
For example, I dont hear you railing about cities, but havent your heard about cities abusing eminent domain or zoning restrictions or watershed restrictions or endangered bird restrictions?
Try to get some perspective. Austin has a ton of HOA's and most people do not have the issues that you are describing.
Cities and other political subdivisions of the state have constitutional limitations that HOAs are not subject to. There are actions that may be perceived as eminent domain abuses. However political subdivisions of the state still must recognize procedural and substantive due process. Moreover they are obligated to compensate for any takings. There is no such thing as due process in an HOA and there is no compensation to an owner for takings at all.
There really isn't anything good about giving governmental level authority to a "private person" such as an HOA without the constitutional restraints that apply to legitimate governments.
The backlash against HOAs is well-deserved and it is one reason that growing numbers of prospective purchasers refuse to have anything to do with an HOA. The dirty secret about most of these HOAs is that the seller can't disclose what's going on because they wouldn't be able to unload their HOA property. You may be right about the numerosity of HOAs but claiming that "most people" don't have the problems described is an unsubstantiated statement.
The problem is large enough that numerous bills have been filed this legislative session to force HOA boards and agents to recognize the right of others to oppose them and to vote. There are multiple bills filed to address the extortive priority of payment racket that you are apparently oblivious to but that has nevertheless been used to extort money from homeowners or to empower a Board to decide whether you are permitted to continue to live in the subdivision based upon their aesthetic whims or egos.
A growing cancer deserves eradication not celebration. Look around you. These places have become pockets of despotism throughout the Austin area. Do you favor an environment where people are routinely disenfranchised from voting, running in elections, or by threatening them with the loss of their house under the pretext of "aesthetics"? Seems to me that the very nature of an HOA (once exposed) is so ugly on so many levels that such an organization is inherently incapable of achieving its purported rationale for existing in the first place.
Last edited by IC_deLight; 03-03-2009 at 11:30 AM..
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