How Homeowners Associations Took Over Neighborhoods

HOAs almost always turn bad, even if your HOA is fine for the moment, it is only ever one dispute or one board election away from waste, fraud, and abuse. In contract law, HOA agreements are some of the most one sided agreements, and are worse than terms by loan sharks and other predatory organizations. A home is the largest investment the super majority of people will ever make, and an HOA is able to hold that investment hostage unless you comply with ever changing and arbitrary demands, it is at a point where most people looking or a home, will have as a requirement that there be no HOA. HOAs have less accountability than a local city or town government, hence why corruption is so much more common among HOAs. If your local city council hires their brother's company to fix a pothole a coat of $500 per hour per employee on site, there are multiple legal paths of recourse. If your HOA president decides that their cousin is to maintain the grass in the common area for $500 per hour, there is very little recourse. The HOA will quickly get vindictive, assess dozens of arbitrary fines to anyone objecting, and rush to put liens on homes. Most HOAs turn into bully cliques with unequal enforcement of arbitrary rules. There are many subreddits dedicated to pointing out HOA abuses, including egregious ones such as someone getting on the bad side of their HOA after challenging a fine from a trash can being knocked over after strong winds but did not spill anything since they are locking trash cans. The retaliation then turned into fines for multiple things including being forced to get a new roof, which then turned to additional fines because the roofing company put a dumpster in the driveway to collect the trash from the repairs. HOA horror stores have even become a video industry on youtube of channels dedicated to reading HOA horror stories. The issues with HOAs, stem from the draconian terms and lack of a proper exit clause to protect home owners from abuse. For example, if someone wanted to establish an HOA that protected the home owners from abuses, they would have terms to join where home owners agree to a list of rules and fees. There would then be protections, such as rate changes requiring audits where all home owners have access to the data, and prevent abuse, an iron clad exit clause that any home owner can use to exit the HOA without penalty for changes to the bylaws, unequal enforcement of an existing bylaw, fraudulent issuance of a fine, as well as efforts to obfuscate expenses, or hinder attempts to audit expenses. Protections like that are needed given how frequent abuses of them are. For example, no one wants their HOA to partaking in the increasingly common trend of HOA expenses for maintenance and upgrades to the HOA office that really mean a new office PC that ends up being a high end gaming PC that gets swapped with a board member's old home PC. Or their friend needs cash for a vacation so they get paid $10,000 to do maintenance involving just changing air filters for the HVAC system.

Our first home was in an HOA. So glad we're out of there. Never again! Those people are a nightmare of MONSTERS!

8:22 - Exterior Appearance. Like food manufacturers adding things to certain food items to make them look more desireable. It's not good for any human but at least the apple looks shiny so you'll buy it even though it's on the verge of rotting. Houses that look good but are in a HOA has the added expense of being in the HOA. When you can't afford the fees, dues, and fines, you'll be booted out of your home that you paid 100s of thousands for. This is the metaphorical rot.