Fighting my newly starting Homeowners Association

[MissPrissy]

Quote:
On this you would be very wrong. In areas like in NoVa and Metro DC the HOA's are set up as a corporation from the initial planning and construction of these neighborhood complexes. They indeed have the funds to drag you into court and to drag it out and to create very big expenses for you. Most HOA's are set up by very good lawyers and it is very rare around here to find a court that rules against an HOA.

 

[Dar]

from what i can tell from reading about HOA's they are very much like a CO-OP ..as we call them here in Ontario..CO-OP for co-operative living...(in some sort of dream land manbe)

we had a board of power hungry idiots that i swear enjoyed making peoples lives miserable.

we could not even paint the inside of our house outside the "approved" colors! cause ya know you can see it from the road and that would be bad..to have to much color. When it came time to paint the outside of the units (we were in a townhouse) the board would hire a painter and then split the bill between us..

we had quartly member meetings that were mandiatory ..while i was pregnant with DD i was really sick so i did not go, my DH stayed home with the other 2 children so i would not have to worry about them (i was on total bed rest)..we got a letter in our door saying that we were BOTH being called infront of the board to talk about us not being there...I did not go to this flogging opps i mean meeting...Dr.'s orders total bed rest
my DH was told that because i was not in the hospital i was expected to be at the meeting and as for him we should have hired a sitter for the kids so he could have attended and furthermore because i declined to attend the flogging they were going to fine me and DH for not oing to the meeting and ALSO fine me for not ging to the flogging....

I took the matter to a small claims court and WON all i had to produce was a doctors note saying i was on total bed rest and then the dr went on to say that this whole drama has put undue stress on me and the unborn baby and put the life of my unborn child and I in danger..

So i won and did not have to pay my fines and also the judge awarded me the right to move out of my house and not have to pay any penalties for leaving before my mortgage was up. Also I won an additional $5000 for undue hardship/ emotional trauma

the co-op was closed out a few years after that and the government came in and bought the "rights" to the co-op and as people have been selling theis houses the government had bought them for less then the market value and has turned them into low income housing

 

[erinm]

Good for you for standing up. Who do they think they are bullying you like that? ErinM

 

[hinky toes]

Quote:
Oh, I would disagree about the availability of HOA funding for legal actions in all parts of the country. We lived in a neighborhood of multi-millionaires and they loved, loved, loved the HOA, but never had the sense to budget the association fees for legal stuff...the annual budget was available for all to see and there was nothing there for legal. Our HOA essentially had no teeth past the whinning.

A clothesline, just like the garden and chickens, was out of the question.

Wealthy people are not exactly the smartest chicks in the basket. In fact, they're downright tacky and embarassing. Here's a fine example (non-chicken related HOA story): our development was on an isolated peninsula on a lake in MN. About 4 long blocks before the entrance to the development was a municipal tertiary water treatment facility. It was well-kept by the city and had no odor, etc. Our HOA board president felt that it was an eyesore and likely affected our property values even though it wasn't even part of our neighborhood. The rest of the board agreed. I rolled my eyes. The president went before the local council and requested that it was "beautified" - new walls, landscaped easement, and so on. Of course the council was totally floored by the suggestion and they turned him down. The following year, he made the same request. This time the council suggested that he petition the neighborhood directly adjacent to the treatment plant property for a "beautification" levy added to THEIR property taxes. Our taxes wouldn't be affected because it wasn't part of our "zone". Without missing a beat and seeing an opportunity, he went door to door in the neighborhood FOUR BOLCKS AWAY with his request and was turned down to the point of practically being ousted with pitchforks and fire by the residents. What an embarrassment!...and this guy was a wealthy insurance executive. He couldn't figure out why they were so angry. How do people like that become financially successful? Incredible.


Those are the people who will perish first when the bad stuff goes down. They don't have enough horse sense...or chicken sense, for that matter.

 

[MissPrissy]

I don't consider us wealthy by any means but I assure you the HOA's we have dealt with and been a apart of have more than enough money to haul you to court for a very long time and pay any law fees they incure.

Most people don't know but alot of HOA's are corporations and they don't just handle 1 neighborhood. Up here they handle several neighborhoods through one buisness office.

The officers of the specific HOA's are from the neighborhood specifically and do the the doings but the business office of these associations is a different ballpark.

Not every HOA is a run of the mill neighborhood association of local yokles with nothing better to do.

 

[hinky toes]

I don't disagree with your assessment, Miss Prissy. I'm sure there are very well organized HOA's and are probably not to be messed around with. The one we were a part of was not very professionally run. They tried and failed once to take a fellow neighbor to court because he trimmed his bushes without asking permission. Crazy stuff.

For the life of me, I can't figure out how HOA's are allowed to exist in this country, particularly when it is nearly impossible to build a house in a development that doesn't have one. We were "forced" to pay $400/month in association fees for no apparent gain, on top of sky high MN real estate taxes. Most of the HOA money went to neighborhood maintenance, street sweeping, snowplowing and utilities (street lights). Why our property taxes didn't cover those things was beyond me.

I know, I know, we were definitely living in the wrong place.

Today we have chickens, a garden and a clothesline!

 

[BethinIrving]

It is my firm opinion that people who setup and control HOAs are seriously and decidedly, mentally ill.

Out in one rural City in Texas some land was sold off as a sub-division, and a HOA was covertly placed in the paperwork that nobody even saw or agreed to, and the Title Company attorney did not even mention.

All went well for years. Then a tornado struck the area. Suddenly along came the HOA guy who decided everyone had ten days to repair all that massive damage == or else.

He kept driving up and down the streets, making lists, and never offering a hand of help to anyone. Finally the men in that area blocked his access to the roads. When he arrived, they were all standing there with baseball bats.

The Police arrived and suggested to the man that he might be smart if he left and stayed gone.

He left, and nobody ever saw him in that area again, and nobody ever heard of the HOA again. Some of the folks went to his home to make sure he was ok, and he slammed the door in their faces.

HOAs are not in line with the American way of life. I think they are, however, very much in line with Nazi Germany -- from whence they came.

 

[arabookworm]

whats worse is when the borough you live in has ordinances like that. we aren't technically allowed chickens (we're getting them anyway), grass can't be more than 3 inches high, and they send people around with measuring sticks to make sure. you need a $90 permit to build anything (like a chicken coop). etc.

and since the gov unfortunately doesn't expire, nothing we can do about it.

the most ironic part is that there are farms that are about a ten minute walk from us. I'm sure they don't comply with those no farm animal ordinances.

 

[Verboten]

Quote:
I do! (or at least I know of them) They don't pay taxes, some question if they even exist here anymore, and they can build casinos that drain millions from a fairly poor area while running ads pointing out every penny that they "give back" (not very much). -I've grown bitter.


I too think that HOAs are a bad idea and hope that they were a fad of the past - but the way that they are worked into the deed makes it impossible to buy that particular property without "agreeing" to be in the HOA - so they will persist. It has been brought up on the forum in the past that HOAs are so prevalent in some areas that you do not realistically have the option of not being in one, very sad and IMO unAmerican in the way that they strip the rights of ownership from the property.

Best of luck with your problem.

 

[silkiechicken]

LOL, I only said HOA's have good since I don't know enough about them to say they are all bad! I guess the only "good" I see so far of one is if you own a HOA condo and rent it out... you pay the HOA fees to maintain the building and grounds, and the suckers who rent it have to deal with the rules. Suckers like me living in a HOA condo for school months. They have rules on what you can put in the windows and in patios and when lights for x mas are to be down. Nobody follows the rules though.

Asked a realitor in an area I was looking for a bit for places without HOA... the possible pool of houses went to about 20% of what was in the market in the area.

I don't think I ever want to buy into a HOA. Just staying in one away from home is enough to say YUCK! Still makes me sick. Possibly my distaste of authority.