And many people don't. What's your point? I generally think we should err on the side of fewer restrictions when there's disagreement around the existence of things like this.
You're not obligated to buy a home in such a community. Even in areas where it's not practical to find a home with no HOA, the vast majority of them are low maintenance and don't do or cost a ton. You just don't hear people complaining about those.
> the vast majority of them are low maintenance and don't do or cost a ton. You just don't hear people complaining about those.
I've lived in a country ruled by a dictator. I can assure you - in most such countries the majority of the folks are happy with the status quo. It's only a small percentage that is badly abused. Therefore we should all be OK surrendering our rights to the government, right?
And so it is with HOAs. The majority don't screw you, but I don't want them to have the power to screw me.
> Even in areas where it's not practical to find a home with no HOA
Which is quite a lot of them; there are cities where you're unlikely to find anything reasonable in city limits.
> the vast majority of them are low maintenance
Most HOAs can become worse on a moment's notice depending on who has power in them, because most people (reasonably) don't want to spend the energy fighting in bitter ridiculous politics.
Yeah, it seems like if you want to form an association of homes where everyone has agreed that the houses must be beige, you should be free to do that.
Some of those people chose to have a reasonable commute distance, and thus had literally no options that didn't have an HOA. In some cities, good luck getting anything in city limits that doesn't have an HOA.
Should you expect to impose yourself on these areas and go against the existing residents wishes? If you are living in an inner area, it’s a more communal thing than some rural farm.
If you want to control what happens on a property, either own the property, make a case to a court that you are substantially negatively affected in a way for which you have any basis for expecting otherwise, make a case to an actual government that something is a safety hazard to neighbors or similar, or get over it.
Or, you know, actually talk to your neighbors and ask nicely, and have reasonable requests like "please don't park your RV where I can't see to pull out of my driveway" instead of "don't paint your house purple".
I would like to see an equivalent of "right of first sale" for homes, that disallows attaching conditions to future sales (such as "must be a member of this HOA"), and disallows HOAs any ability to make liens or otherwise have any teeth whatsoever to enforcement more stringent than a passive-aggressive note.
HOAs are just a formulation of the pre-existing concepts of covenants and easements.
In my neighborhood there is no HOA, but due to a historical surveying error all of our lots have legal boundaries that are significantly shifted from where the as-built fences and landscaping would lead one to naively believe just by visual assessment. This situation is remedied by a bunch of bespoke agreements between neighboring properties and I can't imagine any way of it working if these agreements didn't go with the land.
In addition to that, the city sewer line runs underneath several of our properties and easements are in place with the sewer authority to allow for future maintenance of this public utility. Due to this there are restrictions about where and what I can legally build on my property.
Of course I was informed about all of this before I bought the property and the existence of these agreements did affect the price I was ultimately willing to pay.
Personally I am glad that our legal system is flexible enough to accommodate these edge cases and if a group of neighbors somewhere wants to leverage this system to ensure all the houses on their street remain beige I say more power to them. I will simply choose to live somewhere else where my tastes are more aligned. All of these agreements can easily be dissolved with the cooperation of the involved parties, so if you actually make an effort to get to know and get along with your neighbors you shouldn't have any issues building and living in the type of neighborhood you all appreciate.
Actual government is just more of this same thing anyway. I once lived somewhere without an HOA where the city fined me for not maintaining a large mowed lawn. YMMV.
> HOAs are just a formulation of the pre-existing concepts of covenants and easements.
I live in a _very_ progressive part of the country. In my county, 9 HOAs were found to still have race-related clauses in their bylaws (no longer enforceable, to be sure, but still in the bylaws). Understandably concerned by this state of affairs, the County went to those HOAs to have them remove the language.
Two did not want to. One said it was onerous to have to update their bylaws to remove the clauses (which only permitted "colored" people to live in servants quarters, or "guesthouses". Again, progressive part of the country...). One dug in even deeper and said that they felt it would be "untrue" to the historical "significance" (which existed only in their own mind) of the neighborhood.
Thankfully, the County was unimpressed, and told both HOAs to remove them, or that the County would begin legal efforts such that both HOAs would be forcibly dissolved (or something similar) should they be "uninterested" in doing so.
I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here, or how your response relates to my quoted statement in any way. But of course I agree that racism is bad and enlightened and progressive people like you and I cannot support such evil concepts. Keep on fighting the good fight.
> Should you expect to impose yourself on these areas and go against the existing residents wishes?
This keeps coming up, and the answer is an unqualified Yes! It's surprising people don't understand this.
If an HOA has a rule that says I can't own a TV in my house, then yes, I intend to impose myself on them and go against their wishes. Is that hard to understand? Just because rules exist when you buy a place doesn't mean I should try to abide by them.
There are lots and lots of properties within and adjacent to every city that are not encumbered by an HOA. Many people hate HOAs though, so these properties are in high demand and might be hard to find on the open market. Last time I bought property it took me three years to find a place that ticked all of my boxes and where I could afford to outbid my competition.
I always wanted to live in a decommissioned firehouse, but haven't run into that opportunity yet. I understand my tastes are rather counter to the mainstream and I don't feel entitled to the market providing bespoke products that fit my desires to a T. I just do what I can to acquire what I like.
