What has your homeowners association experience been?

[ILoveLucy]

We're looking at a house in a newer subdivision with a homeowners association. Dues are $450/year and it offers a pool, tennis courts, lake, etc., and then regulations about home upkeep, etc. I've never lived with one of these before.

What has your experience with an HOA been? Good or bad? Any insight is appreciated. Thanks!

[JTsMom]

It really depends on the association. Try to make sure you know what you're getting yourself into before you sign on, and don't take someone's word for it, actually look at the documents yourself.

Some are very involved in every imaginable detail, and have insanely strict regulations. IME, most are more easy going. Some barely do a thing. Ours is still new, as we're in a new construction community, so only time will tell, but so far, unless we wanted to do something really wild, I can't imagine anyone would give a fig.

[SnuggleBuggles]

I only lived in one for 2 years. I was annoyed when we got a letter because our grass was too long- a week after ds1 was born. You'd think someone could cut you a bit of slack temporarily. I understand their reasons but I also think that overall the yard didn't look that bad (missing 2 weeks of mowing- nothing that awful, imo).

It really does depend on who is in charge. Normal, rational people? Or crazy, power hungry weirdos?

Beth

[Andi98989]

I would get a copy of the by-laws and read through them. I've been on the board of our HOA for several years and we're pretty laid back. Our dues are $30/month and those cover trash removal and maintenance of our common areas, a playground, and a community storage barn. We are public roads, so we don't have to pay for maintenance of that.

Our main "restrictions" are that you need to submit your landscape plans for approval prior to doing your plantings, and that your shed has a maximum of 150 sq ft and the color should coordinate (not match, but look decent) with your house. That's about it.

We've had numerous people put in all their landscaping without submitting a plan. We just send a letter asking for a copy of their overall plans (a simple sketch is fine) to keep in our files. In terms of grass, our by-laws require that you mow at least 4x a year, but that the yard not become unsightly. The only time we've ever really addressed that with someone was when they were selling their house and had moved to their new home and weren't keeping up with the yard at the old house.

Each HOA is different, so you may want to try and talk to a neighbor or two and find out how much they're actually enforced.

[rlu]

We didn't buy in an area with a HOA as they restricted the size (by weight) of dogs allowed. Really read all the rules/laws/etc. My aunt's HOA restricts the time frame for putting up holiday lights, etc. - some would say that's a good thing...

[o_mom]

Ours has been pretty good. We have to submit any 'major' changes to the exterior/landscaping, but unless you are doing something crazy or completely forbidden it is rubber-stamped. The major ones that affect us now - no sheds, no chickens, replace any trees that die, pick your fence from a list of approved options and mow the grass once a month in summer. A good portion of the document covers when they were building new and had things like minimum sq ft, attached garage, etc.

[clc053103]

I actually prefer to live in a community with a HO association. I would be happy to deal with crazies complaining about my trash cans being put out 2 minutes early in exchange for having rules and regulations that keep our neighborhood beautiful and our property values high.

Driving through "unregulated" neighborhoods near us, there are long-term PODS on driveways, multiple sheds, boats and campers on lawns in plain sight, above ground pools, and all different levels of upkeep- these things IMO drive down home values.

REview the association documents to ensure that they don't have any rules preventing something you would want to do (like PP's examples), and if it seems reasonable, I wouldn't let an HOA deter you from buying a house you love.

[pb&j]

I like our HOA - it is pretty hands off. It sponsors a block party every fall, so that's cool! ;)

Read through the bylaws, and see how picky they are. Our HOA specifically encourages each property owner to choose paint colors to their liking (we have a rainbow of houses on our street!!), but the neighborhood next to ours, all the houses have to be neutral colors (blah).

Our neighborhood does not have a clause about leaving outdoors toys in sight when not in use, and most of the neighbors leave cozy coupes, etc on their porches or in the front yards. I know someone in the neighborhood across the road who was fined for leaving their red wagon in their front yard for a couple of hours while their kids were napping.

In a lot of places, nuisance vehicles and grass height may be governed by city/county regulations, and don't need to be included in HOA bylaws.

Our HOA is pretty laid back as HOAs go, and we don't have any big problems (yet) with people leaving cars on blocks in their driveways, or not keeping up their homes. Our HOA encourages us to go to neighbors with complaints before involving the HOA. It's a pretty small neighborhood, and most people know each other so I think that helps. Personally, I'd rather have someone with an ugly fence than have my right to do (fill in the blank) with my property be abridged.

Also, it's usually pretty easy to get elected to the board of your HOA, so if you don't like how it is being run, you can change it.

[smiles33]

Also, it's usually pretty easy to get elected to the board of your HOA, so if you don't like how it is being run, you can change it.

:yeahthat: I ran for the Board after a couple annoying incidents at our first house. For instance, during our first week, we got a notice about a $50/day fine because DH painted a wood column (it had been replaced for termite damage so it was still raw wood) and it was not the identical shade! He had eyeballed it, so after getting that letter, he scrapped off a chip on another column and had the paint store custom match it. He then painted it at 8 pm at night after a long day at work while I held a flashlight.

Once I got on the Board, I found the other officers will cut you some slack. Still, that HOA was mostly retired folks with WAY too much time on their hands. Our current HOA is mostly parents with kids, so they are more lenient (though there are 2 members who care way too much about paint colors!).

[ellies mom]

I have a love-hate relationship with HOAs. I hate the idea of them but grudgingly admit that they serve a purpose.

Maybe this is unique to our area, but you can really tell which neighborhoods have HOA and which ones don't. Not just because the houses and landscaping are older but because the upkeep tends to be nonexistent in those that don't. We looked at a few beautiful older homes in different neighborhoods but decided against them because the houses on either side looked as though the owners had never made a trip to the dump. We've lived in other areas where the neighborhoods still looked nice even without HOAs but for some reason this isn't one of them. So as long as we live in this area, we will probably live in a neighborhood with one and I'll just grouse about it.

Our current one has been a mixed bag. But up until recently we were in kind of a unique situation. Our HOA covered three very different neighborhoods with very different needs. One neighborhood wanted to split off and basically held the needs of the other two neighborhoods hostage until we finally agreed to split this winter. Hopefully, now we can get some of the restrictions changed to better meet the needs of our neighborhood.

[♥ms.pacman♥]

I actually prefer to live in a community with a HO association. I would be happy to deal with crazies complaining about my trash cans being put out 2 minutes early in exchange for having rules and regulations that keep our neighborhood beautiful and our property values high.

Driving through "unregulated" neighborhoods near us, there are long-term PODS on driveways, multiple sheds, boats and campers on lawns in plain sight, above ground pools, and all different levels of upkeep- these things IMO drive down home values.

REview the association documents to ensure that they don't have any rules preventing something you would want to do (like PP's examples), and if it seems reasonable, I wouldn't let an HOA deter you from buying a house you love.

:yeahthat: i agree. our HOA isn't too nitpicky about stuff..there are a lot of rules but they aren't super super strict. like technically you aren't supposed to put your trashcans out before 6pm the day before trash day, but i see people put them out as early as 11am all the time. i think the only one time we got a "warning" because we had our sprinkler system on the wrong day (we had just moved in, forgot to change it to only water the 2 days that were allowed). but that's it. i agree that some things may be annoying but i'd rather deal with that than to have to deal with eyesores on other people's property that eventually drive the property values down.