Yep. I can't imagine living under an HOA. Heck, we're living in town now and it's too much for us. Seems to be a rule about everything. And it's too crowded. I need at least a 1/4 mile to the next neighbor.
I understand the frustrations on both sides of HOA, I have been victimized by just one big time when I was much younger.
My family with 4 kids ages 11-3 moved into a lovely old home in an area of Norfork VA. There was no problems as long as my Hubby was ashore. When he went on a 9 month deployment out of the blue some old dude shows up to tell me I was violating some rule of the HOA. These brave old timers stayed away from us when Hubby was on the spot but a lone woman with a handfull of kids was to them an easy mark.
News to me there had been no HOA when we bought the home, some of the retired folks had started this HOA just a month before and for some reason those of us with children were not even asked to join.
I was threatend that if I did not join and pay them $50.00 a month I could be sued. I called one of those lawyers that advertised first visit free and was told that as we had little money just sit tight and keep my nose clean.
In a little over 6 months we had the building inspectors send unannounced to my home to inspect our wiring, plumbing, and siding.
The SPCA arrived to make sure my dog was healthy registered and had its shots.
CPS arrived to check out complaints that I was not feeding my kids.
Complaints of some kind of stench coming from my back yard brought out someone to check my yard.
We all got to know most of the cops as some of these idiots didn't bother to notice when I visited out of state my family and the home was unoccupied for a week or two. I would come home to find 5-6 business cards from the police tucked into my screen door over the noise complaints that had been reported in an empty house.
They finally got me when 8 years later Hubby went away for 6 months. We had a fire in the wires from the electric pole to the house and decided to have the whole house rewired.-- Big mistake, The building inspector refused to pass the contractors work and condemned my home.
However the building inspectors Brother was President of the HOA and offered to buy us out. We grabbed the money and ran, we had learned when to hold and when to fold at that point.
The payment for being in the HOA at that time was now $120 per month
Anyone wanting to buy into that area HAD to agree to to join the HOA----kind of reminds me of the old Gentlemans Agreement not to sell to blacks or Jews.
All this came back when I bought into a subdivision here on leased land. I made sure my lease was grandfathered, any change in rules would not effect us unless it was of benefit to us. The 1/4 acre lot rent has gone in 15 years from $99.00 a month to $350.00 in the years but, we most important are grandfathered in with the allowance for pets, washing our cars in the driveway, land scaping and split log fences.
Be aware there are some things one cannot fight, My area had allot of free-be's that were not on the written lease. an area to park our boats, unused cars and camping trailors. When the Landlord opened a storage area we all had to remove what ever we were storing or pay him extra.
