I originally crossposted this from another sub, but the mods there took that original post down, so I’m just reposting the actual content here. Not my original content.

A few months ago, I received a letter stating that one of my walls was dirty. The issue, however, is that there’s a structural problem with the house causing water to run down that wall, which keeps making it dirty again. I’ve already brought this to their attention once. They sent a second notice, which I didn’t receive because I was out of the country. While I was away, my wife mentioned that our internet had stopped working. When I returned home four days later, I called Cox it took them a while to figure out the cause, but they eventually discovered that the service had been disconnected at the request of the HOA. Later, I found a letter in my mailbox stating that they have canceled all our future reservations for children’s birthday parties at the park, cut off our internet, and blocked our access cards for the pools and other amenities, all until our house is brought up to a presentable condition.

Is this my fault, or is the HOA just being a bunch of assholes?

i genuinely don't understand why some HOAs still think it's a good idea to have directories with everyone's names, addresses and phone numbers.

i get that it's supposed to make communication between neighbors easier, but we're not living in 1995 anymore.

the idea that someone can move into a neighborhood and potentially get access to a list of everyone's personal contact information is kinda wild to me. and what happens when someone moves out? do they just keep that information forever? What about people who share the directory with others or upload it somewhere? I've gotten pretty conscious about this stuff lately with how much information ends up on data broker sites and I Cloaked that information, and yes my number and email were found in broker sites. It seems ridiculous to worry about removing your information online while your neighborhood is casually handing it around.

I'm not saying neighbors shouldn't be able to contact each other, but surely there are better ways to do that without giving everyone access to personal numbers and emails.

does anyone actually find these directories useful anymore, or are they just another privacy headache nobody's bothered to fix?

Flair

One in three HOA lawsuits in the country is a Florida case. South Florida is even worse according to https://hoaspy.com/hoa/fl/south-florida-hoa-statistics.html

My HOA can kick rocks.
I applied for a fence as a modification through the ARC process and noted it as an FHA related modification.
We are now over 100 days after initial application.
I didn't hear back for over 60 days and then got a conditional approval and the need to sign an Addendum with language that heavily protects the HOA.
If I don't sign, their lawyer threatened a provisional denial while we figure out the wording.

My bad for being a first time home owner who doomed my family with an HOA.

I just learned that my co-op association board members have signed NDAs. This does not seem right to me.

Just got this email from our manager concerning trash pick-up costs and how each homeowner can help. Can say right now to them, "Take a flying leap, to save a few bucks I am not going to follow your suggestions".

As discussed last night at the Annual Meeting, Trash Removal is our 4th largest budget expense--after insurance, lawn care and irrigation. Garbage Services' monthly charge is based on the number of bins they empty, on average for that month.

To reduce our expenses, you can help. If your trash bin is not full, and can make it another week before needing to be emptied, keep it in your garage or consolidate trash with a neighbor.  Do not put it out on the street. This will keep our count down and our expenses lowered.

Can't even park in an HOA without someone throwing a fit.

We bought our first house and we love it. We had wanted a different house a few months earlier but it was in a HOA. We passed.

We bought a house that is HOA free….

I can’t thank you all enough for all your posts and for making me wise to what an HOA can do….

I read these stories and now that I have put up a New Fence, installed Solar Attic Fans, painted, and a ton of other projects.

I honestly don’t know how you all put up with it…

I bought a house in rural Montana back in 2021, it was a foreclosure on a VA loan so I was dealing with the government to buy it. There are 3 lots in this "subdivision" and I have been here the longest. As I have come to learn, I was not given all the paperwork when I bought my house and my new neighbors want to enforce covenants I didn't know existed. Apparently there are 30 covenants and for the last 5 years I have been doing things with my property that may or may not have complied with these covenants. Now I have to see how much they want to enforce. I didn't want to buy in an HOA, but I'm not moving so fuck me I guess.

What’s the point of owning something if you can’t do what you want with it? (As long as it isn’t evil or explicitly profane)

In my development, trash day is Wednesday. Pickup is usually around 12pm-pm, and I put my cans out when I leave for work around 7:30am.

Yesterday, pickup was inexplicably at 6am. Several people missed pickup because they understandably did not have their cans out yet. The association apologized for this, and scheduled a second pickup for tomorrow.

They said to make sure the trash is out by 6am, because it will be another early pickup. However, in the same email, they also added that it was a violation to have trash out prior to 5:30am on pickup day. So we have a 30 minute window before the ass-crack of dawn to put our trash out.

Anyway, it's 8pm the night before pickup day and my trash is out. If they have a problem they can huff my whole butt.

Our neighbor told us to watch this. It fits perfectly with our hatred of HOAs.

https://x-files.fandom.com/wiki/Arcadia

So when an HOA starts sending out fines to someone who is not at all actually part of the HOA and has no authority over them…….. has anyone ever just started sending ridiculous fines back at them. Like just make up your own fully unhinged rules, claim they are subject to that because you can see their property from yours. Basically just pull the homeowner version of I Am Rubber And You Are Glue

Im so curious if anyone has done this and if so how it played out

(not asking for advice or help, I don’t live in an HOA or know anyone who does. Im looking for stories, I find this fascinating. thanks!)

This time about the neighborhood entrance. The plants on one side aren’t doing so great. It’s Alabama and we’ve had an extremely hot summer.

But a couple of weeks ago I went to the entrance with another board member and we found a leak in one of the sprinkler hoses. My husband was able to patch it so it’s not an issue anymore.

I was elected President in April. The former treasurer resigned in July and we have slowly been modernizing everything since then. Former treasurer only wrote checks and the only reconciliation he had was the check stubs. All that to say we looked back at our water bills and the bill for May and each one since was quadruple what it normally is. Had the former treasurer let anyone know, we could have found this leak earlier.

But sure, it must be my fault the plants are dying. The former president was the head of the landscaping committee and her husband was the former member at large she is referring to in the email.

My parents live in a small 10 house cul de sac community in California. When they first bought their home, they were told there was no HOA. The builders of the community were taking care of community maintenance costs.

Eventually this stopped, and an HOA was formed, but it was completely run by one neighbor filling all roles (President, treasurer, Secretary). Honestly, it is more like a community club than anything else.

Dues were eventually requested for mowing of lawns, tree maintenance, etc. My parents opted to do their own yard work and did not pay fees. There was also a bit of mistrust given there was no checks and balances here given that one neighbor ran the entire show and collected the money. My parents would contribute to community costs for things like repairs of a gate, etc.

Once more neighbors started getting involved and there was division of power, my parents started paying dues. They started paying regular dues around 2 years ago. Again, this still functions as a super informal HOA.

Now, the “HOA” is seeking payment of all past dues from my parents spanning a period of about 12 years and a balance of about $9k.

This issue was raised in the past, but the neighborhood decided to forgo the collection of old fees. Now it seems the issue has been resurrected again…

Honestly, we just wish the HOA was handled by an outside management company. The way it’s run right now is a joke.

EDIT:
I was able to look up the HOA on the Secretary of State’s business page. The HOA was registered in 2007, but has been in suspended status since 2020. My parents purchased in 2012. From gathering more details from my parents, one neighbor revived the HOA (this neighbor moved in at a similar time ass my parents), but has been running things informally do as to avoid high costs to the neighborhood. By informally I mean not registering with the state, not filing required documents, and not following the bylaws exactly.

I looked up their deed and do see that they signed a PUD, so they are part of the HOA, but as explained above, it hasn’t been running properly. Though now a three neighbors are attempting to run things in order to keep up repairs and maintenance for common areas.

My wife and I finally moved from an HOA to a non HOA. Life is great!

-There’s a house a block down painted pink, and everything is fine. Nothing bad has happened.

-People have cool Halloween decorations actually sitting on their lawns, and nobody is harmed by this.

-I can leave for a 2 week vacation, come back to the grass being a little overgrown, and the world has not ended.

-If I’m leaving town a couple days before trash pickup, then I put the cans out early and my neighbor brings them in for me. We do the same for them. Again, civilization continues.

-I can leave my garage door open, and nobody cares.

It’s really nice owning a house and not having some random group of people constantly looking for harmless shit to complain about.

Moved to a development that has an hoa. Really, really, REALLY didn’t want an hoa, but after losing so many bids on houses and the school district and proximity to jobs etc taking more priority, we considered it our one con against a lot of pros.

fuck lmao. Some people really DO get a sick power trip out of it or something. It’s crazy!

I even thought, ok, I’ll volunteer for the position when the election comes up. People know I’m laid back about it and just want fairness / laid back. I won!

Fuck lmao!! It’s even worse when you’re in a position to help!!! The amount of asinine emails I get, the mental dishonest gymnastics people play with themselves and the documents just to get what they want, it’s crazy!!! Just live and let live!!!

So now my job is just, keep this shit in the open. Call people out for their bs. Document on the public record always.

Because even though I thought I knew what I was getting into…I didn’t.

Fuck HOAs

I know, fuck HOA but when I read posts here, sometjmes I miss hoa in my home country.

The photo does not show you the full details but:

-There is one or more dog at every fucking house. When you walk on the street everyone is barking. Even all night. And you can do nothing about it. It is the norm here, so you cannot call the police. Barking barking.

-Cars on the street because they are lazy to put the cars into their yard

-No curb, paving, no side of the road is nice, so it is like - asphalt ->absolute shit dirt -> weed -> houses

-house colors can be anything, and it looks like shit

-fences can be made of anything - mostly based on which was the cheapest when they built it (you need to have a fence because ppl would just walk into your yard and steal)

-if you dont cut any vegetation, never mowe any grass? Okay, nobody cares.

-there is a loud fucking music at your neighbor? You call the police, they ask: is blood there? No. So they do nothing.

-they can have animals, and many of them has pigs, chickens, which smells like shit… and flies… imagine it.

Of course there are nice areas here and tourists usually love this country, but this is the reality of the Hungarian countryside.

We dont have HOAs but I wish we would have them and fucking send a lot of penalty to these people..

It seems like you post a story about egregious blatant corruption and misconduct and you set some jackass explaining why it’s normal or telling you how stupid you are for trying to fight it.

It seems like there’s a lot to pseudo experts coming from r/badhoa.