The reason people like them, I've heard, is they help keep the value of your property high. I prefer doing what I want with my property, so I won't buy a property in a HOA.
Americans
That's quite a large and diverse demographic to make generalizations with.
Then you invent HOAs to remove those same freedoms, levy fees instead of taxes, provide services that really should be handled by the city, and are more oppressive? I just don't understand.
I can live in that same city without an HOA. I can't live in that same city without the high taxation and oppressive government. It's about options, I suspect.
The reason people like them, I've heard, is they help keep the value of your property high.
I'm starting to feel like treating homes like a investment that will continue to accumulate value instead of a place to live that everyone requires is starting to backfire.
That's unfortunately not a choice that can be made either way. If something has demand, can be bought and sold, and has value, there is inherently an economic market for it.
I don't completely buy the property value argument. Cities like them being high too because it means more tax revenue and they're not afraid of making bylaws to enforce it. So for example, when one gets a building permit to an exterior renovation, the city will calculate the square footage of siding vs brick before and after, with the requirement that the amount of brick doesn't decrease. Because any less lowers the property value.
Not all cities are like that. The one I'm in isn't. There are also laws in many cities where they can't reappraise the tax value of the home without a significant renovation. This is to keep elderly people in their homes who are on a fixed income. It's a lot more complicated than, "tax good," but yes, that's the gist.
The irony I see is that in order to keep property values high, you need people to want to buy them. Since pretty much everyone I've ever met and everyone on the comment thread hate HOAs, then people are buying these house despite they're being in an HOA and not because of it. It would seem non-HOA houses would be MORE valuable because they lack something most buyers hate.
I don't mind a city fining for unkempt lawns, and I think people who cannot abide by that should find a different city. The benefit of the municipality doing it is that they're more accountable in court and the polls. How does one contest an HOA fine?
What's the process to register a car? What's the process to challenge a service contract? How do I reserve a room at the municipal activity center? How do I challenge a water bill? It probably varies from places to place, doesn't it? You'd have to check the bylaws of a given HOA. There's probably some address you're supposed to write a letter to explaining the challenge, then it gets reviewed, etc. Eventually courts could get involved. But I doubt one could give a specific set of steps that applies to every HOA.
I bring up all those other things because there isn't a single "well you just do x dummy!" answer to any of those in the same way there's no single answer to how do you challenge an HOA fine. Maybe there's binding arbitration. Maybe there isnt. You'd have to look it up, you can't say that's the process every time. And hey, you can lobby your neighbors to change it, it's not set in stone. Just like if your city has some dumb ordinance nobody likes.
There wasn't any binding arbitration clause in any HOA bylaws for any house I was looking at buying, so suggesting that's some standard thing doesn't seem accurate to me.
I've got a super basic question. I'm sure you can give an exact answer to. What time does the restaurant close?
You are deliberately ignoring the point with extraneous details. I hope it makes you feel good, like you've won something? Congratulations.
Meanwhile, everyone else can clearly understand the point that government interactions have the court system to make challenges, writs to compel the government to act, and so on.
Meanwhile everyone else can clearly understand governments also have the ability to choose to not be sued and give themselves immunity from their actions. Go ask all the people who get kicked out of their homes and paid seemingly pennies on the dollar from imminent domain or people who have their homes taken with civil asset forfeiture how easy the process was to dispute these takings and how successful they were at resolving it.
You are deliberately ignoring the point with extraneous details.
I'm just trying to showcase how nonsensical your question of "how do you challenge HOA fines?" is and how you never actually expected a real answer from it.
If your point was that some HOAs have binding arbitration clauses, and you think those are generally bad, you maybe should have just said that instead of asking a question one couldn't possibly answer completely or wholly accurately. I didn't even know that's what you were going after with your original question, as once again every HOA bylaws I considered didn't have it in there. If my answer was entirely based off the bylaws I have in my drawer, binding arbitration would have never even come up. If you didn't want someone to actually answer the question you probably shouldn't ask it. A better first reply to my comment would have been something like:
"But sometimes its difficult challenging HOAs due to binding arbitration clauses."
Which, sure, can be true. Then we'd be talking about binding arbitration and its pros/cons instead of talking about questions which practically can't have specific answers without more details.
Suggesting disputing HOA fees means binding arbitration is like saying it costs hundreds of dollars to register a car. Sure, maybe in some jurisdictions that's true. But it only cost me $75 to register a car here. You can't possibly answer the question "How much does it cost to register a car?" accurately without further details. If you're wanting to talk about how some jurisdictions have high fees, just say that instead. See my point?
Comments
The reason people like them, I've heard, is they help keep the value of your property high. I prefer doing what I want with my property, so I won't buy a property in a HOA.
That's quite a large and diverse demographic to make generalizations with.
I can live in that same city without an HOA. I can't live in that same city without the high taxation and oppressive government. It's about options, I suspect.
I'm starting to feel like treating homes like a investment that will continue to accumulate value instead of a place to live that everyone requires is starting to backfire.
That's unfortunately not a choice that can be made either way. If something has demand, can be bought and sold, and has value, there is inherently an economic market for it.
I don't completely buy the property value argument. Cities like them being high too because it means more tax revenue and they're not afraid of making bylaws to enforce it. So for example, when one gets a building permit to an exterior renovation, the city will calculate the square footage of siding vs brick before and after, with the requirement that the amount of brick doesn't decrease. Because any less lowers the property value.
Not all cities are like that. The one I'm in isn't. There are also laws in many cities where they can't reappraise the tax value of the home without a significant renovation. This is to keep elderly people in their homes who are on a fixed income. It's a lot more complicated than, "tax good," but yes, that's the gist.
The irony I see is that in order to keep property values high, you need people to want to buy them. Since pretty much everyone I've ever met and everyone on the comment thread hate HOAs, then people are buying these house despite they're being in an HOA and not because of it. It would seem non-HOA houses would be MORE valuable because they lack something most buyers hate.
I don't mind a city fining for unkempt lawns, and I think people who cannot abide by that should find a different city. The benefit of the municipality doing it is that they're more accountable in court and the polls. How does one contest an HOA fine?
How do you think people get on the boards of HOAs? They're elected by HOA members. Who are the members? The people who live in the HOA.
The people running the HOA almost always are accountable by polls, even more local polls than municipal elections.
What is the process to challenge an HOA fine?
What's the process to register a car? What's the process to challenge a service contract? How do I reserve a room at the municipal activity center? How do I challenge a water bill? It probably varies from places to place, doesn't it? You'd have to check the bylaws of a given HOA. There's probably some address you're supposed to write a letter to explaining the challenge, then it gets reviewed, etc. Eventually courts could get involved. But I doubt one could give a specific set of steps that applies to every HOA.
Seems like you need to bring up several unrelated issues to pretend you have a point.
The HOA is a contract which may include binding arbitration. You might not be able to bring it to court or appeal.
I bring up all those other things because there isn't a single "well you just do x dummy!" answer to any of those in the same way there's no single answer to how do you challenge an HOA fine. Maybe there's binding arbitration. Maybe there isnt. You'd have to look it up, you can't say that's the process every time. And hey, you can lobby your neighbors to change it, it's not set in stone. Just like if your city has some dumb ordinance nobody likes.
There wasn't any binding arbitration clause in any HOA bylaws for any house I was looking at buying, so suggesting that's some standard thing doesn't seem accurate to me.
I've got a super basic question. I'm sure you can give an exact answer to. What time does the restaurant close?
You are deliberately ignoring the point with extraneous details. I hope it makes you feel good, like you've won something? Congratulations.
Meanwhile, everyone else can clearly understand the point that government interactions have the court system to make challenges, writs to compel the government to act, and so on.
Have a good rest of your day.
Meanwhile everyone else can clearly understand governments also have the ability to choose to not be sued and give themselves immunity from their actions. Go ask all the people who get kicked out of their homes and paid seemingly pennies on the dollar from imminent domain or people who have their homes taken with civil asset forfeiture how easy the process was to dispute these takings and how successful they were at resolving it.
I'm just trying to showcase how nonsensical your question of "how do you challenge HOA fines?" is and how you never actually expected a real answer from it.
If your point was that some HOAs have binding arbitration clauses, and you think those are generally bad, you maybe should have just said that instead of asking a question one couldn't possibly answer completely or wholly accurately. I didn't even know that's what you were going after with your original question, as once again every HOA bylaws I considered didn't have it in there. If my answer was entirely based off the bylaws I have in my drawer, binding arbitration would have never even come up. If you didn't want someone to actually answer the question you probably shouldn't ask it. A better first reply to my comment would have been something like:
"But sometimes its difficult challenging HOAs due to binding arbitration clauses."
Which, sure, can be true. Then we'd be talking about binding arbitration and its pros/cons instead of talking about questions which practically can't have specific answers without more details.
Suggesting disputing HOA fees means binding arbitration is like saying it costs hundreds of dollars to register a car. Sure, maybe in some jurisdictions that's true. But it only cost me $75 to register a car here. You can't possibly answer the question "How much does it cost to register a car?" accurately without further details. If you're wanting to talk about how some jurisdictions have high fees, just say that instead. See my point?