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Nice place!  

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A lot to be said for this statement. Though in the same slant as the OP question, why would someone NOT put one of the, if not the, most expensive things they own at the top of their priority list?

Honestly just curious.

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Thanks... and no chicken coops, either!

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We don't even have building permits here or inspections during construction unless it's a commercial building. Funny thing is seems to me after buying several here and other areas these are better built by a large factor. All the homes here are nice, well kept and built right and no HoA or permits. Imagine that. Of course houses here are more than 3 feet apart, most are between 2-5 acres (still a recognized subdivision) and I live on the edge of a resort golf course.

Friend of mine recently moved to one with a HoA for the first time. First day he was there he got a fine for having his moving van parked on the road overnight while they were moving. Been downhill ever since.
 

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I'd pay more to live next to that.  

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Welp, you see when you buy a home, you run it and the rest of the neighborhood into the dirt and when it becomes a drug filled ghetto, you just move and claim you had nothing to do with it by leaving your trash out and parking on the lawn.

When did parking on the lawn become a part of liberty and freedom? Who cares? Thieves love shitty looking neighborhoods, they know no one is looking or cares so they know they can steal a bunch of shit and set up a nice crack house. Welp, making the neighborhood look like shit is my personal freedom and has nothing to do with creating an atmosphere for crime and drugs.

And really, as long as we're doing away with rules and HOAs, why have building permits and building standards? Fuck it, FRREEEDDDOOOMMMMM it have a shitty place to live!

Sorry, fuck that.

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Freedom, fuck yeah

http://cmsimg.freep.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=C4&Date=20120522&Category=NEWS06&ArtNo=205220408&Ref=AR&MaxW=640&Border=0&Bills-aim-intensify-blight-battle-Michigan-threat-jail-time

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Umm how is it free? you pay dues, some states they can foreclose your home to pay said dues and you have to follow their rules.

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No problem with my HOA.  I'm glad my neighbor isn't allowed to paint their house purple.

Oh noes, I'm a statist or something!?!?!

The trashy people can move next to the HOA hating people for all I care

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Arguing with some condemned houses is actually making you look more like an ass than proving a point.

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Allow me to put it thusly:


http://i251.photobucket.com/albums/gg286/TGrayman/farside51_zps600779c8.jpg


You live in a "neighborhood," and potential buyers of property aren't just buying the house, they're buying into the neighborhood.    The HOA protects the latter.

HOAs wouldn't be necessary if everybody cared about their property, everybody was reasonable, and everybody was a "good neighbor."  Unfortunately, some people are slothful/criminals/jerks, and either don't give a damn, or take perverse delight in screwing with other people.

To expound upon the latter group, you know the kind of people I'm talking about...  they seem to take pleasure in being obstinate a**holes, and will do anything to spite somebody they don't like.  If that means not cutting their grass, having bumpin' parties into the wee hours, or turning their property in a graveyard for 70's Camaros, they'll do it... and smile the whole time.

The HOA is a PRIVATE, VOLUNTARY method to deal with problem neighbors, without involving law enforcement, or constructing a killdozer.  

Membership in the homeowners association by a residential buyer is typically a condition of purchase; a buyer isn't given an option to reject it.

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I don't understand it either. My property, my rules.

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I have never said that everyone should have a shitty place. Whats wrong with having a nice place, well groomed lawn, and well maintained house but also haveing a couple chickens in a small coop or a few rabbits in cages for meat?
I actually know plenty of people in cities that raise chickens and rabbits and have no issues with them. But would HOA allow it? probably not.
I am free to do what I want on my property that I own without being told I cannot do something just because my neighbor might not like it.
With that said, I do not live anywhere near a HOA area, I also do not live in a city. I cannot deal with the sheeple factor or the FSA. Oh and around here thieves like the more expencive nicer looking areas because they know the residents are most likley to be unarmed.

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Those arent condemned, their owners are just really free.


Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

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Wow you all sound like a bunch of sally's. What happened to freedom and people allowed to make choices for themselves?

If I want to paint my house purple and work on a truck in my front yard it is my freedom and what my neighbor does is his business. If you dont like your neighbors.......move.

WOW talk about a bunch of whine asses.

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How is it voluntary? besides not buying the home.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Fire_Company

In Richmond, Va., Richard Oulton, a Vietnam veteran, is fighting his homeowners association for the right to fly an American flag on a 25-foot pole. The association ordered him to take the flagpole down, calling it a "visual nuisance."

Oulton, who has been raising the flag ever since he was a medic in Vietnam and flew the Stars and Stripes over his bunker, has refused. "To take it down now would be a total dishonor and an insult to everyone that has ever stood for the flag," he says.

Oulton says he checked the association's rules before he moved in, specifically to see whether there were any restrictions on flying the flag. He found no reference to flags or flagpoles, so he put up a large flagpole next to the huge home he built on three lots.

He says his neighbors didn't object, and three neighbors 20/20 talked to agreed. One of them, Frank Taylor, called Oulton's flag "an asset to the community."

But the homeowner's association board said the flagpole was too big. "We had no idea someone would erect a flagpole that large when the guidelines were written," says board member Birdie Nichols. Since their guidelines did not mention flagpoles, the board instead relied on a rule that says "no structure shall be erected? without approval."

The board later adopted rules allowing flagpoles — but restricting them to 6 feet in length and requiring that they be mounted on the house, not standing in the yard.

"All we are asking Mr. Oulton to do is to show his patriotism within the guidelines that everyone else in the community is willing to live by," says Nichols.

Oulton admits he could easily hang his flag from a pole mounted on his house, but says, "It wouldn't be the right thing to do."

Oulton says the board is trampling on his basic freedoms. "I don't understand what the problem is. It's a property right that I have to fly this flag. It's a free speech right that I have to fly this flag."

But people living in planned communities may have fewer rights than they think, says McKenzie. "A homeowners association is essentially a private government. ... They don't have to respect your civil liberties the same way a real local government has to. They don't have to worry about the Constitution or the Bill of Rights."

So far the courts have ruled that Oulton's flagpole does violate association rules. But he vows to appeal, to the U.S. Supreme Court if necessary.

Winona Blevins, an elderly widow who lived in a planned community in Houston called Champions, was astonished when a constable came to her door one morning and told her he had a court order to evict her.

It turned out that the homeowners association had sold the house out from under her — because she owed $876 in dues. Blevins says she didn't even know her home had been sold: "I had no inkling. Absolutely no idea. None."

Blevins had paid cash for her home and had lived there for 15 years. But the homeowners association says she ignored notices they sent telling her she was behind with her dues. But apparently many of the notices had been wrongly addressed to her long deceased husband, who had never even lived in the house.

Blevins says mail did come to her house addressed to her husband, but she threw it away thinking it was junk mail. She says no one from the community association ever called her or came to her home to tell her there was a problem. Instead, the board turned the matter over to their attorneys, who tacked on thousands of dollars in legal fees and recommended foreclosing on the home to collect.

The association sold Blevins' home at public auction without her knowledge, then had constables evict her with no notice. "They took everything. They said I could take one change of clothing, one. And they took everything else. Everything," she remembers.

Her friends and neighbors were outraged and challenged the homeowners association at an angry meeting. Then local newspapers picked up the story, and Blevins got an attorney and brought a lawsuit. In a settlement, the homeowners board and its attorneys agreed to buy back her house and pay her $300,000 after having left her homeless for almost a year.

But not all evicted homeowners are so lucky. McKenzie says foreclosures by homeowners associations are happening all across the country. "What's really driving this is the dynamics of these collection lawyers who are just out to generate fees and to sell these houses off as fast as they can."

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BTW, HOA haters, it's voluntary. You don't have to sign the agreement and you can move somewhere else. I looked at the neighborhoods without HOA before I bought with an HOA.

I just have to ask, really, you wanna live like that? The non HOA places look like ass. Cool, whatever, but it's not for me.

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Why do people agree to follow the rules and then complain when they are enforced?

The purpose of an HOA is to keep up property values by keeping up shared facilities and forcing people to maintain their property.  Think of it as home value insurance.

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Freedom in the HOA?

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Yes I agree it it my right to buy the house or not to but if I do not want to me part of the HOA I have to find another house and give up buying the one I want?
How is that free? If I like a house I should be able to buy it and not have to sign a contract with a governing agency.

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HOA's are for people who buy under the guise of home retention/appreciation.  Real Estate that is in demand does not require HOA's to obtain this goal.  Example, most of Dallas, Park City's do no have HOA's and yet the homes are more valuable and appreciate more.  Why is that?  I had to threaten to litigate my last HOA experience and came within 4 votes of having the POS org disbanded  Included calls to local police, City Attorney, it was pure allsome.  Fuck those pretend wannabes in the cookie cutter sheeple mentality.

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I can't fathom it.  Why would ANYONE pay a monthly fee and WILLINGLY give up their liberty?

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Yes I agree it it my right to buy the house or not to but if I do not want to me part of the HOA I have to find another house and give up buying the one I want?
How is that free? If I like a house I should be able to buy it and not have to sign a contract with a governing agency.

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Why would anyone give a fuck how somebody else chooses their homes? I can't fathom it. You would think liberty would allow this?  

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Too bad it only takes one asshole to fuck up your little paradise.

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We refuse to live in HOA neighborhoods. It's hard to do in some areas, but we managed.

Our neighborhood is nice and well-maintained, too. We actually know our neighbors and if there's a problem, we actually talk to them. A little friendly ball-busting does the trick if an unmaintained bush or unmowed lawn is really getting under your skin.

The hard combination is finding a neighborhood where the prices are high enough to keep out the scum and white trash, but not high enough that the neighborhood is solely populated by materialistic, uptight liberal, yuppie shut-ins.

I can see the appeal of living in an HOA, but having spent a few years in one of the more insanely-run kinds, I want nothing to do with them.

Some HOA greatest hits from our old neighborhood include:

"We noticed that you recently re-stained your wooden mailbox cover, but it's a little too dark. Approved stains are available for purchase through the Association."

"While a few people may enjoy stone Japanese lanterns, they are not aesthetically pleasing and are not fitting with the spirit of our community and should be kept in the home."

"Vegetable gardens are not permitted in our neighborhood."

"We noticed the addition of a fruit tree in your back yard. As it is visible from the street, you must remove it immediately or pay a fine as it is not one of our approved trees. We only permit decorative crab apple or Bradford pear trees and not fruit trees."

Yeah, screw that.

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So your neighbor has to mow their lawn every month or so, not leave cars in their front yard, not paint their house neon purple...

Some people like to protect their property value.  

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I have one.  It is a bit of a investment protection.  I have a small lot, nice house, in a neighborhood of the same.

In the suburbs of Atlanta you can go into neighborhoods that don't have them, and as they age, the number of houses with shit in the yard, crazy paint jobs, unmowed lawns and general disrepair increase dramatically and destroy the home values.  One of the places I lived in is an HOA and 24 YEARS after we moved there, it is still a beautiful neighborhood.  Similar subdivisions within a couple miles with no HOA of the same age are trashy and disgusting.

I find them overbearing to a point, but if I wanted to shoot off my deck, paint my house yellow and green, not mow my yard and build a barn, I would not have bought this house, in this hood.  But I would have to live much farther out and not around the schools and jobs this are has.

Choices. Compromise.

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What if i want a purple house? or god forbid have a flag/nativity scene.  

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This is how I mow grass.
step 1:
Open gate
step 2
call cows
step 3:
drink beer
step 4:
profit

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HOA's are merely a symptom of not enough government involvement/oversight in our communities in the first place