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Comment by jimmyswimmy | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, nobody likes an HOA. We all want to be allowed to do whatever we want. That's why I live in a neighborhood without one.

Leave the kids toys and trash cans out for a day? A week? Forever? No problem! But I can't complain about similar things my neighbors might do. Or, I can complain, directly to them. If I care enough.

Neighbors replaced their roof a year ago. Left the old shingles on the lawn, for a year. Did I like it? No. Did I care enough to complain to them about it? Also no. That's the kind of neighborhood I want to live in though. You want a neighborhood where the houses are in perfect cookie cutter shape? You need an HOA neighborhood, and you get the pluses with the minuses.

What I think most of us really want is to be able to do whatever we want, while also being able to tell others what to do. That doesn't work. You have to choose to either rely on your neighbors being decent, or suffer through life under an HOA.

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>What I think most of us really want is to be able to do whatever we want, while also being able to tell others what to do.

I think some people really do want this. But I don't. I really just want to be able to do whatever I want, and then want other people to do whatever they want, as long as it isn't doing material harm to someone. The problem can come down to defining 'harm' since some people try to define it in their own image of what they wish wasn't allowed, but I hope there are still people out there who espouse these values, because it's the world I would prefer to live in :\

The problem is that people think like this everywhere, because it's exceptionally easy to just lie to yourself and convince yourself that in your case, it's justified to tell others what to do. And you get a lot of mental gymnastics out of that.

I do understand that sometimes it might not be out of a strict desire to prevent people from doing stuff that they do not personally agree with. For example, maybe someone's primary concern is property value, or hell, just having a nice looking neighborhood. But honestly, if I see a neighborhood with a very tasteless looking front yard with shit scattered about, then at least that's a sign that the neighborhood is chill.

edit: And it shall be noted I am trying to make a case against HOAs. I think my note about “harm” was a bit ambiguous. In general I want the legal system to define what is harmful enough to be actionable. Imperfect? Yes. A sort of “nobody’s favorite, but everybody’s favorite” -type situation, in my view.

> The problem can come down to defining 'harm'

Indeed. If I, say, allow drug addicts to camp out on my front lawn and defecate on it, I'm probably going to make the neighborhood as a whole less desirable to live in and hence reduce property values. The net effect of that is the same as literally taking money from you. Is that harm? Because it's really hard to draw a sharp line between that and the wrong color of shutters.

Aside: I lived in HOA neighborhoods and non-HOA neighborhoods. On the whole I prefer the later, but I have horror stories from both.

This is the sand heap fallacy. Even if you can't tell where the line is, it's obvious that turning your front yard into a mini-San Francisco is on one side of it, and that painting your shutters the wrong color is on the other side of it. We shouldn't have to pick the wrong answer for one of these bright-line cases just because there's some gray cases.

> it's obvious that ... painting your shutters the wrong color is on the other side of it

It might be obvious to you (it's obvious to me too), but it was manifestly not obvious to the board members who voted to enforce the shutter-color policy, nor to the people who voted for them.

> it was manifestly not obvious to the board members who voted to enforce the shutter-color policy

I'm not even sure that's the case. I can conceive of a board that previously had a house like this[0] (first result of google image search for "garish house colors"), had a big back and forth on what to do about it, and wants to avoid getting into the same fight again. The resolution from last time was to establish some boundary and to enforce it rigorously, even if that excludes some colors that are acceptable. The current board knows that the shutter-color enforcement is ridiculous, but can't make an exception for the general house colors without giving ammunition to the person who painted their house neon green with pink polka dots.

Not saying that that is the reasoning of any one particular board, but rather saying that I can conceive of cases where a person or group takes actions they know to be unreasonable in themselves, but may be reasonable in a wider context.

[0] https://i.pinimg.com/originals/a3/9b/35/a39b35132a3c1cc219a7...

But that's just making the observation that things that may seem obvious at first glance may not be obvious once you think more deeply about them. It doesn't really matter why they are not obvious. What matters is that they are not obvious.

Good point, and thank you for the clarification. I had been interpreting "manifestly not obvious" as a rhetorical device to state that the board were clearly decided and set that shutter-colors were within the scope of what an HOA board might reasonably decide, and therefore it is "manifestly not obvious" that it is outside the scope. (Sort of how somebody saying the words "There are some here who may disagree with you." is implicitly stating that they disagree and is inviting others to join in disagreement.)

I agree that it is not obvious where the line is, and was attempting to a hypothetical where even a single person might be unsure.

That's a cute house.

Hence why you are seeing the argument made on this thread that those boards should just not exist. There are always going to be people that find some excuse to believe it is their duty to bug the hell out of everyone. "Nobody has a right to bug Tue hell out of anyone" is a time tested solution to this problem.

Well, this example is a bit extreme. There’s some nuisance behavior that is made illicit on the basis that it is harm to the public as a whole. Having people defecate on your front lawn in view of everyone probably runs afoul of something in most jurisdictions.

What happens behind closed doors is mostly still fine, though, even though it can lower property value. A lot of things can lower property value that aren’t fair to you, and the mere fact that they happen doesn’t mean you personally were wronged nor does it mean anything illicit has happened. Could be a nearby factory shuttering causing the local economy to struggle, or something.

A lot of things can raise the property value too. New metro station opens, pushing your value up 300k? Do people say “hey that’s not right, here you take the money mr metro man”?

> Indeed. If I, say, allow drug addicts to camp out on my front lawn and defecate on it, I'm probably going to make the neighborhood as a whole less desirable to live in and hence reduce property values. The net effect of that is the same as literally taking money from you. Is that harm? Because it's really hard to draw a sharp line between that and the wrong color of shutters.

It's really easy - the former example is actually illegal in most places and the local LE will deal with you if someone complains. No HOA needed.

That's begging the question [1]. An HOA is just another form of government.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Yes, but if you don't have it the other forms of government handle the former example in the post I replied to.

I fail to see how this is circular reasoning. Can you explain?

The point is that these decisions -- whether it is acceptable to allow drug addicts to sleep on the lawn or to pain the shutters pink -- have to be made by someone. Either those decisions get made by the owner of the property, or they get made by someone else. It doesn't matter whether that "someone else" is "the government" or "the HOA board", and it doesn't matter whether infringing on the decision made by someone else is "illegal" or merely "against HOA policy". These are just labels. What matters is that the decisions about what you can and can't do with your house (and, for that matter, in every aspect of your life) are either yours to make, or they are someone else's, and it is not a slam-dunk which one leads to better outcomes.

I still don't see how that is circular reasoning. Where do you find a conclusion that is supported by itself?

> It doesn't matter whether that "someone else" is "the government" or "the HOA board"

It's not an "or", it's an "and" and that makes all the difference.

The reality is that in all cases, having both a Party A AND a Party B make your decisions for you is objectively worse than simply having Party A or Party B make the decision.

Having an HOA make you decisions for you doesn't make the state's decisions go away. Doing away with the HOA only leaves a single irritation.

> What matters is that the decisions about what you can and can't do with your house (and, for that matter, in every aspect of your life) are either yours to make, or they are someone else's,

There is a large distinction of "having many different parties with authority over you" and "having one party with authority over you".

The HOA isn't a single party that has authority over you, it is composed of multiple people who make take turns invoking the HOA rules against you. The state is a different matter - there are repercussions to individuals and appeals to an impartial third-party when the state invokes a rule against you.

You simply cannot equivocate an HOA with the state. People have recourse against the state.

> I still don't see how that is circular reasoning. Where do you find a conclusion that is supported by itself?

Here:

> > it's really hard to draw a sharp line between that and the wrong color of shutters.

> It's really easy - the former example is actually illegal in most places and the local LE will deal with you

How do you think HOAs enforce their restrictions? When push comes to shove, disputes with HOAs get settled in courts, which are an arm of the state.

> You simply cannot equivocate an HOA with the state. People have recourse against the state.

People have the exact same recourse against HOAs as they have against the state because the HOA's authority derives entirely from the state. HOAs do not have their own enforcement mechanisms. And HOA boards are elected just like the people who run the state(s) in the USA. It really is just another level of government.

>> I still don't see how that is circular reasoning. Where do you find a conclusion that is supported by itself?

>Here:

>> it's really hard to draw a sharp line between that and the wrong color of shutters.

>> It's really easy - the former example is actually illegal in most places and the local LE will deal with you

> How do you think HOAs enforce their restrictions? When push

> comes to shove, disputes with HOAs get settled in courts,

> which are an arm of the state.

So? That doesn't make it illegal; going to court against an HOA is a civil matter, so the issue of whether something is illegal or not is irrelevant. Going to court because you broke the state's rules is a criminal matter.

When something is illegal, you call the cops and let the state prosecution handle it. When something isn't illegal, you have to directly sue the respondent(s) yourself and handle the matter yourself.

So, yeah, there's a big difference between getting prosecuted by the state in criminal court for defecating on your lawn and getting sued in civil court by the HOA for breaking the contract.

There's no circular reasoning there at all: one of those things ends up in a certain type of court, the other ends up in a different type of court.

> People have the exact same recourse against HOAs as they have against the state because the HOA's authority derives entirely from the state.

No, you have more recourse against the state when the state breaks the rules, and not just because the state has many more limitations on their rules than a HOA. For just one example, the state may not prohibit political speech of one party and encourage political speech of another party, while the HOA has no such limitation.

For that you have no recourse agains the HOA, but you *will* have recourse if the state attempted it.

> It really is just another level of government.

It really isn't.

There's a particularly large difference between criminal and civil trials.

There's a difference between what a juristic person is allowed and what an arm of the state is allowed (one of those two aren't allowed to suppress speech, for example, while the other can).

There's a difference in the enforcement that is allowed (for HOA: fines only, and then go to civil court for an order, for the state: arrest, then prosecution).

There's a difference in the levels of enforcement allowed (HOA has no choice but to launch civil proceedings, while the state is fully within its rights to use force, deadly or otherwise).

They really aren't the same. The rules of an HOA is a meeting-of-the-minds contract between two juristic persons. Any "contract" is not a contract if one of those people don't agree (signed under duress, for example).

The laws of the state does not require the citizen to agree; there is no contract because the citizen has to abide by those laws whether or not they agree to them.

These are distinctions without differences. The point is that someone other than the homeowner is making the decisions. The details of how that other entity is organized, or the source of the power that it has to enforce its decisions, or the specific mechanisms it uses to punish you, don't matter.

But just for the record, you are factually incorrect about a number of your claims.

First, if push really comes to shove, the HOA can force a sale of your house in order to pay your delinquent fines. If you refuse to vacate, the cops will come and they will arrest you and take you to jail. So there really is no difference at all other than the number of steps that it takes to get to that point.

Second, there is no "meeting of the minds" with regards to HOAs because there is no other mind. The HOA CC&Rs are established by the original developer long before anyone joins, and they are take-it-or-leave-it. There is no negotiation. Joining an HOA is exactly the same as becoming a legal resident or naturalized citizen of a country. There are restrictions on your behavior. Whether those restrictions are called "laws" or "HOA rules" is immaterial. If you choose to join, you have to abide by those restrictions or face punishment. If you don't like the terms, your only recourse is to try to effect change via the governing body or leave.

Third, you are factually incorrect about the nature of laws against allowing people to camp on your lawn. Those are generally zoning or public health laws, and violating them is generally a civil offense, not a criminal one. But violations are nonetheless generally prosecuted by the state. Even in private lawsuits, an individual has to show that a law was violated in order to prevail.

You are correct that HOAs are not bound by Constitutional constraints, but I fail to see how that is germane to the matter at hand. Different governmental and quasi-governmental entities have different powers. So what? That doesn't change the central point: either you get decide what you can and can't do with your house, or someone else does. It really is that simple. Attaching a label to the entity that makes the decisions changes nothing. If it quacks like a government...

> These are distinctions without differences. >

That's an interesting opinion.

> But just for the record, you are factually incorrect about a number of your claims. > > First, if push really comes to shove, the HOA can force a sale of your house in order to pay your delinquent fines.

No different than any creditor, that doesn't mean all your creditors are a form of government over you.

> If you refuse to vacate, the cops will come and they will arrest you and take you to jail.

For breaking a law - contempt of court. The same as with any creditor. The cops cannot and will not get involved until you break a law, which means that the HOA has to first go through civil proceedings and get a court to issue an order against you. At that point no crime has been committed. Failing to comply with the order is a crime, at which point the cops can and will get involved.

> So there really is no difference at all other than the number of steps that it takes to get to that point. >

Other than the fact that they are doing what every creditor does? Do you also consider your credit card company a form of government? Because they can force the sale of your house to pay your debts, and if you don't leave the house the cops will forcibly remove you.

Any creditor can do that. I fail to see why you think the HOA is special in that regard. > > Second, there is no "meeting of the minds" with regards to HOAs because there is no other mind. The HOA CC&Rs are established by the original developer long before anyone joins, and they are take-it-or-leave-it.

Believe it or not, that actually is a contract. If you take it, that's a meeting of minds. Look it up.

> There is no negotiation.

No one said there was, nor does there have to be. All that is required is that both parties agree. If you take it, you agree and it's a contract like any other contract.

> Joining an HOA is exactly the same as becoming a legal resident or naturalized citizen of a country.

Or signing a contract.

> There are restrictions on your behavior.

Just like the clauses in every contract.

> Whether those restrictions are called "laws" or "HOA rules" is immaterial.

They are very material - criminal offences are processed differently to civil suits.

> If you choose to join, you have to abide by those restrictions or face punishment.

In the form of fines, certainly. And if those fines don't work, then the HOA has to sue you like any other creditor would.

> If you don't like the terms, your only recourse is to try to effect change via the governing body or leave. > > Third, you are factually incorrect about the nature of laws against allowing people to camp on your lawn. Those are generally zoning or public health laws, and violating them is generally a civil offense, not a criminal one.

I'll grant you this, because I am not sure which jurisdiction you are in. In my jurisdiction pulling down your drawers in your front lawn is a criminal offense. Then proceeding to defecate is also a criminal offense. My understanding is that, in the US, you can get onto the Sex Offenders List just by peeing in public - that's a criminal offense.

> But violations are nonetheless generally prosecuted by the state. Even in private lawsuits, an individual has to show that a law was violated in order to prevail.

Depends on the suit - if you are suing someone for contempt of court (because they refuse to follow through on a judgement against them) then that is criminal. If you are suing to get that judgement in the first place, it's purely civil. Law enforcement does not get involved when you ignore the HOA and they sue you (because it is not a crime). Law enforcement only gets involved when you don't adhere to the judgement (because not adhering to a court order is a crime).

> You are correct that HOAs are not bound by Constitutional constraints, but I fail to see how that is germane to the matter at hand. Different governmental and quasi-governmental entities have different powers. So what? That doesn't change the central point: either you get decide what you can and can't do with your house, or someone else does.

Having one less outside party having authority over you is relevant. If you view outside parties as an irritation, the more parties there are that get to tell you what to do, the more irritation there is.

> It really is that simple. Attaching a label to the entity that makes the decisions changes nothing. If it quacks like a government...

Accuracy matters. Precision matters. HOA are not anywhere close to being some sort of government. They lack too many of the legal requirements.

Will all that being said, I'm probably not in your jurisdiction, so the cases I've presented to the court (in both criminal and civil matters) may not matter to you. The best way to proceed, if you want to stick to the claim that HOA have quasi-governmental powers, is for you to list the ways that they differ from any other contract that you sign, and then breech.

Because, from what I can see, the consequences of breeching the HOA rules is no different to the consequences of breeching any other contract.

In what way are the HOA rule-violations different from other contract-violations?

> No different than any creditor

There is a difference: you can incur a debt to the HOA under a much wider variety of circumstances than you can incur an ordinary debt. An ordinary debt is incurred as a result of a one-off transaction, usually in exchange for a specific good or service, and requires your specific consent. An HOA can impose a fine on you at any time for a wide variety of reasons, some of which may not have even been in place when you bought your house.

> Any creditor can do that. I fail to see why you think the HOA is special in that regard.

It isn't special in that regard. That's the whole point. There is no distinction between something being "illegal" and something being "against HOA policy". That's the whole point.

The difference between an HOA and a regular creditor is not the enforcement mechanisms, it's the circumstances under which the debt is incurred in the first place.

> > Joining an HOA is exactly the same as becoming a legal resident or naturalized citizen of a country.

> Or signing a contract.

Yes, but again, the salient difference is not the contract, it's the terms of the contract. What distinguishes HOA "contracts" and the "contracts" that govern legal residency and citizenship from ordinary run-of-the-mill contracts is that the terms of HOA/goernment "contracts" are specifically open-ended. You don't know what your actual obligations are under the terms of this "contract" because they can (and often do) change after the contract is signed. But the power to change the rules is asymmetric. The HOA and the government can change the rules. You can't.

> criminal offences are processed differently to civil suits

So what? What does that have to do with the fact that both HOAs and governments can change the rules mid-game?

> HOA are not anywhere close to being some sort of government.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree about that.

And what happens when you disagree?

With what? I am painting a viewpoint against HOAs.

edit: I think I understand why people are reading it this way, so I added a bit onto my original post.

Where do you (personally) draw the line at material harm...? We already have a system (the courts) for redressing material harms.

Many HOA bylaws (house color, RV parking, minimal landscaping requirements, etc etc etc) aren't material harms. They are "harms by association" -- e.g. my house value goes down because you have bad taste in paint colors. Hence "Home Owner Associations".

I think some are misinterpreting my post as being in favor of HOAs, but actually I am saying that if someone is not doing something outright illegal I’m generally in favor of them being able to do it.

> We already have a system (the courts) for redressing material harms.

Laws are a baseline. People can build on top of that. Just like there are laws that define what should happen when a couple divorce, many people will sign a prenup to add extra rules they mutually agree to that not EVERYONE would agree to, for each other's benefits. You or I certainly don't get to decide what's reasonable or what's silly in someone else's prenup. HOA bylaws are just a bigger version of that.

Yea, it really all comes down to what you define "harm" as.

If I haven't updated my house in 60 years, paint falling off, lawn completely dead, park my rusted out 1983 honda civic with flat tires on my front lawn, and have a pile of garbage 10 feet high in the driveway...

Does that cause harm to you, or do you just define that as "chill"?

It's going to entirely depend on who you're asking, at what stage of life they are in, etc.

I'm glad HOA neighborhoods exist for people who are at a position in their life (generally financially well off) to enjoy one. On the other hand, I'm glad not all neighborhoods are that way and you can find some where being a bit behind on maintenance isn't a crime.

Exactly. If your pile of tires starts lowering my property’s value, are you doing me harm?

In my opinion the answer to that question is actually clear: No. Simply because an investment or asset of yours loses value for reasons outside of your control is not reason to then decide that you’ve been harmed, more than if actions or conditions entirely outside of your control lifts the value of your investments or assets.

IMO, a reasonable viewpoint is that an HOA is a communal way to fix the “out of your control” part at the cost of some personal freedoms. But some people err on the side of the personal freedoms. I know it’s easy to say on an online forum and bad experiences can change one’s mind, but I am comfortable in saying that I would most likely keep this viewpoint in the face of challenges, and instead prefer to push for the law to be amended if it is necessary...

So yes, I think the answer here is no even regardless of whether you would prefer an HOA, but I still upvoted your comment though as I think it raises the important question.

Is it a violation of the non aggression principle to not wear a mask? Or to force someone to wear a mask? As an analogous example.

The connection to property values is a bit ethereal IMO.

I'm good with all of that except the pile of garbage. The remedy for that here is to call the town refuse and recycling department and ask them to assess whether it's a health hazard.

One of the benefits of living in a middling-urban city in a state where government more or less works is that it's really difficult to build up a 10 foot pile of garbage -- because once a week the town sends a refuse truck and a recycling truck to pick up things at the end of your driveway.

I had a neighbor up the street with a commercial dumpster in their driveway for about six months; I assume they were doing interior construction and demolition. I'm sure nobody complained about it. Construction debris doesn't attract rats and raccoons the way food debris does.

I personally chose to live in an incorporated city but not an HOA. There are city ordinances with actual real government representation and force of law behind them for serious health and safety concerns but we can paint our houses whatever color we want and build sheds under a certain size any way we like etc. The important thing with choosing a place to live is to honestly assess what you want and how much you want your neighbors to be able to do. There are plusses and minuses under any living arrangement. Personally I would never live under a HOA but in exchange I have to put up with the stuff that is under the level of city enforcement, things like boom cars and a few unkept lawns. In exchange I can work on my truck in my driveway without some busybody stopping me.

Same here. Live in a nice part of a large city without an HOA. All the homes look different — it's a mix of single-family and multi-family housing — and it's delightful.

Whole (most of) Europe works without an HOA, why USA can’t?

Most of the US isn't under HOA, either.

I wonder if it holds e.g. for Germany. Maybe it's not HOA but the town magistrate, etc?

If you want real HOA vibes in Germany, visit a Schrebergarten (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)#Germany)!

There's no such thing in Germany apart from eg leasehold of holiday homes, rented garden houses (Kleingartenvereine) etc. but there are municipal usage restrictions according to Baunutzungverordnung to the effect you can't repurpose residential areas as a commercial space, and local zoning rules according to a Bebauungplan or equivalent for eg how many storeys are allowed, building lines, distances, materials to choose, a duty for at least an effort to gardening, etc., but it depends greatly where you live, ranging from very strict to everything goes.

Edit: IANAL

Bingo. In Germany, regulations enacted by municipal governments definitely cover a lot of points mentioned in the article. The main differences are that they are not quite as intrusive in what they cover (their goal is not explicitly to maintain property values), and you have legal recourse.

An HOA is more like a hyper local government like some local councils in Europe.

Do you have an example? I have never heard about that before.

HOAs seem to be more common in certain parts of the country, especially in the south and west. I've never encountered one in my state (Massachusetts) outside of retirement communities.

i don’t know which part of Europe you’re referring to, but i’ve noticed various restrictions, from what kind of front door you’re allowed to install, house color, roof color/type etc etc they’re not called HOAs thou, but the effect is similar.

Americans chafe at city government aggressively enforcing code. So cities have kicked that unpleasant task down a level to HOAs. As an added bonus, the cost of this regulation is now a HOA fee not a tax which is much harder to pass.

In the Netherlands we have somewhat similar arrangement in appartement buildings. Even the name is (translated) the same and operates like the described condo HOA from the article. It’s annoying as fuck. We want to put up sun screens as our windows are facing south so in summer the house is an oven.

Nope can’t do, _everyone_ needs to agree that yes we can install them and what type and colour and whatnot. We have to call a meeting for that, guess how many people show up?

Our next house is definitely not going to have such a thing if I can help it

I've hear that villages in the netherlands have municipal (if that's the right term) policies in this vein, particularly picky about the colour of doors.

There is indeed the “welstandscommissie”, no clue how to translate that. It’s meant to keep everything looking “nice and neat”. Depends a lot on what city/village it is but basically I think they try to avoid people painting their house purple or something.

HOA's were created to get around the supreme court ruling that racial covenants were unenforceable.

"HOA Neighborhoods" as the author defines them are largely a suburban construct IMO. In a large city like SF for example, single family homes aren't typically a part of an HOA -- you're free to extend your home as you see fit (with the right permits from the city), and you're also responsible for all costs including roofs and front porch areas. This is also true in rural America where you fully own your property and there are virtually no restrictions in what you can do.

I'm not very familiar with Europe but the couple of times I've been there it seemed somewhat similar to denser American cities and charming rural villages. I didn't see a parallel to "cookie cutter" American suburbia. I'm no expert on Europe but that's probably why HOAs aren't that common.

On the contrary, especially old towns in Europe have HOAs, as they want to preserve the old town look as to keep attracting tourists (and preserve history, although I think the income from tourism is generally their highest priority).

Are those private entities enforcing that though? Usually preserving the historical look of an area is more of a government-enforced thing than a private leasing arrangement.

Yes, but the effect is the same.

I don't think suburbs are a complete explanation for this though. HOAs are super rare in Canada (outside of apartment buildings and maybe townhouses), and we have just as much suburban sprawl as the U.S.

Based on people mentioning maintaining commons (i.e. building parks, etc.) maybe it's a function of having comparatively less government provided common services in American suburbs? That would fit the stereotype in my head, but I admit I don't have a lot of solid data one way or another.

In the USA, they exploded in popularity when people realized you could ban black people from living in your community with them.

Right, they have formal laws that cover the things an HOA in the US would normally prohibit or restrict.

Go mow your lawn on Sunday in Germany and let me know how long until someone tells Ruhetag at you.

There’s a thing called a Parish council and that strikes me as similar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parish_councils_in_England

There was a recent event gained notoriety in the UK for the pettiness these bodies sometimes have https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jB3P_0GAi0I

Not really the same thing, I don't think. Most of the time, parish councils just do boring but necessary things like emptying the dog poo bins, maintaining the village hall, keeping the playing fields trimmed and clean, that kind of upkeep of minor but very visible shared resources.

This is exactly what most HOAs do also.

We have HOA in France, it is called "copropriété".

The one I have is the "condominium HOA" kind, that is the reasonable kind according to the article because of the nature of buildings. But the bad "mandatory HOA" kind also exists, with the same kind of rules as the article mentions. It is just that US-style suburban areas are less common.

It looks like copropriétés in France are less focused on property value and the process sounds more democratic since every decision typically require a direct vote and most of the process is defined by law. However, it doesn't stop them from being a major pain in the ass sometimes.

> We all want to be allowed to do whatever we want

Ehh, not everyone's that selfish.

I for one am perfectly happy with compromising so that my neighbors are happier with what I do, but only if they return the favor. At a small scale we can have a handshake agreement, but for something more long term or with a lot more people, it's great to be able to put it on paper.

>You have to choose to either rely on your neighbors being decent, or suffer through life under an HOA.

Local Governments traditionally played this role. Problem is that some people hate governments simply because they are governments so they make private governments. I guess that makes sense to them?

In my (non HOA) neighborhood leaving shingles on your lawn comes with a $100/day fine.

The people who were cleaning out the house next door to me (they inherited it) were leaving piles of garbage outside. I saw the blight officer leave a notice in their mailbox and the garbage was gone the next day. (I assume it was a warning rather than a fine, but idk.)

It’s easier to live somewhere with a decent HOA than to rely on each of your neighbors being decent.

Otherwise, the only other way to ensure neighbors don’t bother you without an HOA is to live somewhere with lots of land around homes so that neighbors are very spaced out, and hopefully they will be far enough from you to not be bothered by their filth, and putting up high hedges and trees should be enough to block them from your sight.

Exactly.

That’s why you live in an HOA area, but become the ruler.

Rules for thee, but not for me!

Right. I've always thought that HOAs seem kind of un-American. Being how Americans are all pro-freedom and anti-socialist , having some social construct dictating what you can do in your house AND paying it yo do so seems quite far from US values.

And I am not American and I'm pretty socialist myself.

I've never lived in a neighborhood where the houses must be in "perfect cookie cutter shape", nor would I ever want to. I want my neighborhood to be diverse and interesting. HOA neighborhoods sound soul-crushing to me.

'Perfect cookie cutter shape' can be charming and historically significant. I'm glade there is an association maintaining the character of a village I used to live in, and that people aren't free to remodel them on a whim, permanently damaging cultural property.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Sunlight

That could be an exception. However, when I hear "HOA", the kind of neighborhood that comes to mind is "insipid, yet pretentious suburb".

When I hear "historically significant" I think of segregationist NIMBYs. The future is more important than the past.

Actually part of the job the association does in the village I lived in was to own some of the houses and rent them out as registered social landlord (meaning you can rent to people using social security.) They also helped to maintain museums, cultural spaces, and green spaces, for everyone.

Destroying cultural property to install a satellite dish is not making 'the future more important than the past'.

Historic preservation often involves rejecting things like solar panels on rooftops. That is 100% privileging the past over the future.

I'm sure there are extremely strict HOAs out there with insane people on boards that horror stories originate from.

We've always lived in HOA homes (in our 4th now) and they have all been very laid back.

This kind of HOA I belong to is basically the "anti-hillbilly" HOA. You aren't allowed to own 50 cats and dogs free roaming and crapping everywhere, don't leave your rusted out broken down beater in the front lawn, don't let your lawn go to 4 foot weeds (but by all means grow some 6ft tomato plants), your backyard is not your personal firing range, you aren't allowed to have a personal dump of trash that you clear every 6 months, etc.

Our HOA does are for snow/ice services, long term repairs on our private road, and the front entrance maintenance.

Every house is very distinct, some I don't prefer the styling/color, but I enjoy the diversity way better than a cookie cutter subdivision.

Soul crushing to me are people who don't take care of their property and enjoy living in neglect (which plenty of people out there manage just fine without an HOA, I just dont want to roll the dice)

> Soul crushing to me are people who don't take care of their property and enjoy living in neglect.

Why is it soul crushing to you that others enjoy their lives without worrying about their property?

Here's the problem I fundementally have with HOA's even ones that are "laid back" is that at any point in time they can decide to not be "laid back" you get one bad idiot in charge of the HOA and then suddenly they start passing all sorts of rules. That is the problem they might be benign but when they fall into the wrong hands they become terrible quickly and in the process can destroy lives and livelihoods.

It takes a vote by the community (the ones I live in) to enact new rules.

If I had that many terrible neighbors I'd want to move regardless

You may want to make sure you understand how HOAs work before having "fundamental problems" with something.

One bad idiot cannot start passing "all sorts of rules". Getting a super majority vote, doing all the paper work and registering it with the land court all while following applicable laws and statutes isn't something that just randomly happen.

Why does this post read like an over the top and rather extreme representation of non-HOA neighborhoods to the point of being just short of a false-dichotomy altogether? It sounds like an awful situation you have but it’s not as if this is how every neighborhood is that isn’t united and governed by HOAs.

my last non hoa neighborhood was worse than that so it read as tame

It turns out a lot of Americans are selfish and their property is a disaster. Getting into rentals can be even worse since they tend to care less.

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