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Comment by caymanjim | Hacker News Reader

It always amuses me when people talk about "buying" a property under HOA control. You're not buying anything. You're agreeing to an indefinite lease with a majority share of profit upon transfer of the lease. If someone else can decide what color your house is, you don't own it.

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By this argument nobody owns anything because there is always some level of state authority that can make rules about what you’re allowed to do with it. What’s the fundamental difference between an HOA and a small local government?

Not the person you originally asked, but an HOA is an additional layer for a start. Moreover it tends to have more restrictions, of a kind that would seem ridiculous at the level of local government (e.g. what color your curtains can be, in the case of the condo I'm currently renting.)

That would piss me off even as a renter.

> By this argument nobody owns anything because there is always some level of state authority that can make rules about what you’re allowed to do with it.

You're right, and that's bad, too.

If what you're doing isn't affecting anyone else, you should be free to do it.

The color (and much more importantly the condition) of your house certainly does affect someone else.

ownership isnt black or white.

its on a spectrum.

property rights are given to us by the government with certain limitations. dont pay your taxes and your property goes away. HOAs is one additional restriction.

People also talk about buying stocks but you also can't control the direction of a company as a minority shareholder. People also buy non-physical things like music or software, and things that exist only for a moment in time, like experiences.

It would seem that most people's definition of "buying" works for HOA-controlled properties. What's your definition?

Software, music, stocks are things that you can do with what you please, but not if it's on a subscription basis. My definition of ownership really comes down to the inability for others to take away my control over it. In a sense, a mortgaged property is an acceptable risk in that the bank has limited financial control over your house as debt, but anything beyond that and nobody should really be able to tell me to not paint my house blue.

Just buy a house outside of an HOA or city historical restrictions. You'll have to shop around, and you wont get exactly what you want, but that is life.

I'm not in the market for a house at all, that's just my definition of ownership. I clearly wouldn't buy in an HOA or a historically restricted property.

You also can't discharge a gun pointed at another human, or even in most public places, so do you really 'own' that gun?

Did you just compare homicide to painting your own house’s door blue? smh

I'm showing an extreme example of the OP's logic. There are laws and regulations around items and property that people ""own"" that prevent how they use their property yet it doesn't change that they do still own it.

There rules with owning almost anything. HOAs are on the far end of the spectrum, but you get the appreciation if property values go up, which is one of the main reasons for owning property

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