For the last four years I’ve owned a home in a kind of neighborhood called a planned unit development. More or less townhomes, we have 14 buildings with two homes in each building. The homeowners association (HOA) takes care of all exterior items (roofs, fences, outside building walls) plus the common areas (we have driveways, fencing, a large interior yard, a pool with some chairs, and a clubhouse), and a few other items (water, garbage, insurance, and such) and for this each unit pays $250 per month. There are also some fairly strict rules about living here, not about social aspects, but more along the lines of things that can’t be done outside the unit.
When one of the units is sold, under California law, the new owner must sign a declaration agreeing to abide by the rules (called the CC&Rs). Not only is the new owner supplied with a copy of the CC&Rs but also back issues of the HOA newsletter and other documentation. In other words, the buyer is well-informed as to the rules. The bigger the association (the first home I purchased, in New Jersey in 1987, was in a 440 unit HOA), the more strictly the CC&Rs are generally enforced. Small developments, such as ours, often have boards of directors that operate with more flexibility. A homeowner wants to do something a little different, comes up with a plan, and presents it to the board for approval.
For better or worse, I volunteered to serve on my HOA board back in February and was elected (technically, but since no one else wanted the job…) vice president. No big deal, meetings are only one Monday night every other month. We have a five member board and in February, one long-serving member was elected president, one person was elected to a second (one year) term, and two other residents besides me were newly elected. In June our president resigned as he’d purchased a home in Fremont and, as you might expect, the vice president–me!–was elevated to the lofty position.
While we do have some flexibility on decision-making, for the most part there are very strict rules that limit decisions. Recently, we had a request from a homeowner for the HOA to pay for the removal of a large tree that is within her patio. According to our rules, this is a homeowner responsibility. Much as we would have liked to handle it as requested, the CC&Rs would not allow this. And we are talking about a substantial amount of money, over $2,000; but look at it from the other side: that would be nearly $100 per unit for which we hadn’t budgeted. A couple of years ago, though, the flexibility allowed the Board to decide in favor of a homeowner who had requested permission to install central air conditioning (the compressor needed to be outside and therefore needed board approval).
Still, I can see how these things become political, personal, and emotional. We definitely have long-running conflicts between some of the homeowners in our little development!
In my old stomping grounds, some residents have teamed with the ACLU (Lawsuit Tests Power of Homeowner Associations) to have a court declare that HOAs “resemble a local government enough to be subject to constitutional restraints.” While the suit is filed under the New Jersey Constitution, the article indicates that if the dissident residents win, the result will eventually be felt by all associations.
Personally, I don’t get it. You buy a home in one of these places and you know upfront exactly what kind of situation you’re getting. These aren’t new, although HOAs are more widely created (by the company which develops the project initially), and the pros and cons are well-known. If that’s not your bag, and I know the constraints rub many people the wrong way, just don’t buy into one.
BillSaysThis 
