mine went after a guy for adding insulation to the attic.
Only the poors care about energy efficiency. Can’t appear poor, or it might bring down the property values.
it was completely insane. they claimed he was storing the insulation in the attic (he had it professionally put in) and used association money on an attorney demanding he remove it. He refused and ultimately they had the maintenance guys remove it. bonkers. spent money so that our energy costs can be higher.
I get pissy about mine sometimes but reading these stories… Holy shit.
That it was in a state of total chaos: the management company wasn’t doing their job, one of the members wasn’t paying his fees (only 3 units so it was a major hit), and I found out we didn’t have any insurance. I ended up taking over, got rid of the shitty management company, sued the delinquent member, evicted one of his tenants (drug addicts that left the doors unlocked and would set off the building smoke detectors all the time), and sold/moved once the dust settled.
They overcharge a lot and pass the profits to their friends.
Wouldn’t let me rent when the housing crash hit and I couldn’t afford the place, wouldn’t let me have friends over late at night because they thought my d&d group were a bunch of drug dealers. All around a miserable experience.
How the fuck do they keep you from having friends over? Also u need a new player for that group?
I feel bad for these folks.
My building’s HOA kicks ass, but admittedly, the people we elected to it are very ‘live and let live’.
Hopefully it stays that way. I’ve read horror stories about buildings hiring HOA management companies out of nowhere who take over and turn things shitty. 😔
I’ve lived in 3 and had the luxury of them being fantastic and doing more than I expected, above and beyond and never being more than like…$50/mo. Included gym and pool access and stuff.
BUT, I have a family member who lives in one where basically everybody got hit with a roof repair bill of $30k partly due to previous management embezzlement, and it ended up being taken to the courts and crap and eventually got reduced but not eliminated. I think like half the residents sold and left in the year following.
So…it can be a crapshoot but I hear more stories that are bad than good.
I lived in a failed HOA in California, 8 unit condo, slipped thru the cracks. We shared a water bill so that was getting turned off a lot. We had a large leak that we ignored for years until we couldn’t and had to collect $500 from each dirtbag to get it fixed. 3 of us cared, the others I hope have a painful demise.
They casually inform first time buyers that the roof needs to be replaced, all the piping leaks, the elevator is past its service life, and the previous management ripped them off so we’re critically underfunded, but the board didn’t get voted out.
Finally convinced one do-nothing to not run for reelection but it’s been a problem. I think we’re paying $450/mo, no amenities. There’s been a hole in the hallway ceiling for 3 months after the last plumbing repair.
We have a 4x15ft patch of grass that one day turned into dirt. I think we’re paying landscapers to maintain two bushes at this point because they haven’t touched that dirt pad.
I live on a crappy golf course, our fees are $89 a month they don’t provide anything, we can’t have fences over 4ft the fence has to be see through, we can only choose certain colors to paint our houses we can’t store trash cans outside we got a notice for a single weed there is constantly people driving around taking pictures it freaking blows we are selling and the next place will have no HOA
I got a $100 fine because the curtains I decorated my bedroom with were visible to the outside and not an approved color.
Never again.
No nightmares… $100/yr and it mostly goes to landscaping at the entrance and repairing the wall when cars drive into it.
About 2014, HOA decided to do some upgrade to our water main coming from the street. The guy came out with a weedeater and damaged my mailbox post. I reported it to the board and they said they would take care of it. Two weeks later I got a violation in the mail for damaged mailbox post. I went to the board website and they told me I had to repair it or face a fine. Right about this time the builder stepped down and handed the HOA to an attorneys office to manage. I reached out to the attorney to forward them the first message and ask them to repair my mailbox post and they said they would send someone out. About a month later I got a notice from the HOA that said this was my third warning (it was my second) and they were going to put a lein on my house if I didn’t pay the fine, fix the mailbox post, and now pay a separate fee to the attorneys office since they were managing it.
I sent the HOA and the attorneys office copies of both of their messages saying they would handle it with a picture of my damaged mailbox post. Three months later, we get the yearly Financials from the board and the attorneys office charged the HOA $1,800 to put a $500 lein on the title of my home that we had paid off after trying to go through my previous mortgage holder’s legal department to try to get the fine out of my escrow that no longer existed.
We sold the house with a damaged mailbox post last year. Our new neighborhood has no HOA.
Getting out of it is the hardest part for us right now.
We’re in a small 28 unit condominium, so our dues go towards insurance for all buildings (only exterior, have to have our own for studs in), water, lawn service, management company, etc. Our dues are almost $400/month.
Yes, per month. It absolutely blows, especially when we’re trying to sell our unit and it’s been on the market for almost half a year.
I’m the HOA president so I know what all our expenses are (and have fought to keep increases to a minimum, including negotiating the community water bill with the water company), and unless we kick out the management company (Not going to happen) the dues are just going to stay high. We’re preparing to refuse an increase for the next year.
Why can’t you kick them out? Wouldn’t it be cheaper if the hoa managed all that jazz?
It’d be cheaper, sure. But that assumes anyone actually wants to run things locally. My VP is an elderly woman who would love to get off the Board as well. We just don’t have volunteers to run things. I joined up so our HOA didn’t get handed to a lawyer to run, which would cost even more.
Prior to having a management company, the HOA treasurer embezzled about $40,000. It’s the reason they got the management company in the first place.
Yeah people don’t really understand that HOAs are a two way street in most states. Bad HOAs exist because of bad neighbors, neglectful neighbors, or both. All it takes to right a ship is to show up and vote (or fill out the paper absentee ballot…) when the yearly elections happen. And then show up to some meetings so quorum can be met.
My HOA has to reschedule important meetings several times a year because nobody can be bothered to show up for a 30 minute meeting every quarter so quorum is met. Bad HOAs are like bad local unions. They only have power because you let them have power. Lobby your neighbors to do something about it. Unfortunately my experience is such that the typical homeowner who chooses to live in an HOA does so because they want to be rorLly hands off as much as possible. Kind of the opposite of the default pictures people have of obsessive neighbors in HOAs.
Honestly, it sucks, but nowadays, $400 isn’t overly high for condo HOAs. At least not in my region of the state. For stand alone, detached homes, it’s insane. But fees are crazy high nowadays for everyone. That price for a condo HOA is not outrageous unfortunately.
I was the president of my HOA. Somewhat not intentionally.
It was my first home, a condo, and I bought it at launch right after it was built. After about 6 months of living there, a neighbor approached me and said the whole rest of the board had flaked out, and would I like to be president of the HOA?
I said sure, it seems interesting and I definitely want the value of my ownership to be protected.
So me, him, and another guy formed a new board.
Oh man, the messes we started to uncover. The super low dues didn’t even cover the trash removal, hallway electric lighting bill, elevator maintenance contract… Much less any landscaping. No wonder the place was looking rough.
And of course there was no budget to put money away for long term needs like reroofing or whatever.
So we worked hard on a plan to propose to the owners to increase the dues about 70% so that we’d have a well landscaped place and hopefully no surprise expenses ever because of an ample rainy day fund.
Less than 10% of the owners even showed up to the HOA meeting, so we didn’t meet quorum.
We tried again, and finally got quorum after knocking on doors and asking for people to please come and vote.
This was just one issue. I’d get regular calls like hey, somebody dumped an old mattress by the dumpster. Can you call the removal company (the regular trash service wouldn’t take that kind of thing). Or calls like “there’s some sick trees in the front yard, when are you finally going to get an arborist out here?” And so and so’s room is leaving trash in the hallway, can you please go talk to them?
I resigned within a year. Screw those guys and I’ll never co-own without getting to choose my partners again.
Why is an HOA looking after the building and public spaces? That should be either the landlord/building owner and the local council responsibility. HOA are bullshit which ever way you look at them.
The HOA is the owners. The owners vote in some board members who do the work on behalf of the majority of owners.
Sometimes the HOA hires some 3rd party management company to handle stuff, but in our case we felt it was wasted money because we would care more about the results. In the end I can see why a lot of owner boards do that as the day-to-day of running the place is obnoxious.
The public spaces were on our property, so our responsibility.
Yes, this is the unappreciated other end of shitty small-scale power tripping. Normal people don’t want to do jobs like internet moderator or HOA president, because nobody appreciates them and it’s boring. So, people who get a different kind of value out of it take their place, and around we go.
