HOA issues (not related to COVID)

[InterBlog]

Great minds think alike. Ours is living in our driveway now. Our HOA can go fiddle with itself until the national disaster is brought under some semblance of control.

[Beachlife]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

Great minds think alike. Ours is living in our driveway now. Our HOA can go fiddle with itself until the national disaster is brought under some semblance of control.

I agree and time for them to rewrite their HOA rules with exceptions. I have my Travato in my own driveway and having fun making some great modifications and system upgrades. I have made this my hobby vehicle. LOL
Time to pull together and make allowances within reason. I recommend keep your drive clean and not junked up to prove this is worth allowing parking. My neighbors hardly notice my vehicle, but when they do they mostly think it is cool and want to look inside. LOL Best wishes to everyone.

[InterBlog]

The only practical way for HOAs to manage these questions is via enforcement discretion. In other words, they informally need to decide which infractions they are not going to pursue, and leave it at that.

Most HOAs are based on boilerplate rules that were developed 20 or 30 years ago. To change them requires a quorum of such size that it's virtually impossible to assemble. I'm not going to take the time to check ours, but IIRC, it's around 75% *of the entire regulated community*. That's never going to happen. We can barely get 20% to show up even during a major cat fight when fur is flying in every direction.

[Jon in AZ]

The worst if it is the actual rules were created by a quorum of... zero! Developers and real estate agents foist their own priorities on future buyers.

[Davydd]

Originally Posted by Jon in AZ

The worst if it is the actual rules were created by a quorum of... zero! Developers and real estate agents foist their own priorities on future buyers.

Future buyers then know what the rules are ahead of time and can make up their minds to buy or not buy, so what is the problem? HOAs are designed to protect future buyer's investment (home value) and provide services and maintain common property. After the developer is out of it, then the rules can be changed by the home owners. Isn't that a democratic process?

I've mentioned before, after 34 years of total property freedom of old growth woods, invasive species, and piles of dead branches, I sold and chose an HOA development and bought a remote condo garage because on balance it was a better deal for us when traveling with no exterior maintenance. The condo garage is way more convenient than storing outdoors and if you want to believe the tax assessor our 3 year old investment has already gone up 35% (there hasn't been a condo garage development built in the Minneapolis western suburbs in those 3 years.) They must be in demand. Those HOA rules of not parking an RV in our driveway were good to me.

These were the good ol' days when I could dispose of fallen trees and branches with an all-day "recreation" bonfire and generally do anything I wanted in my yard.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by Davydd

... After the developer is out of it, then the rules can be changed by the home owners. Isn't that a democratic process?
...

Quote from above: "To change them requires a quorum of such size that it's virtually impossible to assemble."

On another note, sewage lift stations and wastewater treatment plant headworks are coming under tremendous strain because people are disposing of so many materials other than toilet paper in the toilet. This is another reason to keep your Class B in your front yard at this time. If you local lift station goes down, your B may come to furnish your only working toilet.

My concern is that those lift stations are all run by pumps, many of which are getting damaged simultaneously across the entire country. What happens when both pumps and their parts become the next scarce commodity?

Newspaper article chosen at random: "...workers are spending many more hours unplugging the 70 sanitary sewer lift stations in the Fargo area from Harwood to Oxbow."

https://www.inforum.com/news/5009562...ont-break-down

[GeorgeRa]

In these difficult times this level of escalation wasn’t really necessary. Perhaps the fellow from HOA board has too much time on his hands as he likely can’t play golf and the RV owner could spare 5 min. to communicate upfront.

[GallenH]

I'm guessing that some of you perhaps bought your houses before you got the RV bug. That was my case. So I have to store off-site. That's what the rules say. I read the CCRs before I bought and was aware of the rule. So I can't really blame the HOA. I'm sure HOAs differ in this next regard but the last vote that we had which required a quorum, people were allowed to submit their ballot by mail or dropoff. No need to be there. For ours and probably many others the thought that you "can't assemble a quorum" doesn't cut it.

[DUTCH in Atlanta]

No HOA in our neighborhood, Gott sei Dank. Ours is at our home, plugged in and ready as an isolated living space, if needed.

[RossWilliams]

The only practical way for HOAs to manage these questions is via enforcement discretion.

I don't think it works that way. Usually if the HOA fails to enforce its rules it can be sued by owners. If it consistently ignores a rule, it can lose its ability to ever enforce it. If you let one owner park their shiny new RV in their driveway as a corona virus shelter, you can't go after the guy who buys a broken down junker to park in their driveway for the same purpose. Or for some other purpose.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by RossWilliams

I don't think it works that way. Usually if the HOA fails to enforce its rules it can be sued by owners. If it consistently ignores a rule, it can lose its ability to ever enforce it. If you let one owner park their shiny new RV in their driveway as a corona virus shelter, you can't go after the guy who buys a broken down junker to park in their driveway for the same purpose. Or for some other purpose.

It has worked that way for the ten years that I have lived in my HOA community. If they see things that are widely acknowledged as being made obsolete by circumstances and/or the passage of time, they simply decline to enforce.

I have never been elected to a HOA board, but I've attended many of our meetings, and I've worked with our HOA board in the past as a subdivision liaison of sorts, attending some closed-door sessions that they held to hash out certain issues that, by law, did not need to be dealt with in open meetings.

Forget about RVs for a moment and let's just take the common vehicle height restriction of six feet. That provision was originally put into a great number of HOA rule boilerplates to ensure that vehicles fit safely into residential garages, which people now use for junk storage rather than vehicle storage, but let's ignore that for the moment.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s when these standard conditions were written, no passenger cars or trucks exceeded that height. But today we have an enormous variety of vehicles that do. Large trucks, lifted trucks, certain non-RV vans including some handicapped transport vehicles, custom vehicles, sport vehicles, some trades vehicles, you name it - our subdivision is full of them.

What are they going to do - declare that nobody who lives in a HOA-controlled subdivision will be allowed to purchase an F350, for instance? That is nonsensical, and it would never withstand a legal challenge. So they just ignore that provision of the rules.

[SteveJ]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

It has worked that way for the ten years that I have lived in my HOA community. If they see things that are widely acknowledged as being made obsolete by circumstances and/or the passage of time, they simply decline to enforce.

I have never been elected to a HOA board, but I've attended many of our meetings, and I've worked with our HOA board in the past as a subdivision liaison of sorts, attending some closed-door sessions that they held to hash out certain issues that, by law, did not need to be dealt with in open meetings.

Forget about RVs for a moment and let's just take the common vehicle height restriction of six feet. That provision was originally put into a great number of HOA rule boilerplates to ensure that vehicles fit safely into residential garages, which people now use for junk storage rather than vehicle storage, but let's ignore that for the moment.

Back in the 1980s and 1990s when these standard conditions were written, no passenger cars or trucks exceeded that height. But today we have an enormous variety of vehicles that do. Large trucks, lifted trucks, certain non-RV vans including some handicapped transport vehicles, custom vehicles, sport vehicles, some trades vehicles, you name it - our subdivision is full of them.

What are they going to do - declare that nobody who lives in a HOA-controlled subdivision will be allowed to purchase an F350, for instance? That is nonsensical, and it would never withstand a legal challenge. So they just ignore that provision of the rules.

A friend of my brother lives in an HOA community somewhere near Fort Lauderdale. They allow no pickups of any sort along with a 100% motorcycle ban.

[InterBlog]

Originally Posted by SteveJ

A friend of my brother lives in an HOA community somewhere near Fort Lauderdale. They allow no pickups of any sort along with a 100% motorcycle ban.

Trying to ban pick-up trucks in Texas would be like trying to ban tacos. Twenty percent of vehicles in operation nation-wide are pick-ups, and I don't know what the percentage is in our demographic and HOA, but I'd estimate that at least one third of households own pick-ups.

[GallenH]

Originally Posted by InterBlog

Forget about RVs for a moment and let's just take the common vehicle height restriction of six feet.

It might be common but that's a new one on me. Our HOA has restrictions like "you must have at least one plant or bush in front yard." We do, however, have a rule which states that you can't have a boat, trailer or RV kept in public view. That means one could construct/remodel a garage to house one (there is one home in our neighborhood where that was done) and you could move it into your back/side yard and fence it out of view (which some have). I'm ok just having it stored in a facility. I've had it in the driveway for up to 3 weeks while I was making repairs/renovations without any complaint.

It's an interesting legal situation, though. Discrimination via race isn't allowed. Here in AZ discrimination via age is (there were neighborhoods--Sun City--where you had to be over 55 to own a house there. Not sure if that's still the case). I understand with the desire to live in a community that has some uniformity. But there are ones in AZ where you can't plant a citrus tree or you can only paint your house in a color within a limited, approved pallet.

[RossWilliams]

If they see things that are widely acknowledged as being made obsolete by circumstances and/or the passage of time, they simply decline to enforce.

And as long as no one sues them there is no problem with that.

As I said, if they fail to enforce it long enough they lose their ability to enforce it at all. If you ignore the height restriction, you can't suddenly enforce it when someone parks a huge RV in their yard and blocks their neighbors view of the sunset.

On the other hand, if the HOA fails to enforce a restriction/covenent that is still generally complied with and someone does sue, they are likely to lose. Even if most people don't object and think the restriction is unnecessary or outdated.

I managed a condo association that had a tennis court. Most of the people living their had gotten older, they were on fixed incomes and "nobody used" the tennis court so they stopped maintaining it. A couple young families moved in and wanted to use the tennis court. Naturally the HOA didn't want to spend a bunch of money fixing something for just a couple families.

Unfortunately for them, one of the couples was a lawyer. They threatened to sue and our lawyer told the HOA that it was very likely they would win since the HOA was responsible for maintaining the common areas in good repair.

What he told me is that they should have torn the tennis court out when it wasn't being used. If no owners objected that would have been the end of it.

I am not a lawyer and I am sure the laws vary. But that is generally how it worked when I managed HOA's. And HOA's are always doing stuff that isn't legal. They usually get away with it because no one objects. But they have a lot less flexibility than people think they do.

[jrobe]

Our 30 home suburban residential neighborhood has a HOA with pretty minimal restrictions. I don't even think it addresses RV's except maybe at very large sizes.

Now we have one neighbor that wants to put up a fence and raise goats and chickens (seriously). He wants to have a hobby farm within the city and right next door to neighbors. You can't make this stuff up. If you give people an inch, there will always be someone that wants to take a mile.

[booster]

Originally Posted by jrobe

Our 30 home suburban residential neighborhood has a HOA with pretty minimal restrictions. I don't even think it addresses RV's except maybe at very large sizes.

Now we have one neighbor that wants to put up a fence and raise goats and chickens (seriously). He wants to have a hobby farm within the city and right next door to neighbors. You can't make this stuff up. If you give people an inch, there will always be someone that wants to take a mile.

How big are the lots in the development? Animal raising of farm size, or even a dog kennel, will usually get in the way of the city or county rules also, if the area isn't zoned for farming.

[GallenH]

Funny. In our HOA it's ok to have pets.........but specifically forbids fowl. Guess they didn't want chickens in the backyards....or roosters....or geese...or

It is amazing how different the HOA rules are in different communities. I think that there's generally an initial set made by the developer that then gets changed and solidified once the homeowners take over the administration of the HOA from the developer. Our initial rules allowed 2-story structures only on the perimeter lots (which backed up to city streets). When they were rewritten, that provision was struck and only single story structures permitted.

[RossWilliams]

Originally Posted by jrobe

Our 30 home suburban residential neighborhood has a HOA with pretty minimal restrictions. I don't even think it addresses RV's except maybe at very large sizes.

Now we have one neighbor that wants to put up a fence and raise goats and chickens (seriously). He wants to have a hobby farm within the city and right next door to neighbors. You can't make this stuff up. If you give people an inch, there will always be someone that wants to take a mile.

Keeping chickens has become common in a lot of cities. Most cities still ban roosters. Not much different than having a vegetable garden. Some HOA's prohibit those as well.

[Davydd]

Cities can also prohibit chickens, and farm animals as well as roosters. Cities have laws, codes, and a zoning ordinance to restrict home ownership freedom just as much as HOAs. I say get over it. It is a free country and no one holds a gun to your head to buy into an HOA. HOAs are set up to protect your investment (property value), to take care of common interests such as community property and facilities, and community maintenance the government is not going to do.

I enjoyed a certain amount of freedom for 34 years (scroll back to the yard fire) that few in just about any city probably could enjoy. Then I sold it and I deliberately bought into an HOA for several advantageous reasons and as I said before, I couldn't park my Class B there that I had for 12 previous years.