Homeowners Association and grass length

A

AmadeusM

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What are your thoughts on the HA having the right to tell you how long your grass should be?

What are your options?

Anybody ever have any issues with the HA?

Thanks. :)

I should mention that our household cuts the grass regularly.
 
Several years ago, a woman moved into her dream house maybe a mile or so from where I lived at the time. She was so excited to be living just outside of the city with room for a horse and such... so tranquil, so idyllic. The first morning, she was awakened by the sound of high-caliber and full-automatic gun fire! Her peaceful home was under attack!... or so it seemed. This is how she found out that the big empty expanse over the fence behind her house was, in fact, the Tri-County Gun Club... and has been for sixty or more years. She sued and tried to have the Gun Club shut down. The court ruled against her saying that it was her responsibility to ascertain what was beyond the fence and that she had not exercised "due diligence" when she bought the house.

I have absolutely ZERO sympathy for her and I have absolutely ZERO sympathy for people who buy a house and are then surprised to find out that there's a HOA with rules. Buyer beware! It is your responsibility to exercised "due diligence" when you buy a house. If you don't want a HOA with rules, then it is up to you to ascertain if the house you're looking at has one or not. Usually, there's a paper that you have to sign at closing in which you acknowledge that there's a HOA with rules. Many HOAs insist that their exisitance be disclosed in the real estate listing for houses within their association. A good realtor will point this out too.

HOAs come in all sizes and shapes. Some are neighborhood Nazis regulating everything and demanding absolute conformity. There's such a neighborhood that I pass by on the way to my Church. It's called Steptoe Estates or some such thing. I call it Stepford Estates. (To call those little houses "estates" is a laugh anyway.) That neighborhood has a very strict HOA. They regulate virtually every aspect of the external appearance of your house, especially the front.

My HOA, on the other hand, has two typed pages of rules. Most of them concern things like car parts on the front lawn. Our rules are few, simple, and things that most people would do out of common courtesy. A lot of them have to do with parking and a common desire not to have a lot of cars parked on the streets. Every house has to have a two-car garage and off-street parking for two more cars. You are not allowed, in my neighborhood, to heat your garage. Heated garages tend to turn into workshops and even family rooms and the cars that would otherwise park in them end up on the street. Last year, we gave permission to allow one guy to heat one of his three garage stalls. He had to build a wall internally so that only one would be heated, and this was only allowed because he had three. He needed the heated space because his fancy sports car doesn't start well in the bitter Oregon winter cold. I got a nice bottle of wine from my neighbor across the street last year when he came over to ask me to sign off on him converting one of his three garages to an office. Again, since he has three, it is permissible to covert one but only if all adjoining neighbors agree. We've only had one problem in the two years I've lived here, a giant RV that got parked in the street in front of one house and just sat there for weeks. You're only allowed on-street parking of an RV for three days.

I like my HOA and the few rules we have. It keeps the neighborhood nice and desirable and the property values high. Basically, the 70-something homes in Crestview Hights II have decided and agreed that we will live together according to this set of simple rules. People who don't like those rules don't have to live here. If they want more order and control -- and some people do -- they can go to Stepford Estates. And if they want less, there are plenty of neighborhoods that have no HOA. Every person can decide how he wants to live.

If you decide to buy an house with an HOA, then expect to follow the rules because by buying that house you are deciding and agreeing that you will live together according to the rules.



Now, with that said, if you do decide to buy a house in an HOA neighborhood, absolutely get on the Board (in most HOAs, the sole qualification to be elected to the Board is a pulse and having, at one time, mumbled about being willing) or at least attend the meetings.
 
My wife and I just bought our first house recently, but had heard nightmares from friends about HOAs. Not having one was simply a pre-requistite for even looking at a house. That said...

From what I understand, once you sign the HOA contract(ie.buy the house) your pretty much screwed. I know at least one person who tried to sue, went through local and state courts, and got his butt handed to him. Ended up selling his house out from under him. So, ummm, I guess cut the grass the hieght they want, or sell and move. Hope I'm wrong by the by, but thats how it sounds to me, from my limited but really bad experience.

Jon
 
Gollnick,

Every neighborhood is different. Due to the way some neighborhoods are built, they really do require lots of rules to insure home value. The whole "no heat in the garage" thing sort of gets my hackles up, but to your point ... read the rules before you buy ... or suffer .. :D

Razz
 
HOA's are a double-edged sword (just my way of bringing in some knife content). They do protect property values by establishing and maintaining standards, but the onus is on the homeowners to stay in compliance. I have exactly zero sympathy for someone who buys into a community and then doesn't want to comply with their rules - even if they claim ignorance.

There is no HOA in my community although there is a "civic association" that collects $20 per year from each unit and uses it to maintain certain common grounds around the lake. Since there is no HOA I was able to place my old washing machine right on my front lawn up against my AH neighbor's property line and leave it there for several weeks. I even partially dismantled it and left the parts all over the place to piss him off even more. I would never have been able to get away with that if we had an HOA.
 
synghyn said:
My wife and I just bought our first house recently, but had heard nightmares from friends about HOAs. Not having one was simply a pre-requistite for even looking at a house. That said...

From what I understand, once you sign the HOA contract(ie.buy the house) your pretty much screwed. I know at least one person who tried to sue, went through local and state courts, and got his butt handed to him. Ended up selling his house out from under him. So, ummm, I guess cut the grass the hieght they want, or sell and move. Hope I'm wrong by the by, but thats how it sounds to me, from my limited but really bad experience.

Jon
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Become familiar with the dissolution rules and laws. Sometimes you can wait out the HOA and if it is not active you can force dissolution (this almost never happens with HOAs that manage facilities like swimming pools and tennis courts because they are always active). Be aware that there will have to be some entity to receive ownership of any common grounds before a court will even allow much less order a dissolution, but that entity may be no more than a civic or social committee. Laws governing real property have a strong bias against the imposition of contracts like HOA and if the HOA lapses it is almost impossible for it to resurrect itself.
 
Just bought a new home on 11 acres in Montana.Nice area and nice homes.
First thing I asked when I was looking at it was there a HOA.There is and the rules are few and far between. Main thing is the covenents on size of buildings and mobiles(not allowed) and some architecterial control.(do not need any purple buildings)
IMO they are a good thing as long as they are for the good of all.
Randy
 
I am a firm believer in HOAs. When we were looking for a new home in Utah we spent some time visiting different neighborhoods to get a feel for the area. We went and looked at a beautiful home in a really nice location. Trouble was they didn't have an HOA. The fellow next door repaired appliances , had an unfinished shed and equipment all over the front lawn. Not what we were looking for.

We ended up buying in a very desirable small sub-division. We do have an HOA,$15.00/mth., but it really has no teeth. The neighborhood is beautiful but a few people are not landscaping in a timely manner. We have our yearly meeting on Saturday and I'm prepared to be the bad guy.

Win
 
As far as grass length goes, I'm all for it. I've got some "trash" living across the street from me who let their weeds get 12"+ tall. I don't have the best yard by far, but I keep it mowed, and I expect the same from my neighbors. However, we don't have a HOA, it's a city ord.
 
Good point Esav.

So let's say a person is a plant biologist and he/she finds a plant species attractive, but some soccermom with a lot of time on her hands can say "mow it" because it's weed.

I am just not too crazy about the micromanagement ideas like that, but, as Gollnick and others have pointed out, HOA membership is (still) voluntary and hopefully always disclosed and not glossed over.

We haven't been members of any such associations, and never had any problems with any of our neighbors (we were lucky I think).

I do remember one episode when we first moved into a house, and all of a sudden, unannounced, these old ladies in a minivan pull up into our driveway (going pretty fast I might add) because they were running a neighborhood survey of some sort. Man, I have never seen arrogance like that. :thumbdn:
It was quite amusing to watch my dad tell them to get out of there. :D
 
mycroftt said:
there is a "civic association" that collects $20 per year from each unit and uses it to maintain certain common grounds around the lake. Since there is no HOA I was able to place my old washing machine right on my front lawn up against my AH neighbor's property line and leave it there for several weeks. I even partially dismantled it and left the parts all over the place to piss him off even more..
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ha ha ha ha ha ha ha :D :D
 
My neighborhood is supposed to have HOA but no one has ever gotten it organized. As long as no one really gets out of line no one realy says anything. I can only remember a few times we gotten together on anything in the 9 years I've been there.
Once when someone put up a chain link fence for there dog. That was no big deal since the owner had planed to cover the fence with a wood fence(I don't know why) The wood fence was to be put in a month or so later.
The next time was when someone moved out and rented they're house. Our covenents does not allow this, but no one ever said anything cause the tenants where very nice people. Then one day they rented it to some (I think they where) Hare Krishna (not that there is anything wrong with that). Then every Sat morning there would be cars parked beside the road, in the grass in front everyone's house. They would line up and and walk around chanting and making some crazy sounding music. Then we enforced the covenents. But right after that they rented it again, but to some almost regular people. They had a couple parties that got loud. nothing major.
Then the last time was to get the sign at the entrence painted. We all go together and chipped in and got it done.
I doubt there are many HOA like ours.
 
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