When we built our house in this neighbourhood, we liked the idea of the HOA. Yes, I am a libertarian–but contrary to the general assumption about such animals, many of us do believe in a very limited form of government. Under the classical notion of Gentlemen’s Agreement, a government can be a handy tool for accomplishing things in a group. I saw the HOA as that type of a thing. We all agreed that we didn’t want anyone living here to have their grass unmowed or leaving junker cars on the lawn. It seemed like a good way to ensure basic neighbourliness and stable property values.
But as with any other form of government, it seems the HOA is easily corrupted from Gentlemen’s Agreement to Despotic Tyranny. Some folks just fall in love with the idea that Laws Can Be Made To Control An Uncontrollable Universe. If you don’t like the way things work, just make a new law and bully those around you into doing things the way you want them done. There are two surefire appeals to ramming these new laws through–protecting The Children or The Bottom Line.
The paper shoved in my door on Saturday seemed to guarantee both things. Unsavoury folks won’t move here to taunt my children and my property values will climb sky high almost instantly. All we have to do is vote to enact a new HOA regulation. No homes in the Hampton Hall neighbourhood can be occupied by renters. If you buy here, you have to live here.
When I called the guy behind this new scheme to ask if it was legal, the childlike glee in his voice was scary. “Yes! We checked it out. It’ll be great. So far the response has been FANTASTIC! I mean, I know my property values have gone up, but not as much as they should.” He then went on to preach the gospel of owner-occupied housing by holding up the next neighbourhood over. It’s a couple of decades older and the folks are a couple of shades darker. The homes are a couple of notches lower on the property ladder and most of those darker folks who live there are renters.
No one ever talks openly about the race issue, but coincidentally or not the few homes we have in our neighbourhood that are rental properties are also usually rented by Chinese, Hispanic and Black people. In a couple of those cases the homes are also poorly maintained. I served on the HOA board a couple of years back and the rental properties were the bane of our existence. Folks didn’t mow as often as they should and left piles of trash on their front porch. I myself didn’t mind the colour of the people’s skin–but others did. A couple of meetings before I quit, another board member frustratedly swore that the neighbourhood would be much better “without all the n—ers.”
He actually said that. He actually THINKS that. Never mind that there are Asian, Black and Hispanic owners and rental houses occupied by white tenants. Never mind that there are white owners who don’t mow their lawns and leave their trash receptacles out front. I don’t think that particular guy lives here any more, because I believe his white ass lost his house in a divorce. But it seems his attitude does still live here.
It’s an attitude that feels perfectly justified in telling other people what to do with property they own. It’s an attitude that hides racism, that glorifies classism, that is genteel in its barbarism. It’s a greedy and disgusting attitude that is not satisfied with a seven percent per year increase in property values.
It’s petty and small. And it has to be stopped.
The house TheBoyfriend & I rent looks BETTER for our being there. We replaced the mud hole off the back porch with a lush flowerbed and small vegetable garden. The birdfeeder out front attracts bright yellow finches and house finches and before much longer we’ll have some patio furniture on the front porch (the only reason we don’t yet is because we don’t want to buy cheap ugly crap to put out there, we want nicer looking stuff). Meanwhile up the road a little ways there are a number of owned homes that look like they are liable to fall down at any moment and have trashed piled up on the porches and in the yards. As you note, Owning a house doesn’t guarantee that one takes care of it.
I can’t stand HOAs. It’s a nice idea insofar as it can keep a neighbor looking presentable, but everybody has a different view of what presentable is. Growing up, I lived in a neighborhood that had an HOA. My senior year we had to work for a political campaign in my government class. I put a sign out front for the councilman candidate I was working for and the HOA came out and made us remove it because there was a rule against political yard signs. Meanwhile, driving down the street it seemed every third yard or so had an identical yard sign in it with the 10 commandments printed on it (some local semi-mega-church had given them out to the congregation). So my Kearny for City Council sign had to go (becuase it was political) but half the rest of the neighbor could leave up their 10 Commandment signs that were exactly the same size and shape (though of much poorer quality in material).
Good luck. The problem with tenancy is usually not the tenants, but the owner who doesn’t want to cut into slim profits by doing routine upkeep on the property. Why would any HOA think that it would be a good idea to collectively decide what pre-existing property-owners can do with their individually owned property? (Seems like this would be in the nature of a retrospective change in the terms and conditions of one’s occupancy that would infringe on an owner’s use and enjoyment of the property.) Or would this only be binding (in theory) on buyers in the future?
Wow. What a terrible and lazy way to address properties not being maintained. If the HOA had any teeth, they’d make renting the poorly maintained property a financial burden by fining the owner out of the rental market for every code and covenant broken by the tenants or the owner’s lack of attention. You don’t punish a whole class of people that way, just the trashy ones.
But as with any other form of government, it seems the HOA is easily corrupted from Gentlemen’s Agreement to Despotic Tyranny.
More easily than other forms of gov’t, I should think. You surely know, since you chose to use the phrase, the classic exclusionary uses (in this country, in the past century) for which a “gentlemen’s agreement” is a euphemism.
dolphin, you’ll be pleased to know that such HOA regulations (re. political yard signs) have been declared unconstitutional and those signs can now be displayed regardless of HOA restrictions. We dealt with that personally here during the 2000 elections.
If the HOA had any teeth, they’d make renting the poorly maintained property a financial burden by fining the owner out of the rental market for every code and covenant broken by the tenants or the owner’s lack of attention.
Yeah. That’s what steams me. We’ve ALREADY got a gihugonormous binder with all of the Covenants, Codes and Restrictions. We ALREADY fine people for not mowing their lawns, letting trash accumulate, parking junker cars, putting up outbuildings, hanging sheets for curtains, owning more than 3 pets, operating a business out of the home which infringes on the right-of-way of neighbours, etc. I thought that was the point of the HOA. Why make another law?
The core issue as I see it stems from a house at the entrance to the subdivision. This home was one of the Model units when the neighbourhood was being built and it has subsequently been rented to several different families. Most of the families who rent the home have been Hispanic or Chinese immigrants. The house is rumoured to be owned by a local person or organisation who deals with immigration. (Note: This is just a rumour….I can’t confirm it right now.) The house is always trashy looking because the owners never take care of it. It has received several citations from Metro for various code violations, which makes our silly HOA look like small potatoes. At various points in the last 8 years there have been several large families in residence with very few English speakers. At several points the various tenants have either been evicted or moved out in the dead of night owing a lot of back rent. It’s created a vicious cycle with the house being in foreclosure at least twice. That means the owners can’t afford to maintain it, let alone pay fines for not maintaining it.
My only problem with that house has been the times the lawn has gotten two feet high and the time that there were actual appliance boxes filled with trash on the front porch for two weeks. Other people I’ve talked with, though, have been very upset about having non-English speakers living there. I strongly suspect that this house is the impetus for the new rule.
Why would any HOA think that it would be a good idea to collectively decide what pre-existing property-owners can do with their individually owned property?
The fellow I talked with on Saturday was quite effusively gleeful about the potential for massive property value increases. He seems to be convinced that this is the ticket to some crazy windfall. Of course the fact that we do not have underground power lines or the fact that most of the houses have vinyl siding or the fact that we’re not in the most popular part of town has NOTHING to do with our property values. It’s all those blasted renters. All eight or nine of them.
It strikes me as incredibly short-sighted, too. When I was a kid and the economy was rough–late 70s and early 80s–there were alot of folks who got transferred. Renting out their homes in one city while getting settled in another kept many folks from losing homes to banks. And then there are the older folks who rent out their larger family homes after they downsize to retirement homes or assisted living facilities. I’d hate not being able to take advantage of my largest asset in my elder years.
You surely know, since you chose to use the phrase, the classic exclusionary uses (in this country, in the past century) for which a “gentlemen’s agreement” is a euphemism.
I don’t think I do–but I bet I can hazard a guess or three.
We recently found an old deed of my father in law’s that expressedly prohibited people of color from occupying the property. We gasped as if we were looking at Nazi orders to turn on the gas chambers. It was an archeological relic of a less enlightened time.
Based on this post…So much for progress, I guess.
Ironically, West Meade has a more loosely structured neighborhood association. It has no enforcement powers and is more of a lobbying entity. Nevertheless, people often complain at the meetings about others not keeping their yards landscaped to “neighborhood standards”.
I’d imagine that would be us (amonsgt a few others). By no means is our yard unkept, but most of my neighbors have their yards professionally maintained, so ours doesn’t quite measure up to those incredibly high standards.
They can kiss my butt.
I would never, EVER live in a neighborhood with an HOA. If I want to erect a flagpole and put a velvet Elvis on it, that’s my business.
Freedom!
Kat, you’re not familiar with Laura Z. Hobson’s novel, Gentleman’s Agreement, or the movie made from it starring Gregory Peck and John Garfield? I don’t recommend the novel as a good read, you understand — it’s totally 1940s middlebrow. But I thought everyone was sort of aware of the story.
Slarti, the neighborhood where I grew up had (before my family lived there) restrictive covenants like that. Sadly, it once was common; it’s not a bad thing that we can feel shocked by it now.
Sorry, not familiar with anything other than the bland dictionary definition of a Gentleman’s agreement.
When I bought my townhome, I balked at later finding out there was an HOA. They can be tyrannical groups of people with nothing better to do and I wanted nothing to do with them. That’s clear by the mat on my back deck – “Come back with a warrant.”
So, when we had a meeting to elect an advisory board, who’s hand went up to volunteer?
Mine.
Why?
Because I am the voice of reason. I have a pretty deep “live, let live, leave me alone” streak. I waffle on flower choices “oh whatever looks nice and is cheap.”
I don’t jump to conclusions about why someone’s motorcycle is parked in our parking lot. If I cared, I would ask around the adjacent building to find out who it belonged to. It belonged to my next door neighbor’s husband who was out of the country on a mission trip.
I also don’t threaten to have it towed because it hasn’t been moved in 4 weeks and suggest it be moved to the ratty-ass storage facility down the street.
Because I don’t do that, I don’t have to eat crow when the property manger say “You can’t make a homeowner move their vehicle.”
Out of our 36 units, I would say… maybe 8 of them are not rental properties. We’ve only had one that’s been any problem. Letters went to the property’s owner and the music after midnight stopped. The owners have shown up at the HOA meetings, given those of us on the board cards and said “call us immediately if you have problems with my tenants.”
And because I sit on the board, I slow the rapid decent into tyrrany. One “no” note at a time.
Another wonderful example of the ass-backwardness of HOA’s:
Last year, my neighbor had one of those “vote no” signs out for several months about the gay/lesbian amendment or whatever it was.
At the next association, we were forced to clarify the “sign” policy…
You may place a sign in your window for however long you’d like. It may only be in the yard in front of your unit for 3 days prior to the election and must be removed the next day.
I need to find something completely stupid to put in my window.
The HOA for the neighborhood I’m moving into says you have to close your garage door if you aren’t working in their. And you can’t leave your hose or kid’s bikes in the yard when you aren’t actively using them. Wish I’d read that a little more carefully before I signed on to move in there.
A restrictive HOA can be very bad for property values too.
I read an article about deed restrictions like Slarti’s awhile back. As I recall, the mayor has one on his property. The article was about the state finally explicitly making those sort of restrictions illegal and voiding the pre-existing ones.
As a fellow denizen of the Hampton Hall neighborhood, I too detest the existence of the Neighborhood Nazi Association and the Morris Properties Gestapo. I, too thought it would mean that lawns would be mowed on a reasonable basis and there would be no cars on blocks sitting around. I bristle at the thought of needing permission from people who don’t pay my mortgage to build a deck or put up a fence or do anything on my own personal property. I hate those snarky letters that get sent out when your home is not up to some Kommisar’s liking.
However,I can tell you that there is a reason behind the rental exclusion. While one person on the board is apparently a racist, that’s not the problem. There are renters with the kind of criminal records that nobody wants in their neighborhood here right now. This is not a case of racism, but of character content and the safety of our families.
I can tell you that there is a reason behind the rental exclusion. While one person on the board is apparently a racist, that’s not the problem. There are renters with the kind of criminal records that nobody wants in their neighborhood here right now.
They’ve apparently served their time. We know who they are and where they live. That’s actually a leg up from most people’s dealings with criminals.
[…] August 12, 2008 by Katherine Coble Someone just left a comment here about the Homeowners Association. It appears I was mistaken. The push to tell you what to do with the property you own kick renters out of the neighbourhood is being made not because of the Bothersome Immigrants but because there is a pool table in the community. Er, make that dangerous criminals. […]
Is there reason to believe that these criminals are persisting in/returning to criminal behavior? If so, the past isn’t relevant–pay attention, tell the cops, get them arrested and they won’t sully the neighborhood any more. Otherwise, (1) it’s nobody’s business and (2) oh, please, does the association run criminal background checks on buyers? This sounds like bigotry, pure and simple.
does the association run criminal background checks on buyers?
I’m guessing that the criminals are sex offenders, so all they have to do is check the registry.
They aren’t RSOs. At least not according to my search on the TBI. I went into detail about it on the other post though.
I think we have some homeowners with special knowledge about criminal records (non sexual) feeding info to the board.
I also wonder why this came up today.
HOA as a whole need to be stopped or restructured. It is incorrect that they are don’t have to be held to any standards since they make up their own rules. Majority of the homeowners never get a chance to understand those rules, they just know that the HOA passed them.
HOA also cannot abuse the power and money the have in possession since they collect those money FROM homeowners. I believe it makes sense for HOA to have the power to maintain the property using homeowners funds, but they should not be able to pass rules or sue a paying homewoner.
This mafia style of governing is crazy and I for one would like to end it today.