What is their purpose? What authority do they have? I’m young (not a minor) and don’t have anyone I could ask, so I figured I’d ask here.
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It’s a group made up of people who own homes in the same neighbourhood.
They make rules to keep their neighborhood nice and peaceful. The HOA is like a referee in a game. They have a lot of power. It makes and enforces rules for the neighborhood. For example, they might decide what color houses can be painted, or how high the grass can grow before it needs to be cut. They do this to make sure the neighborhood stays looking nice, which can help the homes keep their value.
The HOA also provides services for the neighborhood. Think of it like a team captain who makes sure everyone has what they need to play the game. They might take care of things like mowing the grass in common areas, maintaining a shared swimming pool, or fixing the roof of a shared clubhouse if it gets damaged.
Their purpose is to maintain property values (via ensuring everything is kept tidy and in good shape), to maintain safety (such as ensuring potentially dangerous trash is cleaned up, plowing and salting sidewalks, etc), and to maintain public-use stuff in their jurisdiction, like parks for example. A construction company that builds a subdivision will often set up an HOA to manage it for them after they finish and pack out.
The problem for HOAs is that they have a surprisingly large amount of legal power, more than you might expect. There are stories I’ve hear of HOAs placing liens on houses owned by people who owe like 1 or 2 thousand dollars in HOA dues (one such story was about a woman who was never told the house she bought was in an HOA), and selling the house to cover those measly couple thousand bucks. And it was legal.
I live in a house that is part of a HOA, and yes, they’re normally a giant pain in the butt. I have to say mine is pretty lenient compared to what I’ve read.
That said, a HOA is a board of people who have imposed rules (usually called CC&R’s, Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions) that you must sign, or you cannot buy the house that is covered by this Homeowners Association.
In this way, it’s a lot like being in an apartment or a condo. You have to agree to do (or not do) things that the board decides is in the best interests of the homeowners. This is usually to keep people from lowering home values (the value of your house depends on your neighborhood just as much as it does the condition of your house).
They can be a giant pain, but I’ll give you specifics from my own HOA.
Just yesterday, they sent me a message showing that the tree in my backyard has grown over the border wall (I’m in a walled/gated community) out to the main street and I need to cut some of it back so it’s just in my back yard. I have 10 days to do this or they will fine me $100.
While this is annoying, something like this is not unreasonable to me. I should be maintaining my house and yard, and as long as I do it, it’s not going to become a problem with them.
The gated community shares water service, so I don’t have a water bill. Even though I pay the HOA $140 per month in dues, it pays for the gate, it pays for the landscaping (except in my own back yard, but it pays for the front yard and common areas), and it pays for my water bill.
tl;dr – they mostly suck, and I would say if you’re going to buy or rent a house that is part of a HOA, maybe look for a house that isn’t in a HOA first because even if the HOA isn’t bad, the rules are always changing, and it could be bad.
Let’s say you have a neighborhood of homes in the suburbs, all built the same developer, and all generally speaking looking pretty similar. All the houses are painted pretty bland and similar to each other, and no one has anything outrageous in their yards. Then one day, someone sells their home, and a new family moves in. They immediately paint their house completely black, and put signs everywhere in their yard that say “HAIL SATAN!” All of the sudden, other people in that neighborhood might have a little trouble selling their houses. Who wants to move next door to a home that has Satan worshippers? So now the value of the homes in a neighborhood has decreased, perhaps drastically, because one house in a neighborhood went against the grain.
HOAs are designed, in theory, to protect against something like that. There might be limits on what colors you can paint your house, what type of lawn decorations you can have, what flags you can fly, etc. HOAs will also monitor and manage certain amenities in the neighborhood or complex (like a neighborhood pool or park).
As for authority, it’s usually stipulated that if you buy a house in that neighborhood, you have to also become a member of the HOA, and are legally required to follow what the HOA decides. This can become incredibly petty if the HOA leader is a stickler.
it’s like a government for a neighborhood, or a house with multiple apartments. They are elected by the people living there and the rules are voted on by people living there, their purpose it handling maintenance of shared areas and making people stick to the rules everyone agreed to
In addition to what other people have described, in most cases, where you have an HOA you have some commonly held areas. The HOA is necessary to maintain these areas, collect money for that maintenance and enforce rules concerning their use. Common areas might be roads, landscaping, parks, pools, rec centers and sometimes fences.
People do an inordinate amount of bitching about HOAs when you consider that they voluntarily bought into them and knew what the rules were when they did so. Nobody ever had a gun to his head when he bought a house with an HOA.
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