Barkin' Up the Wrong Tree: HOA Fires Back at Fla. Man Fined $5K Short Trees

[babablackgoat]

Now let’s review the logic of an HOA:

You buy your house. You own your house. You pay someone else to tell you what color you can paint your house, if you can have a B-ball goal or not, and how tall your trees have to be. All in the name of “property value”.

That is outside. Next step:

What paintings you have inside your house. The words you speak inside your own home. Your beliefs and thought processes inside your mind.

But it is OK…by HOAs defining your art for you, what you are allowed to say, and thoughts in your head, you can keep your property value high!

Too bad it does not work. Neighbour hoods with HOAs do not have any higher property values than those that don’t.

[Will]

Originally Posted by lspencer534

My neighborhood only recently got a HOA, and only because it was required by the City when we were annexed. The HOA is the silliest thing I have ever seen. One resident wanted to build a 75' x 150' arena for her horses. It was nothing more than a 3-rail fence, but the HOA debated whether to require shrubbery around it.

Another homeowner wanted to install an in-ground pool, but the HOA had to debate it first. Folks, minimum lot size in the neighborhood is 3 acres, and these homeowners had much more than that. WGARA if somebody wants a pool (that you can't even see from the road) or a place to exercise their horses that is nothing more than a fence inside an existing fence?

Wow. I know you're a lawyer, IIRC you're in North Carolina??? I though it was a universal 50 state thing that if you bought a home where there was no HOA, one could not be forced on you later since there wasn't one in your deed.

[lspencer534]

Originally Posted by Will

Wow. I know you're a lawyer, IIRC you're in North Carolina??? I though it was a universal 50 state thing that if you bought a home where there was no HOA, one could not be forced on you later since there wasn't one in your deed.

Once the City takes you in, it's ordinances trump your deed, at least in things unrelated to your actual ownership of the property. That includes building codes and other City restrictions. My City requires that every subdivision have a HOA, even though my neighborhood was never a platted subdivision.

To provide full disclosure that was the agreement most of my neighborhood made to allow us to be annexed, and the Court decree made us a "subdivision" de facto.

[Stangkiller]

Originally Posted by babablackgoat

Don't you have an HOA in MC?

Yup! It's already a train wreck. I tried finding a house without one in the Houston area, it proved damn near impossible.

[Bill]

Originally Posted by lspencer534

Once the City takes you in, it's ordinances trump your deed, at least in things unrelated to your actual ownership of the property. That includes building codes and other City restrictions. My City requires that every subdivision have a HOA, even though my neighborhood was never a platted subdivision.

To provide full disclosure that was the agreement most of my neighborhood made to allow us to be annexed, and the Court decree made us a "subdivision" de facto.

Why would you WANT to be annexed?

Around these parts, the city of Houston annexed Clear Lake (home of NASA mission control) and ****ed things up. They then annexed Kingwood (the Liveable Forest), a master planned community and ****ed their shit up, too. Then they came for the Woodlands. The Woodlands, having witnessed the disasters that were the forced annexation of the 2 aformentioned areas, fought long and hard, and in the end, agreed to pay (I think) a couple million dollars a year to the city of Houston, as blood money NOT to annex them. IOW, they pay the CoH each year NOT to be a part of the city. They receive nothing in exchange, other than an agreement to no longer litigate.