Let's Handcuff the Property Cops ..Homeowners' Associations, the New Fascism

[Joanne98]

Homeowners' Associations, the New Fascism

Let's Handcuff the Property Cops

By STAN COX

Susana Tregobov dries clothes on a line behind her Maryland townhouse, saving energy and money. But now her homeowners association has ordered her to bring in the laundry. The crackdown came after a neighbor complained that the clothesline "makes our community look like Dundalk," a low-income part of Baltimore.

Tregobov and her husband plan to fight for their right to a clothesline, but the odds are against them. Although their state recently passed a law protecting homeowners' rights to erect solar panels for generating electricity, it is still legal in Maryland for communities to ban solar clothes-drying.

Twenty percent of Americans now live in homes subject to rules set by homeowner associations, or HOAs. These private imitation governments have sweeping powers to dictate almost any aspect of a member's property, from the size of the residence down to changes in trim color and the placement of a basketball hoop.

In the view of HOAs, people hand over control of such things when they buy their home, so they have no legitimate gripe. But a growing number of state and local governments are deciding that when HOAs ban eco-friendly practices, they violate the property rights of their members and damage everyone's right to a habitable planet.

In recent years, a dozen state legislatures have passed laws that restrict the ability of HOAs to ban solar panels and solar water heaters. Florida and Colorado now protect the rights of homeowners to replace irrigated, chemically dependent lawns with more natural landscaping that requires little or no extra water or other artificial life support. And Colorado has become the third state to give legal protection to people who dare to defy their HOAs by putting up that most economical of all energy-saving devices, the clothesline.

The more restrictive HOAs cling to outdated standards that treat necessary features of an ecologically resilient future — renewable energy devices, clotheslines, fans in windows, awnings, vegetable gardens, fruit trees, compost bins, natural landscaping — as eyesores to be buried under restrictions or banned outright.

Meanwhile, HOAs commonly mandate large, centrally air-conditioned square footages, two-car garages, lawn sprinkler systems or synthetic lawn fertilizers and weed-killers. You'd think that in 2008, community leaders would be embarrassed to enforce overconsumption and pollution, but these property cops seem determined to impose their narrow aesthetic preferences on everyone else.

Critics say that only a strong federal law can effectively protect America's 60 million HOA residents from antigreen rules. One bill, the Solar Opportunity and Local Access Rights (SOLAR) Act, is designed to do just that, but it languishes in Congress with only one co-sponsor.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cox08132008.html

[barbtries]

1. i don't know if i'll ever be able to buy a home

but i do know that when i do, it won't be an association home. if i want to paint it in polka dots, if it's my home that's what i'll do.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Same here. I would never live under the thumb of an HOA

[liberalhistorian]

3. Whatever you do, do not

ever come under the control of a HOA. I was a real estate paralegal for several years and I saw some really controlling, authoritarian shit from many of these "organizations." They claimed that people voluntarily chose to purchase homes or condos under the control of the HOA, so they're doing nothing wrong. WRONG. Often, they'd try to enforce something that was nowhere within the bylaws, it was just a personal preference of one or more members of the board; however, they dug in like pit bulls. They'd also try to foreclose for unpaid HOA dues, even if they never complied with requirements to keep detailed accounting records and send statements, and even if people had valid, legitimate reasons for not paying. They also would raise dues and fees with no notice and then try to foreclose if people legitimately protested against it. I could go on and on, but you get the picture.

[tridim]

6. I got sued because I was underpaying my HOA dues for 6 months.

Because they neglected to inform me that my dues went up $20.00/month.

It ended up costing me $400 in late fees. I had to pay because I couldn't afford a lawyer.

[bemildred]

4. Yeah. Absolutely.

At the least these weasels ought to need a vote of ALL the relevant parties to order people around about their own homes.

[tridim]

5. I had no idea how bad HOA's would be when I moved into my townhome

Everyone HATES them because basically all they do is tow our cars to make more profit. If your license is expired, you have 24 hours to re-license or you get towed. Park in an open space for 24.1 hours, you get towed.

Every week the lawn crew rips big chunks out of my lawn because it's soaking wet due to the sprinklers malfunctioning. Complaining accomplishes exactly nothing.

Last year I was fined $30 because I had a small terra-cotta flower pot on my porch with hand sized gardening tools in it. Horrors!

Yea, HOA's suck.

[flamingdem]

7. If you think condos are bad, the worst facists are the coop boards in NYC n/t

[pennylane100]

8. I live in a retirement community with a whole bunch of laws

dictating what we can or cannot do. Most of them are reasonable and do not affect the way we live. However, the board tried to fine people who broke the rules, without any warning or communication whatsoever, they would get a fine notice in the mail.

This was against all the HOA rules and people were literally showing up to the board meetings with their own lawyers to challenge them. Thankfully we voted in a new board, all the fines were rescinded and open communication seems to be the new theme.

[Demeter]

9. I Live in a Co-op Trying to Go Condo, Dominated By Women of a Certain Age

Let's just say that I will never be that old, regardless.

They think the House Rules exist to push people around, and that our plain, low profile housing stock "could go really upscale".

Short of ripping it all down and rebuilding, it ain't gonna happen, but greed dominates. And abuse of the Rules. Which is why I run the House Rules Committee. And I'm not going to be gentle about stopping it.