Escaping an HOA in Texas isn't easy | Latest News | WFAA.com: "What if you don't want the rules that come with a homeowners' association? Where can you go? As it turns out, your options are getting more limited every year."
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From Fred Pilot. The evidence piles up that people are having their choices made for them by cities and developers, and yet we keep hearing about how people "chose" to live in an HOA. We are reaching the point where you won't be able NOT to.
5 comments:
This represents the fulfillment of your 1994 book Privatopia's thesis that the rapid growth of HOAs represents the privatization of local government. Back when your book came out, critics dismissed this conclusion as overly broad and sweeping, insisting for years that the growth of HOAs didn't represent a public policy choice to privatize local government but rather individuals opting for an increasingly popular form of "housing" and "lifestyle."
Now we know better because as this article llustrates, in some parts of the nation, HOAs are as ubiquitous as county and municipal governments and like these traditional forms of local government, a property purchaser is going to be under their jurisdiction no matter where he or she opts to buy a home.
Even if you are fortunate to find property that is not in an HOA, you may wake up one day to find yourself involuntarily conscripted into a mandatory HOA.
The industry folks have been promulgating legislation for years (UCIOA, UPCA) that retroactively imposes an involuntary HOA on homeowners who purchased property that was not in HOAs. The legislation also extends the term of existence of the HOAs into perpetuity regardless of what the original restrictive covenants called for.
Look at Armstrong, et al. vs. Ledges Homeowners Association, et al. (N.C. 2006) as but one of many, many examples of exactly how the legislation and the proponents operate. (see, http://www.ledgesofhiddenhills.com/). The very act of forcing such a thing is corrupt and the result is no better. What's scary is that the trial and appellate courts found for the "association". These folks are very fortunate that the Supreme Court of North Carolina exercised discretionary authority to even hear the case. The same story repeats itself over and over across the nation.
Anonymous:
Your observation draws another parallel between state-chartered local government and private HOA government: The exercise of annexation powers.
Unfortunately, the most ominous parallel is between HOA government and fascist government. In a fascist regime, the owners "own" their property, but the state tells them in detail what can and cannot be done with the property. The same is true under an HOA, accompanied by the clever lawyerly obfuscation that an HOA is a private corporation and not a government. The notion of an HOA with annexation powers is more like a Mafia gang extending the area of control of a protection racket.
The Texas situation is made worse by the fact that you have a powerful state senator who owns an HOA property management company and who conveniently arranges the laws to allow this type of HOA invasion of non-HOA areas.
As more and more people realize that they will be subject to a fascist HOA regime, they will either rent or look for areas not under the dictatorship of an HOA. If this option becomes unavailable, it may become a matter of homeowners taking up arms. HOAs and CIDs are gutting the traditional privileges and prerogatives of homeownership and turning it to little more than tenancy. In fact, tenancy in an apartment complex is far preferable to living with an HOA. If all that is available is HOA housing, I might as well go rent an apartment, and not have to put up with a fascist regime.
We hear the argument that buyers want all the trappings of a CID/HOA. Wouldn't it be interesting to see a law that requires a developer to set aside equivalent non-CID properties for every CID property they develop.
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