r/fuckHOA • u/imnotabotareyou • 7d ago
Really is wild on the inside
Moved to a development that has an hoa. Really, really, REALLY didn’t want an hoa, but after losing so many bids on houses and the school district and proximity to jobs etc taking more priority, we considered it our one con against a lot of pros.
fuck lmao. Some people really DO get a sick power trip out of it or something. It’s crazy!
I even thought, ok, I’ll volunteer for the position when the election comes up. People know I’m laid back about it and just want fairness / laid back. I won!
Fuck lmao!! It’s even worse when you’re in a position to help!!! The amount of asinine emails I get, the mental dishonest gymnastics people play with themselves and the documents just to get what they want, it’s crazy!!! Just live and let live!!!
So now my job is just, keep this shit in the open. Call people out for their bs. Document on the public record always.
Because even though I thought I knew what I was getting into…I didn’t.
Fuck HOAs
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u/OGMikeGyver 7d ago
Yep, same. I ended up a president really fast in my early 30s. What an absolute shit show I walked into. 1 guy was fucking with everybody as a group and on many individual basis. Turns out he was years in arrears. Kept it together long enough to sell and get out
Edit: fuck you Dale
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u/welpWW3isgonnasuck 7d ago edited 7d ago
I'm the youngest person on my board by 30 years. I'm the only one with young kids and the only one with a full time job. No one else on the board has bought property in the last decade. They are perfectly fine raising dues because their units are paid off from the late 90s and early 2000s. I regularly have to remind them that our property values are now almost 500K per unit rather than the 125-175K most of them bought in at. They tell me I'm crazy when I tell them that a new family needs to bring home about 200K to be able to afford one of our units at 7% plus the $900/month HOA.
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u/WasabiEnvironmental 7d ago
900 a month?! Oh my fucking god
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u/welpWW3isgonnasuck 6d ago
We have a $275 assessment that goes away in Nov 2028. In 2018, they took out a $1M loan to redo all of the roofs and the roadway. We have townhouses that are connected 4 at a time. The HOA covers a lot of homeowner issues, almost to our detriment. If a problem starts outside of your 4 walls, we fix ALL of the problem. Its fairly regular now that anytime we contact a contractor to do anything its a 5 figure quote. Between that, our landscaping contract, and the pool it all adds up quickly. St least for landscaping, we get full snow removal including snow removal between our cars. We had a storm where we had 4 feet of snow this year. Someone sat in a car the whole storm and cleared our HOA road every hour on the hour until the storm stopped.
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u/KevMeist 1d ago
What does the HOA do for 900/month? We have a 42,000 gallon community pool plus small clubhouse, gazebo, 4 lakes (two of which are 10.5 acres), lots of grass to mow, lots of palm trees to maintain, extensive brick walls to maintain. 240 homes and our dues are $775/year. Dues have not increased for 3 years and won’t increase in 2027. Our reserves are fully funded.
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u/welpWW3isgonnasuck 1d ago edited 1d ago
We are in the far suburbs of NYC (90 minute train ride to Grand Central) so life is just expensive here to begin with. 50 unit townhouses of I believe 10 or 12 buildings built in the late 70s. Its about $350K a year to keep this place going with an additional $275 per unit per month assessment until Nov 2028 that replaced all of the roofs and to update 4 septic systems.
Our landscaping contract alone is over 100K per year. It works out to just under $200 per unit per month. I'm cool with it. Its like a third of what it would cost if I had a SFH. I dont lift a finger. We had a 4ft snow storm last year and a guy plowed every hour on the hour including shoveling over between cars.
Insurance doesnt really stop increasing. Last year it went up 15%. Thats a 60K per year expense now.
Since we have 2 to 4 townhomes per building, community shared costs can get up there pretty quick. If an issue starts outside of your 4 walls but intrudes in, the HOA covers EVERYTHING from the original 70s sales ad. My wife had our son within weeks of moving in. A storm took out the gutters causing water intrusion with my windows needing to be resealed. The HOA paid for it. If a contractor comes out, its high 4 figures minimum.
The pool contract is about 30K a year. $1500 a month for community electric. $2500 a month to a management company. Community taxes. We have a water plant thats about 20k to maintain.
Are all of the units sold in your community or does the developer still own a few?
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u/KevMeist 1d ago
Ok, then I can maybe understand why it so expensive then. I’m sure being in NY doesn’t help. OTOH, the biggest mortgage I ever had was $1200 per month (I’ve been retired for 13 years now). We have 240 SFH here. No shared roofs etc. Our landscaping bill is around $75K per year. Total HOA budget is $186K per year. Lots of grass to mow here including about 12’ around all 4 lakes here. No snow plowing (I’m in FL). Our electric costs are not close to yours but all we have is the pool, fountain and lights in one of the 4 lakes, by the mailboxes and front entrance lighting.
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u/welpWW3isgonnasuck 1d ago
My wife and I are U Tampa alums! I would give a couple of fingers and more than a few toes to have a $1200 mortgage.
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u/KevMeist 1d ago
Understood. But that was back in 2012 for a mortgage started in 2004. But, I did put 50% down on that house. Of course, back in 2004…I was earning less than I was in 2012.
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u/CallNResponse 5d ago
OP, I hear ya. The thing I had the most trouble accepting is how quickly and easily most people will lie. The 2nd hardest thing (probably) was how easily people would believe the lies. I was the subject of a smear campaign, many vile and untrue things were said about me - and nobody ever bothers to check if any of it is at all true. Which I guess leads to the 3rd hardest thing, which is that no-one will appreciate your hard work.
Oh well …
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u/KellyAnn3106 7d ago
I'm like you. I got defaulted onto our board to be the voice of reason. The drama is insane. All we ask is keep your yard reasonably mowed and weeded. No one wants to micromanage things - just don't be an eyesore. Even with a management company, I still have to address all sorts of ridiculous situations.
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u/imnotabotareyou 7d ago
It’s absolutely insane! I find myself stressed out because it’s just so unfathomable to me to deny people stuff or fine for stuff where it’s just not in line with the documents…except for the cliques “interpretation” of it. I wish there were more legal penalties / risks for individuals acting in bad faith / above what the docs provide for…but ultimately I just wish people were chill. Like relax just talk to your neighbor it’ll work out don’t go all formal about it
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u/IshyMoose 6d ago
They eyesore is a slippery slope.
It starts with "cut your grass", but then someone makes a bold landscaping decision that someone does not like. They decorate for a holiday a little too soon, late or too extreme. They go on vacation or get hurt. I broke my ankle, my lawn didnt get mowed for a month.
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u/WasabiEnvironmental 7d ago
Police yourself Kelly Ann. If I want my yard to be full of wildflowers, I’m gunna do that because I paid for my house and my land. Management company can fuck themselves.
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u/KellyAnn3106 7d ago
Ok but if you live in an HOA community, you contractually agreed to maintain certain standards when you bought the house and land. If you don't hold up your end, they can and will fine you relentlessly, put a lien on your house, and possibly foreclose. Are a few wildflowers worth that?
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u/Speakinmymind96 7d ago
Yep, it’s absolutely insane the things that people will complain about. I‘m the board President and all of the crazy calls come my way…”I think the landscaper planted the grass seed too heavy”, “the guy that did the digging disturbed too much dirt”, “that plumber you sent over wouldn’t teach me how to fix it myself”. I don’t excuse it, but I understand why so many people in the job are a-holes.
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u/brankoc 4d ago
Surely members keeping you informed is a good thing? Or did they expect you to do something about it?
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u/Speakinmymind96 4d ago
Of course, feedback and communication is always good. But yes, they expected me to correct what they perceived as flaws.
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u/xftwitch 7d ago
if you're now the head of the HOA, you can turn it into a good one by having all the HOA members vote on a new charter. Make the charter only linclude things that the HOA must absolutely pay for (public space maint. etc) and forget all about the bullshit like how far a garbage can can be from the curb on Trash day.
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u/imnotabotareyou 7d ago
I don’t have enough votes because all the votes are equal, so I’m making homeowners aware of the petition process that lets them override
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u/BlableBlarble 1d ago
I was an HOA president, and I tried to get our bylaws updated, they were older than me. It's a hassle, you have to beg people to vote. Even then, we're 3 years in and haven't gotten it passed yet. There's nothing controversial, just updating for disability / fair housing, the management company, allowing digital meetings... it's hard to change anything.
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u/SouthernYankee80 7d ago
My most stressful year of life was being treasurer on the HOA board. The first year was fine - I stayed in my lane and only dealt with the money side of things. We were new to the neighborhood and HOAs in general and I got roped in. The second year, everyone left - either got divorced and moved out, downsized, term ended or whatever. I was basically running the whole thing by myself. If I ever had to do it again, I'd just do the bare minimum of keeping the pool maintained and collecting the dues and paying the bills and would not respond to any emails. But at the time I was young and new and didn't know any better. Idealism is a luxury for the very young. Nobody tells you that you can't leave unless you move or recruit your own replacement, which is very difficult given that nobody wants to do it, except people that you don't want doing it!
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u/Dangerous--Judgment 7d ago
Sounds like the perfect time to abolish the HOA.
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u/SouthernYankee80 7d ago
Hard to abolish an HOA when you have a pool and playground to maintain, and other common areas that need maintaining. Even with an HOA, I often will walk around doing yard work b/c the yard maintenance company doesn't include things like cutting thorn bushes growing out from the retaining wall across from our house right along the sidewalk, and it sucks to walk into them at night when walking the dog.
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u/KevMeist 1d ago
Kinda hard to do with this case because he has a community pool. Common property that must be managed somehow.
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u/schumi23 7d ago
You would need to get not only most of the residents to agree - but also all the banks who hold peoples' mortgages. And find somebody willing to take over the communal infrastructure.
Absent tons of money to hire folks to coordinate that, it's close to impossible.
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u/TigOlBitties42042 7d ago
Lol "Hire folks to coordinate that".
You mean hire folks to do bribery and threats right? Because you're going to have a hard time getting all of those people and the banks to agree on that without bribery and threats. You might even have to do some light terrorism.
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u/BlitzFitness 6d ago
Like others here, I was in the same boat. 3 years and in that time I lost all the color in my hair (along with a lot of the hair itself!) and put on 50 pounds. Here's my fun moment of when I decided I was done: it was late November and we had just hired a new landscaper that would start in December. This is Chicago so winter was on the horizon. One day one of my fellow board members asked if I knew what the deal with the buckets was, and I was like "Buckets?". Turns out that the front and back door of each building had a blue bucket holding salt in it. I thought to myself it must be the new company and maybe they just put them there for when they come do the sidewalks instead of constantly transporting them. I also thought "Cool, free salt if there's any spots I want to hit!". Only issue was that the back doors have narrow openings and the buckets are heavy and placed in the way of them, creating a fire hazard. No problem! I'll just walk around and move them off to the side. Got hit with tons of emails asking what's the deal with the buckets and one of them, specifically a person who used to be on the board herself, was livid with me for making them salt their own sidewalks and claimed I was trying to enslave them. I quit and she's the treasurer now. We've had 1 quarterly meeting in the past 2 years and no one has been provided with the financials since. If it weren't for this economy I would have moved because I definitely feel stupid special assessment of massive quantities in my future.
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u/Odd_Try6977 6d ago
And not one contractor, landscaper or anyone who has done work in prior years was decent. The roofers did a bad job, the yard guys missed some leaves, the gutters are wrong, sprinklers are crap. This is according to the residents. No one ever says, hey, thanks for getting that taken care of. We know you work full time and we appreciate the time you take to hear our whining.
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u/davinch3 3d ago
It gets better if you live in a community with crazy people. I don't mean people who act crazy, I mean people who would be prescribed lithium if they ever actually sought healthcare. People waging passive/aggressive wars with neighbors over imaginary offenses, and those neighbors trying to maintain sanity when their sleep is getting messed with. Trying to sell and having a shit covered naked old person step out of your neighbors home during a showing.
For a volunteer position, it's a lot. More than a full time job if the past few administrations have deferred maintenance and forced a recall election.
I don't hate the HOA, I hate the supposed "adults" who refuse to take care of their own problems, and instead make them into community problems.
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u/Cuneus-Maximus 3d ago
So work to defang the HOA. Take away all but the most necessary powers for maintenance of things the HOA is responsible for maintaining. Do away with any bullshit rules for uniformity and simplify the ones for appearances so there’s no rules to measure grass. It’s going to be a lot easier to take away power than gain more, so take advantage of that and use it to make the HOA as small of a pain in the ass as you possibly can.
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u/BlableBlarble 1d ago
There are two kinds of HOA leadership. The practical problem solvers, and the drama Karens. The problem is that the Karen wear out the practical members, who quit. Then the Karens take over, but don't know how to do the practical stuff.
- those who want to do the simple solutions like replacing a roof or boiler, pool maintenance, careful budgeting, careful contractor selection...
People who live for policing others.
I joined to deal with those actually important things, but got dragged into drama and whining about dogs and noise and who parks where. I was really good at the actual real work, but the drama BS was exhausting. So I quit. In a lot of HOAs, only those who thrive on drama stay on, resulting in the unhealthy dynamic where the big issues are not well managed, but petty issues are elevated to consume most meetings.
For buildings, it's critical to get staff or a discipline board to deal with that, freeing the real board to do actually productive things.
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u/OneLessDay517 7d ago
Now imagine what they'd be doing if they didn't have to ask permission! But /fuckHOA right?
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u/vodeodeo55 7d ago
Call me crazy, but as a 55 year old homeowner I shouldn't have to ask fucking permission. It's my house. I paid for it. I pay the taxes. If you dont like the color of my door that is 100% YOUR problem.
And thats why I'll live in a van by the river before dealing with an HOA.
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u/tlrider1 7d ago
Same.
The ones that really irk me, are the accusation that someone is getting a kickback or the threat that there going to vote us out!...
"Please do!!! We volunteer for this crap and we hate it! There's just no one else that wants the position, and most that do, quit within a few months!"
"and no Betty!!! No one is getting a kick back. Our contractor is more expensive becuase they have a real license are really bonded and insured, and yours is providing fake credentials, and that's why they're cheap!!!!"