Ever use your tractor for revenge?

[mjncad]

yes, a home owners association. They exist to force the alleged opinions of the "majority" on the few independent livers left.
larry

Spyder says it quite well here. I'm on the HOASS' S#@* list because I'm a vocal critic of their BS. Our neighborhood has gotten so bad, that it's like a daytime soap opera here. If only the housing and stock markets would recover enough for us to get out of here.

The big problem is that in Colorado if you want a newer home (e.g. 1970's onward), you are pretty much SOL in finding a neighborhood devoid of a HOASS.

 

[BungeeII]

OK, you got the emotional response as to what an HOA is.

In simplest terms, it's another layer of government. As property is developed, the developer may determine it necessary or desirable to restrict building types, sizes and materials in an effort to maintain the value of each home. They create additional building codes where necessary and limit lot sizes. I think the primary reason HOA's are created (in my rural community anyway) has to do with the road maintenance. Builders are able to develop a chunk of land, putting the road in and maintaining it on their own... all without incurring any expense from the county road commission.

Two of the things that turn me away from a piece of property are "HOA" and "Lake ACCESS". FORGET IT!

 

[Lyrch75]

I have used mine for revenge, but the statute of limitations hasn't expired so that is all I will say of it.

 

[jnjpream]

Hey mjncad,

Where along the front range are you? I'm up in Berthoud.

I pretty sure it's the county that requires a declaration of convenances, or rather strongly encourages it (fat chance if you don't), when you throw a request to sub-divide for development on their desk.

 

[taborekle]

HOA's are getting slammed alot here, but there is a valid reason for -most- of them, and that's to document in a legal way how to deal with common property and common problems.

I use to live in a very tighly packed town home community in the Washington DC area. Their streets all were owned by the community, so I would imagine that once every 20 or 30 years the community would have had to pay to have them replaced. So some of the dues collected by the HOA went into the pot to pay for the future replacement of the streets. You wouldn't believe (when I sat on the HOA board) some of the guys that would come in and make demands of the HOA. I remember one that wanted to have the HOA fees reduced to NOT cover future road repairs. Let some future owner get stuck with that bill (future enormous) as he would have sold his house and moved on.

Another owner wanted the local Army airstrip to stop flying planes over his house (the airstrip was there for 60 years before the community was built), as it bothered him. Of course when he bought his house the airstrip was there and the planes were there, but now that he was past that stage he wanted the local army airstrip to change their flight patterns.

Snow removal was contracted by the HOA. Towing was contracted by the HOA.

Towing was a great service, especially in my culdesack. We had no guest parking and only 2 spaces per house, which were numbered and assigned. Sure enough, time after time, I'd come home to find that my parking space was occupied by some neighboors guest, and the neighboor really didn't care that I couldn't park in my assigned parking space. I'd park down below the culdesack where there was parking for guests and others, and trudge up the hill and start to knock on doors in our 24 hourse culdesack to get my space back. It was amazing to me peoples response.

Me "sorry to bother you, but I'm trying to find the owner of a blue honda civic that's parked in my space xxyy right over there (pointing)".
Owner "Oh, that's my guest."
Me "I've been knocking on doors for 30 minutes trying to find out who owns that car. Can you have them move it."
Owner "Phil, someone is here and they want you to move you're car"
Phil "Tell them I'm busy, I'll move it in 30 minutes when I'm ready to leave"
Me "Tell Phil that if he wants to wait to move his car, he can find it in the towing lot"
Phile comes to the door "You rotten SOB, making me move my car. Who do you think you are!"
Me "I'm the guy that's going to have you car towed as you're in my space."
Owner "you're a terrible person."
Phil (grabbing his keys) "Rotten SOB"
Me "I just want my space back."

About the 5th time that happened, I finally just gave up and would not knock on doors to find the person and get insulted. I'd just have the car towed. Then about 2 hours after I was settled in, there would be a knock on my door.

Owner "Do you know what happened to my guests car? He was parked in space xxyy right over there (pointing)."
Me "Yah, they were in my space, so I had them towed"
Owner "WHAT!"
Me "bye"

After a few months of that, I found that my space was no longer filled with other peoples guests.

And just to be clear about it, there were signs every 20 feet all through the neighboorhood saying "Assigned parking, Towing enforced".

I moved about 15 years ago.

We have no HOA on our private lane, and there's plenty of parking in our county setting. Since there are 5 property owners on a private lane, then the county puts a document into each mortgage that states that the owner is required to maintain the private road. 4 out of 5 of us property owners fee up every 2 years to buy milling, but for 1 HO they don't want to pay. I've badgered them in the past to get it (late). If they just decide not to pay this upcoming year, then I'll have to pay their part, and then sue them in small claims.

So my take on it is, HOA's are a necessary evil for densly packed neighboorhoods, and their rules and requirements should be less and less as the density of housing goes down. But as long as you have a shared resourced that everyone needs to maintain, you can't get away from them in one form or another.

God is great. Beer is good. And people really are (some of them) crazy.

Larry

 

[J_J]

Revenge is always sweet, and you all know it.

 

[bcp]

Our area has a road association only. About 1/4 of the owners have tractors, etc. to maintain the road. The association buys gravel every year or two. Now if we could just get the owners to trim the brush and trees crowding the road...and slow down!

Bruce

 

[etcallhome]

A family that lives across from the church parking lot I plow uses it instead of his driveway (because he doesn't shovel but church lot is .
I kept telling them not to park in the lot on Sat evening or Sun morning or evening during the week if we had gotten a lot of snow because of trying to plow the lotand not wanting to hit anyone car.. Of course they are not members or even attend church.
One evening I had just started plowing and there sister in law parked her car in the lot she also lives in same house. I stopped the tractor asked her to move her car . My answer from her was I'm I'm only going to be in the house a few minutes and I could just wait till she came out.
I told her I would wait till she walked back over to her car and parked it in there drive or when she came back she would need a shovel because I was going to plow every bit of snow as deep as I could get it against her car .We had about 10" of snow Well you sob and she started yelling and cussing. I said fine I just started the tractor plowed 2or3 tractor lengths upon the drivers door.
She came running ,got in on the passengers side and moved her car. Not sure if she was telling me her age with the hand jester but they. They still are parking in the lot at times, but if I come over to plow during the week and they are parked in lot , they come out and move the car or any of there friends. This happened about 4 yrs ago.

 

[mjncad]

Hey mjncad,

Where along the front range are you? I'm up in Berthoud.

I pretty sure it's the county that requires a declaration of convenances, or rather strongly encourages it (fat chance if you don't), when you throw a request to sub-divide for development on their desk.

I'm not terribly far from you as I live near Brighton.

I think you're right about the cities and counties palming off as much responsibility as they can on the HOASS'es, yet our property taxes remain high. Part of our dues covers trash collection to Waste Management. The HOASS ran off all the small fry competitors. I guess they felt it was bad to have trash collection happening on different days of the week instead of one. I write on my dues check "Trash Collection" in the memo field as that is the only useful thing our association provides.

I prefer to live in unincorporated areas to remove a layer of Gummint intrusion, and other than fire & police protection and road maintenance, I generally don't partake of numerous so called amenities offered by various municipalities. I was talking with one developer about some 5-acre parcels he was offering, and I asked if the land was in unincorporated county space and whether it had a HOASS or not. The developer told me the county forced him to annex the development in to the nearest city and create a HOASS to boot. I thanked him for his time and passed on the land.

Also don't forget there is another layer of Gummint called the 'Special District' that can be fire protection, water & sewer, libraries, you name it. This shows up on the property taxes too.

 

[mjncad]

Revenge is always sweet, and you all know it.

"Revenge is a dish best served cold."