My husband and I have been having an argument lately as to the usefulness of our home owner’s association {HOA}. He’s decided that they are an unnecessary pain in the gluteus maximus, mostly based on the back-and-forth we’ve had to go through to get the design for our new and improved backyard approved. I’ve had to remind him that even though they’re a pain to deal with sometime, if you know the procedures and get your stuff in on time, it usually gets approved. And they’re pretty good about dealing with unsightly unmaintained yards, tacky decorating, obnoxious dogs, and other things that generally bring our property values down. As a homeowner who’s hoping to sell in the next couple years, I don’t want to be showing my townhouse and have someone watering their lawn naked or displaying their plastic flamingo collection.
But what about when the HOA gets out of line? My parents’ HOA in their neighborhood has mandated that everyone in that neighborhood plant at least a dozen yellow daffodils in their yard. I’ve heard of other HOAs mandating the particular types of plants that are planted, a certain number of times per week that a yard should be mowed, the type of drapes that can be hung in the windows, and any manner of other intrusive things. And if you react through the time-honored technique of civil disobedience, you can be legally fined for not complying.
How is it possible for the HOA to have so much power?
Here’s the simple answer: we gave it to them. Here’s how we homeowners of America give our HOAs power to do stupid things:
Signing the HOA agreement. By signing the HOA agreement when we purchased our house and paying our association dues, we basically gave our HOA the power to vote in whatever requirements for us they could get approved, and then enforce them through fines and penalties. We allowed them to have that power when we first bought into our neighborhood.
Ignoring meeting notices. We continue to give them the power to pass regulations by not showing up or voting in our proxy at the monthly, semi-annual, or annual meetings. It might be a pain to send in that voting card or attend those meetings, but those meetings are where the attending body votes in the regulations that the HOA enforces. If we don’t show up or appoint a proxy, we might as well just hand them our vote. By attending meetings or voting in a proxy, we have a say in what things are passed so we don’t end up with stupid rules.
Ignoring the news. Sometimes we get blindsided when someone shows up from the HOA with an inspection form reporting a violation. We didn’t know it was a violation. It wasn’t a violation in the original documents. But when we say as much, we might find out that it was voted in at the last meeting, and a warning along with a 60 day grace period was put out in the last newsletter. Why didn’t we see it in the newsletter? Who has time to read those things, anyway? If we did read them, we’d see what was going on and again, have time to act.
Okay…so what does that all mean?
If we want a say in what happens to us, to our homes, to our lives, we need to get involved. We signed on the line to let the HOA govern a certain amount of our lives, so we have a responsibility to pay attention to what they’re doing. We can go to meetings and have our say. We can pay attention to the newsletters and meeting minutes. We can take action and rally support when something is going up for a vote that we don’t like. We can organize ourselves and submit items to the agenda to repeal things we don’t feel are fair.
If you’re not a homeowner in an HOA, this still applies to you. What other situation and what other governing body does this sound like?
The U.S. Government shut down this week for the first time since 1995 {other than that little hiccup we had in 2011}. I’m not going to go into what I think of this or the politics involved, because those are things I keep to myself. I don’t bring this up to get into the politics of it.
I bring it up because so many folks are complaining about it, and the same HOA rules apply. If you’re a citizen of the United States, you gave the government the power to affect your destiny by electing to become or remain an American citizen. We’re members of the association. And we keep giving them power to act on our behalf by voting them into office or ignoring the votes when they come around, by paying attention to the news or ignoring it, by being active or remaining passive. Whatever we do, we are enabling the people voted into office to act on our behalf.
If we don’t like it, we do have the power to make our opinions heard. We can pay attention to the news so that we know what is going on. We can lobby our proxies, the people we voted into office to vote on laws on our behalf, to listen. We can be part of town hall meetings, go to sessions of Congress, write letters and blogs and petitions, and take action. And, when the elections come around, if the people we elected are doing or not doing what we want them to do, we have the power to vote. We have the power to organize and rally people to take action. We have the power to speak.
Bottom line…don’t just complain if your HOA or your government isn’t doing what you want it to do. Get out there. Get active. Let your voice be heard. Vote. You have the power to make a difference.