I have what I like to lovingly call a demolition dad. He regularly finds new projects around our house, making construction workers a common sight in my life. His biggest enemy, and mine by extension, is our homeowners association.
Homeowners Associations are private organizations that oversee the management of residential communities. They typically have strict rules and guidelines for neighborhood residents to follow and require mandatory fees. Most of the fees cover community amenities like gyms, pools, maintenance, landscaping and trash pickup. However, these fees can be exorbitant in comparison to the amenities they claim to fund. Detroit has one of the highest HOA rates in the country, averaging $536.57 per month in fees. HOAs represent over 53% of owner-occupied homes in America. While some HOAs are more relaxed with their control over residents, others seem to do everything in their power to ruin the residential experience.
Members of HOAs are usually volunteers, as most bylaws for the associations state that the organization cannot compensate directors. The people who serve on these boards decide to spend their free time enforcing standards other people need to uphold for their own homes. It seems they are so bored in their everyday lives that they seek a power trip by deciding what plants each resident needs to have outside their house.
I know I sound cruel, but after living in two neighborhoods with stifling HOAs, I’ve decided it is time to take down and humble these associations.
In my family’s old neighborhood, our HOA claimed to spend the majority of their fees on maintaining our community pool. Yet each year, the pool would open late with a broken heater and gate, forcing the HOA to close the pool for several weeks during the summer. The lofty fee was apparently insufficient, despite it increasing each year.
In my personal experience with HOAs, they dictate how many trees you have on your property, the size of your patio, the brick color for your house, what renovations you do and whether or not you can have a fence. Even though you own your home, you can’t do whatever you want with your property. Even if you meet city guidelines, the HOA can disapprove.
My father’s latest project has been adding a sunroom to our home, and he had to account for not only the proper city regulations, but also the homeowner regulations, in order to create the room he wanted. After each step, he had to get a city inspection and then an HOA inspection. While the city was often quick to come out and approve steps, our HOA neither responded to their emails nor could be bothered to communicate with their residents when they were actually needed.
If your construction meets city requirements, there should be no further holes to jump through. These volunteers do not have a degree that makes them qualified to decide on the safety of others, and it is not their paid job to inspect. Nevertheless, they still have the power to decide on these projects that have nothing to do with them.
HOAs need to be illegal. A quick Google search reveals several petitions calling for the destruction of HOAs because of their stifling laws. Because volunteers run HOAs, the enforcement of their laws is largely unjust and unequal. You might receive a fine for something you didn’t even know was against regulations even though other houses — despite having the same violation — go unpunished.
Around Eid, several houses in my neighborhood decorated their front lawns to celebrate, similar to how many Christians decorate their homes around Christmas. Suddenly, the entire neighborhood received an email stating, “no signs, flags or banners or any character shall be erected, posted or displayed unless with the prior written approval of the Covenants Committee.” How convenient. Would the HOA punish families celebrating their graduates? Would the HOA find signs proudly announcing “It’s a boy!” so insulting they need to fine the homeowner?
HOAs have a history of being discriminatory, and it is time to stop granting these suburban dictators any power. Because members of the association are volunteers, there is not as much structure and strict set of guidelines one must follow like a typical nine-to-five job. Members act on their own timelines and wants, with or against the people they choose to grace with their attention. The point of an HOA is to help preserve and improve property values. Instead, they are often used to force homeowners to meet the vision some volunteer decided was right for their neighborhood.
When managed well, there are benefits to living in communities with HOAs. They are in place to help maintain and increase property values and create a sense of community. Some might see the access to amenities HOAs can offer such as shared community spaces as worth the headache. In theory, these associations have the right goal in mind, but their execution has failed time and time again to meet the standards of their residents. HOAs have regularly found themselves in lawsuits nationally for falling short in serving their residents. From misusing funds, to discriminating against residents with their flippant standards, HOAs have manipulated residents and ruined the joy of homeowning since they have existed. When members of the association abuse their power, fail to do the job they signed up for and spend time ruining a person’s living experience, they are no longer serving their purpose. Any benefit that might come from living in an HOA quickly becomes futile.
There are several steps you can take to combat your HOA, especially when you get a fine you believe is unjust. Several lawyers have posted tips and offered counsel to those who have been victims of their HOAs. However, many of the laws written in HOA guidelines make it extremely difficult to take a dispute to court.
You own property, and you follow the laws about owning property. It should be that simple. There should be no middleman that decides how you live your life and what your home should look like. Owning a home is not a neighborhood responsibility, but rather a personal one. End HOAs, and the power-hungry fiends who run them.
Lara Tinawi is a Senior Opinion Editor writing about campus culture and her everyday musings. She can be reached at ltinawi@umich.edu.
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