Texas HOA forecloses Army Captain's house over unpaid dues

[Flagg]

Since that point has already been addressed, you're tilting at windmills. You can easily avoid them in some cities, but you either get a shitty neighborhood or one beyond most people's price ranges. Or one several miles out of city limits.

So basically, according to your own admission you can avoid them if you want and no one holds a gun to your head, people just would rather live in a nice neighborhood and deal with a HOA. I'd like to see some evidence for this "lol only shitty places or rich places" argument please.

[General Zod]

So basically, according to your own admission you can avoid them if you want and no one holds a gun to your head, people just would rather live in a nice neighborhood and deal with a HOA.

I never claimed otherwise, but feel free to keep making shit up. What I did claim is that avoiding them isn't going to be easy or necessarily pleasant.

[Flagg]

So basically, according to your own admission you can avoid them if you want and no one holds a gun to your head, people just would rather live in a nice neighborhood and deal with a HOA.

I never claimed otherwise, but feel free to keep making shit up. What I did claim is that avoiding them isn't going to be easy or necessarily pleasant.

And I asked for more than just your sayso.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Do you guys have any actual evidence for there being no homes without HOA for hundreds of miles, or is this just anecdotal?

The entire phoenix metro area is one giant HOA*... What, do you think there are stats for this?

*by one giant, I mean to say that HOA coverage is very high. To the point that to escape them, you have to move to areas like Apache Junction which are full of exploding meth labs.

[Flagg]

Do you guys have any actual evidence for there being no homes without HOA for hundreds of miles, or is this just anecdotal?

The entire phoenix metro area is one giant HOA*... What, do you think there are stats for this?

*by one giant, I mean to say that HOA coverage is very high. To the point that to escape them, you have to move to areas like Apache Junction which are full of exploding meth labs.

Yeah, I'd assume there are in fact stats. If not, then you probably shouldn't make claims (not you specifically) that you can only live within the bounds of a HOA in huge swaths of the country unless you want to live in a shithole neighborhood. I know I lived in FL for most of my life and not a single house of the 5 I lived in were in shit neighborhoods or under the auspices of an HOA.

[Gandalf]

Sounds like the US needs consumer protection... oh, what's the point?

We do have consumer protection. The problem here is that some states have better consumer protection than others, so if you live in a place like Texas you can wind up with a shitty deal.

Exactly. The UNITED STATES needs consumer protection, not just individual states.

There is a federal government for a reason. This way an unscrupulous business operator doesn't just have to move his business to some shit state because the laws let him be a douche.

[Broomstick]

Since that point has already been addressed, you're tilting at windmills. You can easily avoid them in some cities, but you either get a shitty neighborhood or one beyond most people's price ranges. Or one several miles out of city limits.

So basically, according to your own admission you can avoid them if you want and no one holds a gun to your head, people just would rather live in a nice neighborhood and deal with a HOA.

Actually, in some of the shitty places people WILL hold a gun to your head... because they want your wallet, not because they want you to sign a HOA.

Yeah, I'd assume there are in fact stats. If not, then you probably shouldn't make claims (not you specifically) that you can only live within the bounds of a HOA in huge swaths of the country unless you want to live in a shithole neighborhood. I know I lived in FL for most of my life and not a single house of the 5 I lived in were in shit neighborhoods or under the auspices of an HOA.

And, as I pointed out earlier, Florida is one of the two states with the strongest regulation of HOA's in the nation, which means it's no surprise that they aren't so ubiquitous there. Or do you honestly think everywhere else is just like Florida?

[Flagg]

Since that point has already been addressed, you're tilting at windmills. You can easily avoid them in some cities, but you either get a shitty neighborhood or one beyond most people's price ranges. Or one several miles out of city limits.

So basically, according to your own admission you can avoid them if you want and no one holds a gun to your head, people just would rather live in a nice neighborhood and deal with a HOA.

Actually, in some of the shitty places people WILL hold a gun to your head... because they want your wallet, not because they want you to sign a HOA.

Yeah, I'd assume there are in fact stats. If not, then you probably shouldn't make claims (not you specifically) that you can only live within the bounds of a HOA in huge swaths of the country unless you want to live in a shithole neighborhood. I know I lived in FL for most of my life and not a single house of the 5 I lived in were in shit neighborhoods or under the auspices of an HOA.

And, as I pointed out earlier, Florida is one of the two states with the strongest regulation of HOA's in the nation, which means it's no surprise that they aren't so ubiquitous there. Or do you honestly think everywhere else is just like Florida?

Sorry, I misread that as FL having the one of the largest number of HOA's in the nation.

[The Spartan]

No, that would be Texas, sadly. The article mentions that there are 1100 municipalities but 30000. My parents have one. My friends that own a home all have one. I tried to find somewhere to live where there wasn't one three years ago, but I ran into the problems I mentioned: bad areas, too expensive, too far outside of town, etc.

[Maj]

There are couple of things about this story that are strange to me.

I really don't get the concept of owning a home free and clear, but having to pay monthly dues on top of that. I realize that monthly dues are not anywhere near the ballpark of a mortgage payment, but isn't the point of owning a house so you don't have to pay rent? And isn't the point of paying for your house so that you don't have to make payments on your house? As far as I can tell, an HOA tries to make people's houses conform to a similar aesthetic, takes your money, and...?

The wife (as told in the second link about the resolution of the case), claims that she was too depressed to pay the bills - any of them. Or even open the mail. How did someone not know that this was a problem? They have two children, one of whom looks old enough to tell someone. Could she not have written to her dad and said, "It's been a month and the mail is piling up. We need some help here." Yeah, I know he's busy, but he should have been able to talk to someone - a friend or neighbor, maybe - and gotten someone over to check up on the wife.

Personally, I think the HOA should have no right to foreclose on a house. Even monthly dues of $1000 - when not paid for over the course of an entire year, don't come anywhere close to equaling the value of [most] residential properties, and so I don't think an HOA should have the right to collect. Lien, yes. Collection agency, yes. Foreclosure? Hell. No.

[Alyeska]

There are couple of things about this story that are strange to me.

I really don't get the concept of owning a home free and clear, but having to pay monthly dues on top of that. I realize that monthly dues are not anywhere near the ballpark of a mortgage payment, but isn't the point of owning a house so you don't have to pay rent? And isn't the point of paying for your house so that you don't have to make payments on your house? As far as I can tell, an HOA tries to make people's houses conform to a similar aesthetic, takes your money, and...?

The wife (as told in the second link about the resolution of the case), claims that she was too depressed to pay the bills - any of them. Or even open the mail. How did someone not know that this was a problem? They have two children, one of whom looks old enough to tell someone. Could she not have written to her dad and said, "It's been a month and the mail is piling up. We need some help here." Yeah, I know he's busy, but he should have been able to talk to someone - a friend or neighbor, maybe - and gotten someone over to check up on the wife.

Personally, I think the HOA should have no right to foreclose on a house. Even monthly dues of $1000 - when not paid for over the course of an entire year, don't come anywhere close to equaling the value of [most] residential properties, and so I don't think an HOA should have the right to collect. Lien, yes. Collection agency, yes. Foreclosure? Hell. No.

The monthly dues are to the Home Owners Association. That can be as little as people who maintain a single park for everyone to use to as much as an entity that owns the very land that every single house lives on. Large HOAs tend to be the worst because they become impersonal. Small HOAs can be far easier to deal with because everyone knows everyone.

[Broomstick]

The wife (as told in the second link about the resolution of the case), claims that she was too depressed to pay the bills - any of them. Or even open the mail. How did someone not know that this was a problem? They have two children, one of whom looks old enough to tell someone. Could she not have written to her dad and said, "It's been a month and the mail is piling up. We need some help here." Yeah, I know he's busy, but he should have been able to talk to someone - a friend or neighbor, maybe - and gotten someone over to check up on the wife.

It's a common (though not universal) feature of depression that the depressed person does not ask for help. They may simply ignore things, or they may even try to put on a false front, but the mental illness itself makes it very difficult for people to either seek assistance or even think assistance is possible.