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Can an HOA do this?
Sir Carcass
I have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered User regular
I have been shown the end of my worldRound Rock, TXRegistered User regular
I guess let me start by saying they haven't tried this yet, but I have a feeling it's coming. This is in Texas. Some background:
So this is what my portion of our neighborhood looks like:
That football shaped area is actually part of the yards of the 5 houses in the lower right of the picture. It's on our surveys and we pay taxes on it. The private driveway was put in before we moved in and is not a city street.
The HOA has historically paid for maintenance on this area even though it is private property. They do this to promote a uniform appearance so it maintains their standards or whatever. We received a letter in the mail today kinda saying they didn't want to pay for it anymore since it's "discriminatory", but would be making a decision on how to proceed at the next quarterly meeting of the board and were asking for "alternatives". Now currently, even though it is considered private property of 5 different houses, to my knowledge it isn't enforced in any way. Neighborhood kids will play in it or whatever and as far as I know (definitely for us anyway), no one says anything.
Now my question is if they decide to have a lawn service mow it and bill us, can they legally do that? I believe they can if we violate their rules regarding maintenance and do it as needed, but just sign up a regular service? If it becomes our responsibility, I would just have our lawn service add it in and pay whatever little extra, but I'm curious what legal right they actually have regarding service.
I have a feeling they would want to avoid making it our individual responsibilities because it won't all get mowed at the same time, but that's their problem, IMO. Just curious if anyone has any experience or knowledge on how much power HOAs actually have.
So this is what my portion of our neighborhood looks like:
That football shaped area is actually part of the yards of the 5 houses in the lower right of the picture. It's on our surveys and we pay taxes on it. The private driveway was put in before we moved in and is not a city street.
The HOA has historically paid for maintenance on this area even though it is private property. They do this to promote a uniform appearance so it maintains their standards or whatever. We received a letter in the mail today kinda saying they didn't want to pay for it anymore since it's "discriminatory", but would be making a decision on how to proceed at the next quarterly meeting of the board and were asking for "alternatives". Now currently, even though it is considered private property of 5 different houses, to my knowledge it isn't enforced in any way. Neighborhood kids will play in it or whatever and as far as I know (definitely for us anyway), no one says anything.
Now my question is if they decide to have a lawn service mow it and bill us, can they legally do that? I believe they can if we violate their rules regarding maintenance and do it as needed, but just sign up a regular service? If it becomes our responsibility, I would just have our lawn service add it in and pay whatever little extra, but I'm curious what legal right they actually have regarding service.
I have a feeling they would want to avoid making it our individual responsibilities because it won't all get mowed at the same time, but that's their problem, IMO. Just curious if anyone has any experience or knowledge on how much power HOAs actually have.
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Otherwise, yeah, if they vote to do something they can and surely will do it. You should go to the meeting and raise every concern you have, preferably with the presence of the other affected homeowners or at least a group signed letter with the concerns spelled out in as much detail as possible.
Since that land is pretty much completely unusable with the HOA hanging over it (they won't let you sell it or build a shed on it I'd wager), you should talk with them about just donating it to the HOA so it's owned in common and then they can shut up about paying to maintain it.
That's what I'm hoping. I would think it would be like me having someone mow my neighbor's yard and billing him for it, but I don't know if HOA's have that much power.
Their argument, which I don't really dispute, is that they're currently using neighborhood funds to maintain private property, so I don't see that happening. The thing that kinda bothers me is they're considering it private property insofar as maintaining it, but we would basically have to go out and yell "you kids get off my lawn" to get our benefit from it being private since it's not obvious. We can't fence it or put up signs or anything like that.
They can do a whole lot of stuff.
Can they charge different residents different dues?
Those are probably the 2 best options for everyone, but I'm not sure how the first would work. I really like the idea of the second option.
Mine does, based on land size.
That's pretty much the perfect response to a HOA. You have the reasonable option up front and the scary "Well, if you want to go down this road..." option after make the first one seem more reasonable. Really the only question is if any of you five is going to insist on more than a token payment for the land, that might make them grumble a bit.
Also, don't bring up the question of tax reassessment until after it's done.
fundamentally the answer is YES but only if you fail to provide the services yourself
an HOA can set standards, enforce those standards, and, if the resident fail to adhere, they can carry out the maintenance of the property and then place a lien against your home in that amount
what SHOULD happen is that the HOA has to give you the opportunity to work it out with the other owners to maintain the space on your own accord
what should not happen is that they summarily give you a bill with no chance to resolve the matter yourself (e.g., just go out there with your own lawnmower or whatever)
with all this being said, it sounds like your best option is to get a lawyer and sell the property in question to the land management company and just wash your hands of it, unless you're really attached to that slab of concrete.
HOA's are created to protect the property value of the collective
The entire idea is to defend your investment in your home by preventing other people from fucking up their properties and bringing down the neighborhood
sometimes they over-reach, this would be one of those times
It -can- be pretty helpful. Example: In the coop I live in, since hiring a decent manager, we have successfully removed several dealers from the collective. Which does wonders for lowering theft and vandalism!
But it appears in this case it's just run by a bunch of assholes. There's really not a whole lot you can do other than move or attempt to sue them.
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It's actually kind of cool because we have normal front yards for the area and then that big area past the driveway.
Too bad no one plays in the yard anymore.
you mean you don't like having a de-facto level of government that answers to absolutely no one?
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