schlep1967 wrote:
My question would be, "If there is no HOA, who is she going to complain to?"
And who is going to enforce it?
This.
I was the president of my HOA and I can tell you that even with an active HOA, enforcing these covenants are difficult. They cannot themselves remove it, the only thing they can do is fine you, which typically goes against the property in the form of a lien. Yes, people may complain but in reality, there's very little they can do, especially since you can show the covenants haven't been enforced.
The developers put covenants in place, and depending on the state, the defacto HOA is turned over to the residents at some pre-determined sales level (75% sold, 90% sold, etc). If there is no active HOA board, it may be that at some point the HOA was dissolved or abandoned. How are the common areas maintained? Who pays for that? Is there an HOA assessment? Where does that money go?
We will never live in another HOA community. The story about "protecting property values" is complete BS. We had a covenant against "trucks" that was originally written to specifically to ban WORK trucks with logos and equipment, but it was (illegally) expanded to include ALL trucks, even brand new ones (like mine). But it was OK to keep a POS 20 year-old rust bucket of a Buick Regal that was never washed. You should have heard the arguments when I told them that body-on-frame SUVs were classified as trucks and had to go. That was a fun meeting.
