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Someone always scoffs, but I think it is usually a sign that they don’t really understand freedom. In particular, the freedom of association. Many countries rec

by db48x 2y ago

Someone always scoffs, but I think it is usually a sign that they don’t really understand freedom. In particular, the freedom of association. Many countries recognize it, so I don't need to get in to the exact legal justifications for it. Put plainly, this is the freedom to form groups that govern the behavior of their members. A group could be a dinner party, a study group, a book club, a circle of friends. It can also be much more serious. It could be a corporation, a union, a church, a political party, or a religion. Or it could be an HOA, or a town, or a state. If you like one or more of those types of groups then it is important to protect the freedom of association, even if you don’t like any of the others. Every group has rules, even the most informal. When you invite your friends out to dinner you probably don’t sit down and vote on the exact rules your dinner party will follow, but your party has rules regardless. And every group punishes violations of the rules somehow. If you get drunk and dance naked on top of a table, then you will suffer some form of sanction by the other members of the dinner party. At the very least you probably won’t be invited back. More formal groups like HOAs, corporations, and towns tend to have written rules and proscribed punishments for violations. They also have built–in ways of changing those rules. Ultimately some HOAs are useful while others are petty and run by vindictive idiots. An HOA that was useful for 50 years and never created any drama could turn bad next year when they elect some new board members. An HOA that is bad today _could_ elect new board members and then become drama–free and stay that way for 50 years, even if it seems unlikely. People who end up in a petty HOA usually regret it, and come to see joining any HOA as a big mistake. People in a sane HOA often wonder what the fuss is about. But here’s the truth: true freedom includes the freedom to make mistakes, even big mistakes. The freedom of association allows us to join any group we want, but sometimes joining will be a mistake. You can’t prevent people from making those mistakes without limiting their freedom. You can’t even reliably predict which mistakes they’re going to make, so you would end up preventing them from doing things that wouldn’t be mistakes too.

Calavar 2y ago
Freedom of association is missing the point when it comes to HOAs. There's some very significant differences between freedom to associate in a book club and freedom to associate in an HOA. If you don't like a book club, there is no scenario in which you are contractually obligated to join it and pay membership fees indefinitely. And the bookclub doesn't have broad legal authority, backed by the courts, to dictate how you maintain, use, and sell your personal property or even aspects of your lifestyle.
- db48x 2y ago
  I never said that all groups were equivalent, only that they are similar. Book clubs have rules, and if you violate them they will punish you. Very likely the punishment will be limited to not inviting you back, but that is because book clubs are very informal. HOAs are formal, and are formed for the specific purpose of regulating the use of property, particularly common property. Thus it should be no surprise that they do so.
  - kashunstva 2y ago
    > regulating the use of property, particularly common property I don’t think anyone would argue with their regulation of common property; it’s their petty interference in private property that’s the rub.
    - db48x 2y ago
      Remember that everyone disagrees about what is petty and what is not. Take the current article: some would argue that requiring a vehicle (such as the boat) to be parked in a place where it cannot be seen from the street is petty, and that the HOA is petty for having such a rule. Yet many many cities and towns across America have similar parking rules. They were put in place by a reasonably democratic process, so it must be that there is a fair amount of disagreement over whether they are petty or not. You have the same recourse in both cases: vote, join the local government, or move somewhere less petty.
- dullcrisp 2y ago
  Book clubs aside, the ability to join a HOA is a freedom. Contrarily, if the Supreme Court forces New York City to allow guns in its Walmarts, that would be a restriction of freedom. Freedom isn’t the same as lawlessness.
  - hiatus 2y ago
    Businesses can't discriminate against different races either, you give up some freedoms when you hold yourself open to the public.
soco 2y ago
There are many countries in the world which don't measure their freedom in eagles per square burger yet are totally free to associate, and they do. I cannot do much in my neighborhood either (Switzerland here) but there is a respected process for raising cases and handling exceptions and all that. We call this the rule of law, by no means perfect either. This doesn't seem to be the case with the HOA where the system guarantees you living under the will of the leadership - be they idiots or geniuses. So if liberty is defined by randomness, yes, HOA defines the land of the free. Otherwise please allows us to scoff.
- AmericanChopper 2y ago
  > So if liberty is defined by randomness, yes, HOA defines the land of the free It’s the freedom to choose an HOA, or alternatively, anything else you like. Also, while HOAs might make decisions stupidly, I don’t think they do it randomly.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    they are doing it to exclude those that don't fit into their style of life. it's discrimination, plain and simple. to compare with europe: as far as i know germany or austria don't have the equivalent of a HOA, but what is allowed and what isn't is defined by local law. the closest example i could find are rules a landlord is allowed to impose on their tenants. for example, if i rent a house with garden, then the landlord can demand that i take care of the garden, but they can not specify how often i am supposed to mow the lawn or how high i let it grow. if not even a landlord can make such rules for their own property, then a HOA would have even less chance to make such rules for homeowners. that said, local laws can be quite far reaching, especially when it comes to aspects that affect the character of a neighborhood which includes rules on the outside design of the house and the front yard. not something i am happy about myself. beyond that these rules are mostly about things directly affect and cause problems for the neighbors. otherwise a homeowner has the right to do whatever they want on their property. as for the freedom to choose an HOA. no such freedom exists. because my choice of where i live is not defined by the HOA but by other considerations like location and cost and most importantly, availability. the argument that i could have moved somewhere else if i didn't like this HOA is not really reasonable given the housing shortage in most places. the right to live somewhere trumps the freedom of association
okasaki 2y ago
This is some extreme mental gymnastics where restrictions are actually freedoms. By the same logic, how about a freedom for the government to limit your speech? Now censorship is freedom and free speech is a restriction.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- eru 2y ago
  The ability to do censorship would be a freedom for the government, yes. It's also a restriction on you. I don't like HOAs, but the ability to form or join a HOA is definitely a part of individual freedom. Just like the ability to eg enter into a non-disclosure agreement or any other kind of contract.
- mensetmanusman 2y ago
  Traffic signs are limits on freedom, but they increase the net freedom to travel. Some things have a higher second derivative of freedom.
primitivesuave 2y ago
I would add that this statement might equally apply to government - that is, if you disagree with the policies of a local government (property tax too high, school district underperforming, etc), move somewhere else. If you disagree with your state, move to another one. And if you disagree with national policies, immigrate to a country whose policies you agree with. But therein lies the pitfall of freedom of association - if you disagree with your HOA, or your local/state/federal government, you may not have the financial or legal means to change your situation. I see a dichotomy of "associations with oversight" and the converse (associations with no oversight). If your HOA forces you to build a fence, there is no appeal process similar to if a government entity charges you with a crime (e.g. appeal to a state/federal circuit court and ultimately to a supreme court). Within each is an enforcement mechanism that may or may not work. In your dinner party example, which is an association with no oversight, a naked table dancer may simply crash the subsequent gatherings. In all levels of government, there are those who continue to hold their position regardless of the misdeeds and accusations levied against them. Perhaps that is the essential trade-off of freedom, to be free to associate with any group of people despite the possibility of being victimized by them (now or in the future).
- CogitoCogito 2y ago
  Yeah I'm having trouble understanding how /u/db48x's logic doesn't apply equally well to all political systems. Maybe the next time someone complains to me about Biden's policies, I should just respond that they don't understand freedom.
  - db48x 2y ago
    The USA believes so hard in the freedom of association that we are willing to let people leave whenever they want. You don’t need permission, just find somewhere better and go there. Compare that with the Soviet Union, or East Germany, or China, or North Korea. In those countries leaving may technically be allowed, but may require a lifetime of asking for permission. The Soviet Union didn’t even provide its own people with maps lest they find out where the borders were.
kennethwolters 2y ago
The more a person is dependent on "associated or local governments" [1] relative to "national or supernational governments", the more freedom they enjoy. This is somewhat counter-intuitive because one might think that if e.g. every resident of a nation had to obey a singular and simple set of national rules, that would promote freedom more than having governments and rules differ between regions. I wont go deeply into the underlying mechanisms of why the more chaotic choice promotes freedom while the more orderly choice reduces freedom but it has something to do with organisations competing for members and members being willing/free to move between those organisations. [1] HOAs, school districts, unions, chapters, guilds, bars, insurances
- eru 2y ago
  I'm OK with national governments, if the nation in question is a city state. All hail Singapore!
- em-bee 2y ago
  but there is no competition among HOAs. there isn't enough freedom to move around. there isn't even a chaotic choice because most HOAs are the same. and when 80% of homes sold today are governed by an HOA there is also no choice not to join one. and i am not buying the whole argument. if we accept a hierarchy of governing structures, from the HOA at the bottom, and let's go all the way, the united nations at the top, each level has a a certain set of responsibilities and powers. the difference in the levels is determined by how centralized or distributed those are. but there is no escaping the levels. the problem is that it is unclear who is responsible to deal with overreach. in the US HOAs are largely unregulated, and so there is no protection against overreach. and in particular, they are not government but private organizations. i am of the opinion that mandatory membership in an organization makes that organization an extension of government, and thus it should be bound by the rules local governments must follow.
  - kennethwolters 2y ago
    I anticipated this type of reply that states that for HOAs there is not enough freedom of movement and diversity of "HOA flavours" to reap the benefits of this localist/federalist system. And you are right. The situation seems dire and the question is how do we solve this problem? Do we do so by smashing HOAs (and giving the responsibilities to someone else)? I believe this is the wrong approach because it will destroy any potential for this localist (and thus inherently good, imo) system to heal. You're basically passing the baton onto another entity that might do a better job off the start but will inevitably fail because it is even less capable of evolving. I'd rather try to discourage rigidity/complacency and incentivise innovation in the HOA-space which is much more complex to implement but better than smashing HOAs. Regarding your point about "not buying the whole argument": I think it would be foolish to organise a military or pandemic-prevention-force on a municipal level. The levels need to exist and some higher levels have responsibilities that the lower levels don't have. I absolutely believe that this is good. In conclusion, somehow communities of a certain region need to be organised if they want to be organised, especially when the region is densely populated. I'd rather organise these communities through self-emergent associations than top-down mandated government. And yes, the self-emergent association-type HOA is broken. I'd rather fix it than replace it with a inherently worse alternative.
_the_inflator 2y ago
Interesting details and case analysis from your side here. HOAs are subject to debate frequently. Philosophically, freedom has, among other dimensions, the dimension of negative and positive freedom: being free from something and free to do something. Freedom usually refers to individual rights against the state. Freedom to have private contracts is part of what distinguishes socialism from capitalism. What you describe regarding group associations is correct. Others are correct, too, when they appeal to freedom as the right to be spared from something. Freedom to form groups does not mean being forced to join them. That's the point here. HOAs are partly like cartels, in my view.
jl6 2y ago
It's an interesting tradeoff of freedoms when you consider how free a person is to leave a HOA. Purely legally speaking, they are free to leave at any time if the HOA starts to enforce unjust restrictions - but practically speaking, moving house is onerous and many are not in a position to do it. This is essentially a contract where you enter freely, but the other party has the ability to vary the terms unilaterally, and your only recourse is to exit. A tech analogy comes to mind. We freely choose to host our workloads in a Server Owner's Association (sorry, cloud service provider), and we take on the risk that the provider may change the offering and impose restrictions that we don't like. They will tell us that we are free to leave at any time, but switching clouds can be non-trivial to say the least, leaving us feeling trapped and decidedly unfree. The freedom to enter into private contracts is the freedom to bind oneself.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- db48x 2y ago
  I would say that your first recourse is the ability to read all the financial documents. As a property owner in an HOA you have every right to read the contracts that your HOA has signed, to audit the books, and to otherwise verify that the HOA board is doing their job correctly. Second recourse is to vote in the elections. If you elect petty tyrants, you get petty tyranny. Third is to run for the board yourself to make sure things are being done correctly. And if all that is too tiresome then yea, sell your property and buy a house that isn’t in an HOA. Most houses aren’t.
  - alistairSH 2y ago
    Most houses arent I’m sure this is true nationally, but does it hold locally for areas with good employment prospects? And once you remove apartments (which don’t have HOAs but are subject to the tyranny of the landlord instead)? Genuinely asking because I can’t think of too many areas in NoVA that don’t have HOAs. Correction… There are areas of older housing without, but any subdivisions built since the 80s seems to have one. The areas without tend to be older “downtown” areas (Arlington - very expensive) or on the outskirts (Fairfax Station - very expensive).
robryk 2y ago
HOAs require more than (or a very specific extension of) freedom of association to exist: they require an ability to bind any future owners of a piece of land to join the HOA (regardless of how they acquired that land: via sale, inheritance, bankruptcy, ...). For property that's not real estate that's usually not possible (see e.g. inability of companies to provide binding promises on how the data they have are used after they go bankrupt). Given that this ability applies very inconsistently across types of property, it doesn't seem like an essential part of freedom of association.
- throw0101c 2y ago
  > HOAs require more than […] freedom of association to exist: they require an ability to bind any future owners of a piece of land to join the HOA […]. You are often not buying a piece of land when you move to a HOA-linked residence, rather you can be buying a particular unit, but there are also 'common areas' that are the property of the legal entity of the HOA. If you do not want to be part of an HOA then you have to purchase what is called (at least in Canada) freehold land. > While most people hear the word “condo” and think of an apartment style unit, that’s not always the case. Some townhouses (and even certain detached homes) are considered condos too. * https://teamkate.ca/difference-freehold-condo-home https://teamkate.ca/difference-freehold-condo-home * https://www.squareyards.ca/blog/freehold-vs-leasehold-regart/ https://www.squareyards.ca/blog/freehold-vs-leasehold-regart... * https://wowa.ca/freehold-meaning https://wowa.ca/freehold-meaning * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freehold_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freehold_(law) If you do not want to be part of an HOA tell your real estate broker that this is one of the criteria for where you want to live.
  - anymouse123456 2y ago
    I have no idea about Canada, but in the US, there are lots of single-family home neighborhoods that have, "Home Owner's Associations".
    - skeeter2020 2y ago
      the GP wasn't talking about the type of structure but the legal organization of the property ownership. Canadian provinces have a Condominium Property Act that defines the legislative framework. The implementation can vary by types of units (ranging from apartment-style to single family homes) and the ownership - typically "you own the inside; communal outside" or "you own the inside & dirt; communal outside and shared public spaces". You don't hear talk of "The HOA" but rather "The Condo Board"
anhner 2y ago
There is no freedom of association if there is no freedom FROM association. That is, if your only option is to buy a house within a HOA or not but that house, you're not really free...
shadowgovt 2y ago
But when those groups are tied to real estate ownership they aren't free associations, they are serfdoms.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
I agree. You can be free without having total anarchy. Some (but not too many) laws/rules/restrictions ironically make us more free.
mihaic 2y ago
Your position seems a bit ideological. Ultimate freedom doesn't exist, since pretty much all societies agree that they want to stop people from murdering one another for instance. Any legal system always has to balance individual liberties and the tyranny of the majority (or a law-giving minority). > An HOA that was useful for 50 years and never created any drama could turn bad next year when they elect some new board members. That's why countries for instance have constitutions, so the system is hard to change even when someone new takes power. > true freedom includes the freedom to make mistakes, even big mistakes. That's pretty much the reason why we don't have "true freedom" and we want to stop people from making really terrible and easily avoidable mistakes, like eating food that kills them. Limiting HOA against petty bullshit requirements (with more freedom for an initial set of bullshit requirements) at least is one of these limitations.
tuyiown 2y ago
> People who end up in a petty HOA usually regret it, and come to see joining any HOA as a big mistake. I'm pretty sure that freedom of association is strongly tied to being able to quit the association freely. I don't think that the condition of having to change home to quit an association is a reasonable term.
gizmo686 2y ago
HOAs are not a story of free association. They are a story of privatization. We used to have local government deal with local governance. But local governments decided they didn't want to do that anymore, so they started encouraging the creation of HOAs to deal with all of those pesky local governance issues. If all thar mattered was free association, the fix would be very simple. Enshrine into the the right to leave an HOA. But states won't do that, because once people leave, they will except their local governments to start providing the same services the HOAs do, and all of those local governments are going to complain to the state government.
- corysama 2y ago
  Felt this when I bought my first house and a week after the sale finalized, my situation changed dramatically and unexpectedly. I needed to move across the country, but the HOA had a strict No Renters clause. So, I had to choose between 1) Spend 30 years paying the mortgage for a house no one can use. 2) Turn around and sell the house I just bought.
  - em-bee 2y ago
    that's why i don't like to buy property. presumably you didn't want to just sell again because of the effort involved. if buying and selling was easier and guaranteed to never sell at a loss, then this would not be an issue. how did you resolve the problem?
    - corysama 2y ago
      I ate it. Turned around and sold at a small loss on price, bigger loss on all the costs associated with the process.
      - em-bee 2y ago
        do you think you could have avoided a loss if you were not under pressure to sell, but say, had a few months of time before the move and find a good buyer?
jameshart 2y ago
This is a good perspective, and a great case study in understanding how freedoms are always in tension. The usual remedy to protect people from freely making the mistake of entering into associations that harm them is regulatory, of course. Employment regulations place certain rules on what you can expect when you choose to throw yourself into association with a company as an employee, to prevent you accidentally finding yourself at the whim of an abusive employer. Regulating what kinds of things HOAs can demand is a perfectly reasonable thing for governments to do to make it safer for people to purchase houses with confidence they won’t be subjected to egregious restrictions. So we do end up limiting freedom of association. You can’t join up into an HOA with your neighbors that bans any of you from selling your house to a black family.
xdennis 2y ago
> Someone always scoffs, but I think it is usually a sign that they don’t really understand freedom. Others understand freedom from the perspective of the individual. Americans understand freedom from the perspective of the state. In the first case, you're free if you can practically do something. In the second case you're free if the government doesn't ban it, regardless of whether you can actually do it. Take for example the issue of ads on Smart TVs. There's no law that says you have to have ads on them, but in practice it's impossible to buy a TV which doesn't flood you with ads. People in the first case consider that if a law is passed to ban embedding ads on TVs, then that increases the freedom in the world. Americans consider that banning such ads is a horrible government overreach which hurts the feelings of poor billionaires, and that if people want, they can always buy TVs with no ads, even though no such TVs exist. They prefer an imaginary freedom to a practical one.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
ein0p 2y ago
Yeah, mortgage debt slaves are forced to associate among themselves and pay money to the most insufferable local busybodies available. That’s the “freedom” we’re talking about here. I’m generally against big govt, but in this case I would gladly pay the same amount to the municipal government instead so that they’d maintain the road and public greenery, and otherwise get out of my hair.
_yb2s 2y ago
Unfortunately, in practice most people don’t choose HOAs, they simply can’t afford to live anywhere without one.
- nozzlegear 2y ago
  I’d love to see numbers on that (not asking you to find them) — it seems logical for me that a home in an HOA would sell for more than a home outside an HOA.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    Most HOAs are in low cost and high density multi-family housing: condos, townhouses, etc. In those cases many of the people living there are renters, but subject to following the rules through their landlords. When you have an HOA with regular single family homes, it generally has to have been setup by the contractor, who build the entire planned community. These mass produced planned communities are also typically cheaper and lower value than individual one-off single family homes, as they are built to a price point for a profit.
insane_dreamer 2y ago
The problem with HOA vs other types of voluntary associations is that it’s very difficult to get out of an HOA — you have literally one recourse: sell and move. That’s a huge barrier because even if you wanted to you may not be able to afford to sell and move. And HOA rules change so the terms you now object to were perhaps not even in place when you agreed to join the HOA. It becomes coercive. When my wife and I last moved to another city and were looking to buy, our first requirement was that our house not be encumbered with an HOA.

by db48x 2y ago

Calavar 2y ago

Freedom of association is missing the point when it comes to HOAs. There's some very significant differences between freedom to associate in a book club and freedom to associate in an HOA. If you don't like a book club, there is no scenario in which you are contractually obligated to join it and pay membership fees indefinitely. And the bookclub doesn't have broad legal authority, backed by the courts, to dictate how you maintain, use, and sell your personal property or even aspects of your lifestyle.

db48x 2y ago
I never said that all groups were equivalent, only that they are similar. Book clubs have rules, and if you violate them they will punish you. Very likely the punishment will be limited to not inviting you back, but that is because book clubs are very informal. HOAs are formal, and are formed for the specific purpose of regulating the use of property, particularly common property. Thus it should be no surprise that they do so.
- kashunstva 2y ago
  > regulating the use of property, particularly common property I don’t think anyone would argue with their regulation of common property; it’s their petty interference in private property that’s the rub.
  - db48x 2y ago
    Remember that everyone disagrees about what is petty and what is not. Take the current article: some would argue that requiring a vehicle (such as the boat) to be parked in a place where it cannot be seen from the street is petty, and that the HOA is petty for having such a rule. Yet many many cities and towns across America have similar parking rules. They were put in place by a reasonably democratic process, so it must be that there is a fair amount of disagreement over whether they are petty or not. You have the same recourse in both cases: vote, join the local government, or move somewhere less petty.
dullcrisp 2y ago
Book clubs aside, the ability to join a HOA is a freedom. Contrarily, if the Supreme Court forces New York City to allow guns in its Walmarts, that would be a restriction of freedom. Freedom isn’t the same as lawlessness.
- hiatus 2y ago
  Businesses can't discriminate against different races either, you give up some freedoms when you hold yourself open to the public.

soco 2y ago

There are many countries in the world which don't measure their freedom in eagles per square burger yet are totally free to associate, and they do. I cannot do much in my neighborhood either (Switzerland here) but there is a respected process for raising cases and handling exceptions and all that. We call this the rule of law, by no means perfect either. This doesn't seem to be the case with the HOA where the system guarantees you living under the will of the leadership - be they idiots or geniuses. So if liberty is defined by randomness, yes, HOA defines the land of the free. Otherwise please allows us to scoff.

AmericanChopper 2y ago
> So if liberty is defined by randomness, yes, HOA defines the land of the free It’s the freedom to choose an HOA, or alternatively, anything else you like. Also, while HOAs might make decisions stupidly, I don’t think they do it randomly.
- em-bee 2y ago
  they are doing it to exclude those that don't fit into their style of life. it's discrimination, plain and simple. to compare with europe: as far as i know germany or austria don't have the equivalent of a HOA, but what is allowed and what isn't is defined by local law. the closest example i could find are rules a landlord is allowed to impose on their tenants. for example, if i rent a house with garden, then the landlord can demand that i take care of the garden, but they can not specify how often i am supposed to mow the lawn or how high i let it grow. if not even a landlord can make such rules for their own property, then a HOA would have even less chance to make such rules for homeowners. that said, local laws can be quite far reaching, especially when it comes to aspects that affect the character of a neighborhood which includes rules on the outside design of the house and the front yard. not something i am happy about myself. beyond that these rules are mostly about things directly affect and cause problems for the neighbors. otherwise a homeowner has the right to do whatever they want on their property. as for the freedom to choose an HOA. no such freedom exists. because my choice of where i live is not defined by the HOA but by other considerations like location and cost and most importantly, availability. the argument that i could have moved somewhere else if i didn't like this HOA is not really reasonable given the housing shortage in most places. the right to live somewhere trumps the freedom of association

okasaki 2y ago

This is some extreme mental gymnastics where restrictions are actually freedoms. By the same logic, how about a freedom for the government to limit your speech? Now censorship is freedom and free speech is a restriction.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
eru 2y ago
The ability to do censorship would be a freedom for the government, yes. It's also a restriction on you. I don't like HOAs, but the ability to form or join a HOA is definitely a part of individual freedom. Just like the ability to eg enter into a non-disclosure agreement or any other kind of contract.
mensetmanusman 2y ago
Traffic signs are limits on freedom, but they increase the net freedom to travel. Some things have a higher second derivative of freedom.

primitivesuave 2y ago

I would add that this statement might equally apply to government - that is, if you disagree with the policies of a local government (property tax too high, school district underperforming, etc), move somewhere else. If you disagree with your state, move to another one. And if you disagree with national policies, immigrate to a country whose policies you agree with. But therein lies the pitfall of freedom of association - if you disagree with your HOA, or your local/state/federal government, you may not have the financial or legal means to change your situation. I see a dichotomy of "associations with oversight" and the converse (associations with no oversight). If your HOA forces you to build a fence, there is no appeal process similar to if a government entity charges you with a crime (e.g. appeal to a state/federal circuit court and ultimately to a supreme court). Within each is an enforcement mechanism that may or may not work. In your dinner party example, which is an association with no oversight, a naked table dancer may simply crash the subsequent gatherings. In all levels of government, there are those who continue to hold their position regardless of the misdeeds and accusations levied against them. Perhaps that is the essential trade-off of freedom, to be free to associate with any group of people despite the possibility of being victimized by them (now or in the future).

CogitoCogito 2y ago
Yeah I'm having trouble understanding how /u/db48x's logic doesn't apply equally well to all political systems. Maybe the next time someone complains to me about Biden's policies, I should just respond that they don't understand freedom.
- db48x 2y ago
  The USA believes so hard in the freedom of association that we are willing to let people leave whenever they want. You don’t need permission, just find somewhere better and go there. Compare that with the Soviet Union, or East Germany, or China, or North Korea. In those countries leaving may technically be allowed, but may require a lifetime of asking for permission. The Soviet Union didn’t even provide its own people with maps lest they find out where the borders were.

kennethwolters 2y ago

The more a person is dependent on "associated or local governments" [1] relative to "national or supernational governments", the more freedom they enjoy. This is somewhat counter-intuitive because one might think that if e.g. every resident of a nation had to obey a singular and simple set of national rules, that would promote freedom more than having governments and rules differ between regions. I wont go deeply into the underlying mechanisms of why the more chaotic choice promotes freedom while the more orderly choice reduces freedom but it has something to do with organisations competing for members and members being willing/free to move between those organisations. [1] HOAs, school districts, unions, chapters, guilds, bars, insurances

eru 2y ago
I'm OK with national governments, if the nation in question is a city state. All hail Singapore!
em-bee 2y ago
but there is no competition among HOAs. there isn't enough freedom to move around. there isn't even a chaotic choice because most HOAs are the same. and when 80% of homes sold today are governed by an HOA there is also no choice not to join one. and i am not buying the whole argument. if we accept a hierarchy of governing structures, from the HOA at the bottom, and let's go all the way, the united nations at the top, each level has a a certain set of responsibilities and powers. the difference in the levels is determined by how centralized or distributed those are. but there is no escaping the levels. the problem is that it is unclear who is responsible to deal with overreach. in the US HOAs are largely unregulated, and so there is no protection against overreach. and in particular, they are not government but private organizations. i am of the opinion that mandatory membership in an organization makes that organization an extension of government, and thus it should be bound by the rules local governments must follow.
- kennethwolters 2y ago
  I anticipated this type of reply that states that for HOAs there is not enough freedom of movement and diversity of "HOA flavours" to reap the benefits of this localist/federalist system. And you are right. The situation seems dire and the question is how do we solve this problem? Do we do so by smashing HOAs (and giving the responsibilities to someone else)? I believe this is the wrong approach because it will destroy any potential for this localist (and thus inherently good, imo) system to heal. You're basically passing the baton onto another entity that might do a better job off the start but will inevitably fail because it is even less capable of evolving. I'd rather try to discourage rigidity/complacency and incentivise innovation in the HOA-space which is much more complex to implement but better than smashing HOAs. Regarding your point about "not buying the whole argument": I think it would be foolish to organise a military or pandemic-prevention-force on a municipal level. The levels need to exist and some higher levels have responsibilities that the lower levels don't have. I absolutely believe that this is good. In conclusion, somehow communities of a certain region need to be organised if they want to be organised, especially when the region is densely populated. I'd rather organise these communities through self-emergent associations than top-down mandated government. And yes, the self-emergent association-type HOA is broken. I'd rather fix it than replace it with a inherently worse alternative.

_the_inflator 2y ago

Interesting details and case analysis from your side here. HOAs are subject to debate frequently. Philosophically, freedom has, among other dimensions, the dimension of negative and positive freedom: being free from something and free to do something. Freedom usually refers to individual rights against the state. Freedom to have private contracts is part of what distinguishes socialism from capitalism. What you describe regarding group associations is correct. Others are correct, too, when they appeal to freedom as the right to be spared from something. Freedom to form groups does not mean being forced to join them. That's the point here. HOAs are partly like cartels, in my view.

jl6 2y ago

It's an interesting tradeoff of freedoms when you consider how free a person is to leave a HOA. Purely legally speaking, they are free to leave at any time if the HOA starts to enforce unjust restrictions - but practically speaking, moving house is onerous and many are not in a position to do it. This is essentially a contract where you enter freely, but the other party has the ability to vary the terms unilaterally, and your only recourse is to exit. A tech analogy comes to mind. We freely choose to host our workloads in a Server Owner's Association (sorry, cloud service provider), and we take on the risk that the provider may change the offering and impose restrictions that we don't like. They will tell us that we are free to leave at any time, but switching clouds can be non-trivial to say the least, leaving us feeling trapped and decidedly unfree. The freedom to enter into private contracts is the freedom to bind oneself.

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db48x 2y ago
I would say that your first recourse is the ability to read all the financial documents. As a property owner in an HOA you have every right to read the contracts that your HOA has signed, to audit the books, and to otherwise verify that the HOA board is doing their job correctly. Second recourse is to vote in the elections. If you elect petty tyrants, you get petty tyranny. Third is to run for the board yourself to make sure things are being done correctly. And if all that is too tiresome then yea, sell your property and buy a house that isn’t in an HOA. Most houses aren’t.
- alistairSH 2y ago
  Most houses arent I’m sure this is true nationally, but does it hold locally for areas with good employment prospects? And once you remove apartments (which don’t have HOAs but are subject to the tyranny of the landlord instead)? Genuinely asking because I can’t think of too many areas in NoVA that don’t have HOAs. Correction… There are areas of older housing without, but any subdivisions built since the 80s seems to have one. The areas without tend to be older “downtown” areas (Arlington - very expensive) or on the outskirts (Fairfax Station - very expensive).

robryk 2y ago

HOAs require more than (or a very specific extension of) freedom of association to exist: they require an ability to bind any future owners of a piece of land to join the HOA (regardless of how they acquired that land: via sale, inheritance, bankruptcy, ...). For property that's not real estate that's usually not possible (see e.g. inability of companies to provide binding promises on how the data they have are used after they go bankrupt). Given that this ability applies very inconsistently across types of property, it doesn't seem like an essential part of freedom of association.

throw0101c 2y ago
> HOAs require more than […] freedom of association to exist: they require an ability to bind any future owners of a piece of land to join the HOA […]. You are often not buying a piece of land when you move to a HOA-linked residence, rather you can be buying a particular unit, but there are also 'common areas' that are the property of the legal entity of the HOA. If you do not want to be part of an HOA then you have to purchase what is called (at least in Canada) freehold land. > While most people hear the word “condo” and think of an apartment style unit, that’s not always the case. Some townhouses (and even certain detached homes) are considered condos too. * https://teamkate.ca/difference-freehold-condo-home https://teamkate.ca/difference-freehold-condo-home * https://www.squareyards.ca/blog/freehold-vs-leasehold-regart/ https://www.squareyards.ca/blog/freehold-vs-leasehold-regart... * https://wowa.ca/freehold-meaning https://wowa.ca/freehold-meaning * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freehold_(law) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freehold_(law) If you do not want to be part of an HOA tell your real estate broker that this is one of the criteria for where you want to live.
- anymouse123456 2y ago
  I have no idea about Canada, but in the US, there are lots of single-family home neighborhoods that have, "Home Owner's Associations".
  - skeeter2020 2y ago
    the GP wasn't talking about the type of structure but the legal organization of the property ownership. Canadian provinces have a Condominium Property Act that defines the legislative framework. The implementation can vary by types of units (ranging from apartment-style to single family homes) and the ownership - typically "you own the inside; communal outside" or "you own the inside & dirt; communal outside and shared public spaces". You don't hear talk of "The HOA" but rather "The Condo Board"

anhner 2y ago

There is no freedom of association if there is no freedom FROM association. That is, if your only option is to buy a house within a HOA or not but that house, you're not really free...

shadowgovt 2y ago

But when those groups are tied to real estate ownership they aren't free associations, they are serfdoms.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

I agree. You can be free without having total anarchy. Some (but not too many) laws/rules/restrictions ironically make us more free.

mihaic 2y ago

Your position seems a bit ideological. Ultimate freedom doesn't exist, since pretty much all societies agree that they want to stop people from murdering one another for instance. Any legal system always has to balance individual liberties and the tyranny of the majority (or a law-giving minority). > An HOA that was useful for 50 years and never created any drama could turn bad next year when they elect some new board members. That's why countries for instance have constitutions, so the system is hard to change even when someone new takes power. > true freedom includes the freedom to make mistakes, even big mistakes. That's pretty much the reason why we don't have "true freedom" and we want to stop people from making really terrible and easily avoidable mistakes, like eating food that kills them. Limiting HOA against petty bullshit requirements (with more freedom for an initial set of bullshit requirements) at least is one of these limitations.

tuyiown 2y ago

> People who end up in a petty HOA usually regret it, and come to see joining any HOA as a big mistake. I'm pretty sure that freedom of association is strongly tied to being able to quit the association freely. I don't think that the condition of having to change home to quit an association is a reasonable term.

gizmo686 2y ago

HOAs are not a story of free association. They are a story of privatization. We used to have local government deal with local governance. But local governments decided they didn't want to do that anymore, so they started encouraging the creation of HOAs to deal with all of those pesky local governance issues. If all thar mattered was free association, the fix would be very simple. Enshrine into the the right to leave an HOA. But states won't do that, because once people leave, they will except their local governments to start providing the same services the HOAs do, and all of those local governments are going to complain to the state government.

corysama 2y ago
Felt this when I bought my first house and a week after the sale finalized, my situation changed dramatically and unexpectedly. I needed to move across the country, but the HOA had a strict No Renters clause. So, I had to choose between 1) Spend 30 years paying the mortgage for a house no one can use. 2) Turn around and sell the house I just bought.
- em-bee 2y ago
  that's why i don't like to buy property. presumably you didn't want to just sell again because of the effort involved. if buying and selling was easier and guaranteed to never sell at a loss, then this would not be an issue. how did you resolve the problem?
  - corysama 2y ago
    I ate it. Turned around and sold at a small loss on price, bigger loss on all the costs associated with the process.
    - em-bee 2y ago
      do you think you could have avoided a loss if you were not under pressure to sell, but say, had a few months of time before the move and find a good buyer?

jameshart 2y ago

This is a good perspective, and a great case study in understanding how freedoms are always in tension. The usual remedy to protect people from freely making the mistake of entering into associations that harm them is regulatory, of course. Employment regulations place certain rules on what you can expect when you choose to throw yourself into association with a company as an employee, to prevent you accidentally finding yourself at the whim of an abusive employer. Regulating what kinds of things HOAs can demand is a perfectly reasonable thing for governments to do to make it safer for people to purchase houses with confidence they won’t be subjected to egregious restrictions. So we do end up limiting freedom of association. You can’t join up into an HOA with your neighbors that bans any of you from selling your house to a black family.

xdennis 2y ago

> Someone always scoffs, but I think it is usually a sign that they don’t really understand freedom. Others understand freedom from the perspective of the individual. Americans understand freedom from the perspective of the state. In the first case, you're free if you can practically do something. In the second case you're free if the government doesn't ban it, regardless of whether you can actually do it. Take for example the issue of ads on Smart TVs. There's no law that says you have to have ads on them, but in practice it's impossible to buy a TV which doesn't flood you with ads. People in the first case consider that if a law is passed to ban embedding ads on TVs, then that increases the freedom in the world. Americans consider that banning such ads is a horrible government overreach which hurts the feelings of poor billionaires, and that if people want, they can always buy TVs with no ads, even though no such TVs exist. They prefer an imaginary freedom to a practical one.

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ein0p 2y ago

Yeah, mortgage debt slaves are forced to associate among themselves and pay money to the most insufferable local busybodies available. That’s the “freedom” we’re talking about here. I’m generally against big govt, but in this case I would gladly pay the same amount to the municipal government instead so that they’d maintain the road and public greenery, and otherwise get out of my hair.

_yb2s 2y ago

Unfortunately, in practice most people don’t choose HOAs, they simply can’t afford to live anywhere without one.

nozzlegear 2y ago
I’d love to see numbers on that (not asking you to find them) — it seems logical for me that a home in an HOA would sell for more than a home outside an HOA.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  Most HOAs are in low cost and high density multi-family housing: condos, townhouses, etc. In those cases many of the people living there are renters, but subject to following the rules through their landlords. When you have an HOA with regular single family homes, it generally has to have been setup by the contractor, who build the entire planned community. These mass produced planned communities are also typically cheaper and lower value than individual one-off single family homes, as they are built to a price point for a profit.

insane_dreamer 2y ago

The problem with HOA vs other types of voluntary associations is that it’s very difficult to get out of an HOA — you have literally one recourse: sell and move. That’s a huge barrier because even if you wanted to you may not be able to afford to sell and move. And HOA rules change so the terms you now object to were perhaps not even in place when you agreed to join the HOA. It becomes coercive. When my wife and I last moved to another city and were looking to buy, our first requirement was that our house not be encumbered with an HOA.