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> You are not at the mercy of anyone. In many jurisdictions within the United States, an HOA can assess fines for exceedingly trivial violations, then after th

> You are not at the mercy of anyone. In many jurisdictions within the United States, an HOA can assess fines for exceedingly trivial violations, then after the fines remain unpaid for a time period as short as 6 weeks, file to sell your home at auction to pay the fees. They can take your home from you, evict you from it, and this is deemed perfectly legal. Do they have to provide proof, for instance, that your grass was actually one half inch too tall? No, there is no adversarial process where they would have to prove that were the case. > I pointed out that nowhere in the condo bylaws was a grill mentioned. They said something about city fire codes, so I got a note from the fire department. They were unable to force me to do anything. It must be very thrilling to be able to be an amateur lawyer and win a case. Have fun, because those people tend to hold grudges. My experience is that you'll never have a week of peace for as long as you live there again.

mattmaroon 2y ago
This all happened 3 years ago. I’ve never heard a word from my HOA since. I think the HOA board actually believed it was against fire code, but it turns out that’s only true if you’re not on the ground floor. (My community is 4 stories so 3/4 of people cannot have grills). Other grills have appeared since. They can only assess you fines for violations of rules you agreed to. And fines are usually small. For instance, in my last HOA, they fined me $15 for having A flag holder. I ignored the warning because it was there when I bought the place and I didn’t really want it anyway, and then when the fine came, I simply removed the flag holder and paid $15. Most of the cases were the end up confiscating somebody’s property is because they are simply egregiously not doing something they had already signed a contract saying they would do. I am sure there are cases, they always are, but it isn’t a legitimate problem.

mattmaroon 2y ago

This all happened 3 years ago. I’ve never heard a word from my HOA since. I think the HOA board actually believed it was against fire code, but it turns out that’s only true if you’re not on the ground floor. (My community is 4 stories so 3/4 of people cannot have grills). Other grills have appeared since. They can only assess you fines for violations of rules you agreed to. And fines are usually small. For instance, in my last HOA, they fined me $15 for having A flag holder. I ignored the warning because it was there when I bought the place and I didn’t really want it anyway, and then when the fine came, I simply removed the flag holder and paid $15. Most of the cases were the end up confiscating somebody’s property is because they are simply egregiously not doing something they had already signed a contract saying they would do. I am sure there are cases, they always are, but it isn’t a legitimate problem.