As an european, the whole concept of a hoa is so nuts and crazy. And that in the land of the supposed free.
Once more it shows, if a country needs to call it self something a bit too loudly, that's because it needs to convice the population that the lie is true.
Those only exist if you literally live in the same house where you have constant communal costs and a legal shared responsibility for the house. It would be close to impossible to have freehold apartments (Eigentumswohnungen) without one.
The difference is that with a flat you buy part of a shared legal thing. You don't buy a flat but part of a building.
Imagine buying a shared car. A few people pool money together and buy a car, and afterward they split up who owns which part. And then the guy with the steering wheel decides that the steering wheel isn't necessary, so he rips it out and sells it. Does it make sense to allow him to do that, thus disableing the car for everyone else too?
If you buy a house, you don't buy a part of a physically inseparable thing. You are buying a stand-alone detached house on its own separate piece of land. There's no shared common part that's inseparably attached to the land. Roads belong to the city/state, so they are already covered that way.
And if there's like a common piece of land for everyone's use (like a playground or something) that belongs to the HOA, then there's no reason that this needs to be coupled to the land you bought.
In Europe there are voluntary village associations or stuff like that too, and that means you are only allowed to use these common pieces of land if you are a member of the association. And the association then only cares for these common pieces of land, not for how exactly your lawn is supposed to look.
It's not a complicated word. The only thing is that German joins compound words, while English puts a space into it.
If German would follow English rules, this would be a Wohnungs Eigentümer Gemeinschaft, which, translated to english would be a Flat Owner Association.
Or if English followed German rules it would be a flatownerassociation. Would you have a lot of difficulty reading that?
You're free to not buy into an HOA. That's what I did.
Of course, being able to implement such a construct feels very free to me. You're allowed to get a group of people together for a binding contract in regards to how you should act as a neighbor. To me, the only flaw is that the HOA is tied to the house. It definitely feels dumb to decide you don't want a house because you can't agree to their stupid rules.
The crazy thing is that you can put your will in regards to property into a covenant on a property title and that will then carries on indefinitely.
If you own a piece of land you should own it, and apart from the laws governing the use of the land you should be able to do with it whatever you want.
It's kinda crazy that you can put whatever you want into a covenant and thus "poison" that piece of land in perpetuity. HOAs are part of that.
It takes a special kind of megalomania to believe that just because you paid for a plot of land, that you're entitled to bind it to your will forever...
It's also an issue that's getting bigger with time. In the 50s most areas were freshly built up from the ground. You don't like the rules in one neighbourhood? No problem, just buy some of the empty land around it and do what you want.
By now about every piece of somewhat sensible land is owned. There's not that much completely fresh development in areas where people actually want to live voluntarily anymore.
So most people buy "pre-owned" land. Land with covenants on it. And with covenants often being perpetual, that means more and more land will get poisoned by them.
Most HOAs aren't created by neighbors, but by developers.
Basically, most developers doing greenfield development (most new housing built in the US) build a pretty large tract of land as a development. Constructing all the houses in the development takes years. The developer is selling a particular image of a neighborhood to their buyers, not just a house - the same house can get radically different prices if the neighborhood it is in has good curb appeal. So the developer makes an HOA. When you buy a house in the development early on, the HOA is making sure that you keep everything looking picture perfect so they developer can maximize home sale prices on the houses they are still building. Hence, arcane rules about what colors you can paint your house, what kind of grass you can have in your yard, etc. As well as the stipulation that an absurd majority of the HOA's board must approve any changes to the rules (the developer controls some number of board seats while development is ongoing).
You're free to not buy into an HOA. That's what I did.
A huge percentage of new subdivisions are HOA. You can't deny that avoiding them severely limits your options, especially if you're the kind of person who's intimidated by old houses.
(I live in an ~80-year-old house without an HOA, so yes, I'm well aware it can be done. But that doesn't mean everybody, or even the majority of people, can do it because most of the housing stock is not like this.)
The nice thing is tho, if a neighborhood is built without one, it's almost impossible to start one. So if we had a way to focus on the shitty developers who want to attract white flight by making racist HOAs, we could see progress. But we can't do things like that, those developers are in charge.
Apart from Nazis being banned, I don't see any liberties being cut. Are you confusing Europe with the UK?
And as long as you aren't a nazi, it's a pretty good thing that nazis are banned. The US could have benefitted from the same thing. Now you got a Nazi in chief. Aren't you proud of that?
That’s actually new to me too. The opposite is more common, like only the US flag, state flag, or sports teams are allowed. I haven’t heard of an HOA actually requiring a flag.
I zoomed in to look at the flag and I was like, no it's not exactly the same. The real house has a round black window upstairs and ok that's my phone's camera nevermind.
39 Comments
lol_idk@piefed.social · 66 pts · 351d
If only they had the flag in the flag in the flag...
relativestranger@feddit.nl · 33 pts · 351d
that was the first thing i looked for.
Nariom@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 351d
that's the second step picture, which would be printed to then be hanged for a third picture and so on
cliffracer_cloaka@piefed.social · 1 pts · 253d
You're one flag to far already.
TragicNotCute@lemmy.world · 45 pts · 351d
otacon239@lemmy.world · 35 pts · 351d
If I lived in a place that “required” a flag, you bet I’d be taking full credit with malicious compliance.
Cobrachicken@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 351d
That really a thing?
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 351d
Stupid HOA rules? You bet.
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 28 pts · 351d
As an european, the whole concept of a hoa is so nuts and crazy. And that in the land of the supposed free.
Once more it shows, if a country needs to call it self something a bit too loudly, that's because it needs to convice the population that the lie is true.
thejoker954@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 351d
As an american, the whole concept of an hoa is so nuts and crazy.
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 351d
Ah, I see the completely understandable mix-up, there.
Like so many of us 99%ers across the world, you're mistaking the word "freedom" for its corporate product & homonym "Freedumb".
(Often paired with its buy-line "Freedom® isn't free". [FYI, the hate isn't silent -anymore])
Dozzi92@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 351d
Do you mean wohnungseigentümergemeinschaften?
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 351d
Those only exist if you literally live in the same house where you have constant communal costs and a legal shared responsibility for the house. It would be close to impossible to have freehold apartments (Eigentumswohnungen) without one.
HOAs are quite a different concept.
Dozzi92@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 351d
It's different because the houses are separate? HOAs start as a way to maintain common amenities/utilities.
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 351d
The difference is that with a flat you buy part of a shared legal thing. You don't buy a flat but part of a building.
Imagine buying a shared car. A few people pool money together and buy a car, and afterward they split up who owns which part. And then the guy with the steering wheel decides that the steering wheel isn't necessary, so he rips it out and sells it. Does it make sense to allow him to do that, thus disableing the car for everyone else too?
If you buy a house, you don't buy a part of a physically inseparable thing. You are buying a stand-alone detached house on its own separate piece of land. There's no shared common part that's inseparably attached to the land. Roads belong to the city/state, so they are already covered that way.
And if there's like a common piece of land for everyone's use (like a playground or something) that belongs to the HOA, then there's no reason that this needs to be coupled to the land you bought.
In Europe there are voluntary village associations or stuff like that too, and that means you are only allowed to use these common pieces of land if you are a member of the association. And the association then only cares for these common pieces of land, not for how exactly your lawn is supposed to look.
otter@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 351d
No, they don't. That's their excuse for existing legally. 🖕🏽
MotoAsh@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 351d
TheBat@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 351d
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 351d
It's not a complicated word. The only thing is that German joins compound words, while English puts a space into it.
If German would follow English rules, this would be a Wohnungs Eigentümer Gemeinschaft, which, translated to english would be a Flat Owner Association.
Or if English followed German rules it would be a flatownerassociation. Would you have a lot of difficulty reading that?
TheBat@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 351d
Alexstarfire@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 351d
You're free to not buy into an HOA. That's what I did.
Of course, being able to implement such a construct feels very free to me. You're allowed to get a group of people together for a binding contract in regards to how you should act as a neighbor. To me, the only flaw is that the HOA is tied to the house. It definitely feels dumb to decide you don't want a house because you can't agree to their stupid rules.
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 351d
The crazy thing is that you can put your will in regards to property into a covenant on a property title and that will then carries on indefinitely.
If you own a piece of land you should own it, and apart from the laws governing the use of the land you should be able to do with it whatever you want.
It's kinda crazy that you can put whatever you want into a covenant and thus "poison" that piece of land in perpetuity. HOAs are part of that.
ByteJunk@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 351d
Definitely.
It takes a special kind of megalomania to believe that just because you paid for a plot of land, that you're entitled to bind it to your will forever...
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 351d
It's also an issue that's getting bigger with time. In the 50s most areas were freshly built up from the ground. You don't like the rules in one neighbourhood? No problem, just buy some of the empty land around it and do what you want.
By now about every piece of somewhat sensible land is owned. There's not that much completely fresh development in areas where people actually want to live voluntarily anymore.
So most people buy "pre-owned" land. Land with covenants on it. And with covenants often being perpetual, that means more and more land will get poisoned by them.
blarghly@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 351d
Most HOAs aren't created by neighbors, but by developers.
Basically, most developers doing greenfield development (most new housing built in the US) build a pretty large tract of land as a development. Constructing all the houses in the development takes years. The developer is selling a particular image of a neighborhood to their buyers, not just a house - the same house can get radically different prices if the neighborhood it is in has good curb appeal. So the developer makes an HOA. When you buy a house in the development early on, the HOA is making sure that you keep everything looking picture perfect so they developer can maximize home sale prices on the houses they are still building. Hence, arcane rules about what colors you can paint your house, what kind of grass you can have in your yard, etc. As well as the stipulation that an absurd majority of the HOA's board must approve any changes to the rules (the developer controls some number of board seats while development is ongoing).
grue@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 351d
A huge percentage of new subdivisions are HOA. You can't deny that avoiding them severely limits your options, especially if you're the kind of person who's intimidated by old houses.
(I live in an ~80-year-old house without an HOA, so yes, I'm well aware it can be done. But that doesn't mean everybody, or even the majority of people, can do it because most of the housing stock is not like this.)
sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 350d
I'm a fan of conservation easements
BanMe@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 351d
The nice thing is tho, if a neighborhood is built without one, it's almost impossible to start one. So if we had a way to focus on the shitty developers who want to attract white flight by making racist HOAs, we could see progress. But we can't do things like that, those developers are in charge.
grue@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 351d
A big part of the problem is that local governments often encourage HOAs so that they can shirk their duty to provide infrastructure.
Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio · -2 pts · 351d
Y'all aint exactly chock full of liberties over there is ya? Might want to check for glass before you start throwing stones.
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 351d
Apart from Nazis being banned, I don't see any liberties being cut. Are you confusing Europe with the UK?
And as long as you aren't a nazi, it's a pretty good thing that nazis are banned. The US could have benefitted from the same thing. Now you got a Nazi in chief. Aren't you proud of that?
Texas_Hangover@lemmy.radio · 0 pts · 349d
Yeah, ain't you special. At least I can criticize israel without getting arrested for it.
squaresinger@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 349d
So you can't find a difference between criticising Israel (which is totally legal in the EU) and being a Nazi (which is not in many EU countries)?
Which means, when you are saying you are critizising Israel it's an euphemism for being a Nazi?
Get lost, Texan.
Cobrachicken@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 351d
TIL, ty.
scytale@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 351d
That’s actually new to me too. The opposite is more common, like only the US flag, state flag, or sports teams are allowed. I haven’t heard of an HOA actually requiring a flag.
Genius@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 350d
In this house we stand for the flag 🏴☠️
Kolanaki@pawb.social · 34 pts · 351d
🎶Our house! In the middle of our house!🎶
M137@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 351d
https://youtu.be/k55FYtqtXXU
BotsRuinedEverything@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 351d
I zoomed in to look at the flag and I was like, no it's not exactly the same. The real house has a round black window upstairs and ok that's my phone's camera nevermind.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 351d
Opisek@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 350d
Needs more recursion
goldfndr@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 350d
Next up: a public bookcase in the shape of the house. Like these.
M0oP0o@mander.xyz · 3 pts · 351d
Well shit, now I have to do this.