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PaperclipPerfector  14hr ago (text post)   464 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 16, 2025

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Monumentally stupid lawsuit:

  • November 2022: A homeowner in a homeowners' association seeks to build a four-foot fence in his backyard, four inches from the property line. He receives approval from both the municipal government and the HOA. Accordingly, the fence is constructed.

  • February 2023: The HOA claims that the fence is in violation of the HOA's rules. The homeowner replies that the fence was built in perfect accordance with the plans that were approved three months ago.

  • March 2023: The HOA seeks to amend its rules in order to impose a minimum setback of ten feet on fences. The amendment fails to garner the required two-thirds vote of all members.

  • September 2023: The HOA sues the homeowner under the theory that the minimum setback of thirty feet prescribed in its rules applies, not just to buildings, but also to fences, overriding the minimum of four inches that is prescribed for fences in the municipal zoning code. The trial judge rejects this argument as utterly ridiculous in April 2024, and the appeals panel affirms in May 2025.

Bonus: Trial transcript

I don't know the size of the lots over there, but, unless you've got a couple of acres, 30 feet back off your property line is a pretty significant distance. Frankly, it wouldn't be very aesthetically pleasing if you look at it that way, which is what these HOA rules are meant to provide. They want to keep the community a certain way, and a 30-foot setback requirement for a fence is just unheard of. I've never seen it anywhere. I've never heard of any association's having a 30-foot setback requirement from a property line for a fence. Drive around South Jersey. A lot of the fences, they're often at the property line, but you've got to get them off your neighbor's line unless you get his permission.

So I don't find that there is any material fact here. I think fences are specifically addressed under 8.1(c). If they wanted a setback requirement to be required, 8.1(c) should have had a setback requirement contained within that area. Otherwise, it should have been all under 8.1(dd), and it should have mentioned fences as well, but it did not. They separated them and there's a reason for that. Fences in one and the structures in another, the accessory buildings and shacks. I think it's pretty clear. And, if there is any ambiguity, you resolve that against the drafter. I think the defendants in this matter, they followed exactly what they were supposed to do under 8.1(c). The fence can stay.

Serious question; how are HOAs legal / constitutional?

The way I understand them, they are, generally, private non-profits. Yet, moving into an area "governed" by compels you to join them. There is no option not to.

How could such a thing be legal? The whole point of local-state-federal government is that they are the only "organization" one is compelled to be subject to. I can't square the existence of HOAs with the necessity of a government (even at the local level) maintaining full sovereign over its geographic jurisdiction

From a legal perspective, requirements to join HOAs are usually set up as contractual requirements on the land, as well as a requirement to pass that onto any further sales of the land. Some created themselves in extant neighborhoods by getting the then-current homeowners to buy in, but these days most are set up by the original land developer and transmit from the first sale on. Courts have invalidated this type of thing in very specific circumstances, but outside of that one context they generally don't like to break real property contract requirements.

That process is, imo, one of the stronger arguments that they can be whitewashed state action: in addition to the dependency on mode of enforcement that Shelley highlighted, land developers can get anything from nod-and-wink permitting favoritism to outright direct grants for setting up HOAs with policies that match whatever the local government wants done.

I'm Not A Fan of them -- there are some reasonable HOAs and some reasonable cause for them like shared facilities maintenance or setting explicit standards of behavior, and there are a tiny portion of actually-voluntary HOAs that don't have such contract requirements. But even the good ones can be pretty easily corrupted by a single neurotic, and a lot were never good to start with. In theory, frustrated homeowners could take over an HOA (or even dissolve it), but in practice the bylaws are set up to make this an incredibly difficult and ponderous thing.

I look forward to an eventual SCOTUS case that crushes them.

I know, it being real estate - and residential real estate at that - there's whole multibillion dollar lobby and industry behind it. Still, I think once home ownership becomes an actual impossibility for 85%+ of Americans, the worm will turn.

This won’t happen. America is HUGE. Not being able to afford a home in top metros won’t stop most Americans from home ownership because lots of Americans will move to Indianapolis for a more affordable lifestyle- far more than 15% of them.

Yes, there are bubbles- and some of those bubbles are disproportionately influential- which view living in a second tier city(or having black neighbors) as a fate worse than death. But most Americans aren’t part of them. Standard of living trumps all, it’ll shake itself out. This isn’t an Asian country where conformism lets such tendencies run rampant.

They're a replacement of the city layer of government in parts of the US where people live at suburban density outside cities.

True rural life has rules that assume each owner had many acres and most activities don't meaningfully affect their neighbors enjoyment of their landm. This sucks when houses get built at suburban densities (less than half an acre per home) so HOAs let communities build shared infastructure (roads and sewers mostly) and set community standards like cities do. They don't use laws which apply to new homeowners rather they use deed covenants.

They're a replacement of the city layer of government in parts of the US where people live at suburban density outside cities.

This is not even true, or at least not the whole picture. HOAs are common (and even make some sense) in condo communities with shared walls/floors, which are denser than suburbs and usually not built on unincorporated county land.

But you can also easily find detached houses within city limits with HOAs.

Does every HOA start imploding on harassing people over trivialities after they achieve their primary mission of keeping human garbage out of the neighborhood?

No. We have an HOA. I have zero complaints about them being too strict. I wish they were slightly stricter. E.g. a neighbor has a giant LED american flag just inside a garage window. This is technically not HOA violating because it isn't outdoor lighting.

No, but you don't hear about the ones that just manage the neighborhood to the satisfaction of the residents.

Sure seems too. I had a buddy who lived in a shitty townhome community in a bad part of town, and the HOA rode his ass about the color of his front door (which was picked directly from the HOA's list of approved colors), but didn't seem to care one wit about the broken down vehicles scattered about the guest parking spaces, the litter scattered about by scumbag kids, or any of the other daily inconveniences caused by living among low trust, high time preference demographics.

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