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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
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
I'm president of the board of my local HOA. It seems typical for many in the area that it was put in place by the developer when the area was built out and that it exists at all is completely down to the city (that entirely surrounds the development) being unwilling to pay for anything. The dues of around $200/mo cover maintaining the roads/streetlights/signange, bridge over a 50ft ravine (it's hilly), landscaping along the roads and various maintenance activities with the 1/2 of the overall land that is 'dedicated open space' by demand of the city (the developer wanted to put in significantly more housing, that they were able to put in any was only after much negotiating from what I understand) which we are not allowed to say chop down dead trees in but also must keep from burning down all the houses and neighboring properties (a lot of weed whacking and brush clearing is involved). It would probably be dissolved if the city would take over the relevant maintenance (which it won't), it's all single family homes.
Our general challenge is getting enough volunteer board members (3), I don't think we've ever had a contested election in the entire history, and getting to quorum of votes (50%+1) in any election (last time was maybe 6 years ago?). The only somewhat contentious things we've had to deal with are parking disputes (no street parking allowed, we apparently can be forced pay to maintain the roads but the city gets final say on how they are used) so guest parking is limited. Technically, the by-laws give us the power to require (and enforce with inspections) that garages be cleared out enough to park two cars and the two cars are parked in the garage before parking in the driveways or guest parking, though we haven't yet reached the point of enforcing that. We have some other powers, but I suspect the only thing we'd enforce them around is planting large trees [eg. redwoods etc.], changing the exterior colors of houses, and hogging common areas [parking especially]. In general, the city does still get a quite significant amount of control over things, pre-me they tried to install a gate near the entrance of the community (it's like 15 acres or so, so plenty of room) and the city absolutely forbid it as in 'out-of-character' for the city and stated their policy is to allow only in the grandfathered places. So our power over this 'private' sub-city is limited.
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Presumably because of demand. As I figure, the HOA is basically a way of forcibly excluding people who can’t “fit in” with the community or follow the rules. Reading in between the lines, that was what was going on in this case, as in, classic bullying. Probably the people trying to force defendant to fit in were a real mess of busybodies, obviously, as they brought a dumb case to court, but this is the function here.
In a more sympathetic case, imagine a family moved in who left rusting cars on the lawn and other obnoxious but not quite illegal things that nobody of your class or background would do. How do you make them stop? I know a lot of the people here are libertarians, principled or otherwise, but the average Joe ain’t and would rather keep those families out, or else coloring within the lines. Personally I don’t empathize and enjoy my freedom more, but I get that’s a rarity overall.
And apparently HOAs are overall popular. People like em. Or at least, they aren’t the kind of radioactive that would stop people buying these properties, even with the very obvious downsides, and encourage developers to not enforce them. I know revealed preferences is a meme, but it seems to apply here.
Relating this out. I’ve seen a lot of people on this forum arguing pretty directly for a shared US culture. Well, the HOA feels exactly like what’s being asked for here - an association that punishes deviance with process, and upholds normalcy. Japan is a pretty culturally centralized place, and from what I hear from my friends there, pretty much every little village and neighborhood has its own little HOA (micro-local government). They organize things like who goes to sweep out the graveyard, sure, but also make certain nobody gets too far out of line, in that distinctive passive-aggressive but unmistakably Japanese way. And I think of that, and of the fuck-you American spirit, and it makes me laugh a little. Conformists are allowed their little liberties here, but why think they’re remotely popular? An American will only subject himself to banding together once he’s exhausted the alternatives for keeping the undesirables out.
(This is ignoring the little associations that are just about funding shared resources, like an HOA that pays for the community pool. Those have a straightforward reason to be.)
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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.
Aren't they limited by the rule against perpetuities?
I'd expect that it's like a conservation easement. The rights are transferred to the HOA before the first sale, so you never have the full title to the land.
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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.
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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.
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.
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