Jim Sharkey wrote:
>
> Gary Nunn wrote:
> >
> >You might own the house, the garden and the lot, but if you're one
> >of the nearly 50 million Americans living in communities run by
> >homeowners associations, you may find you don't have the freedom to
> >do everything you like on your property.
>
> >http://abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/DailyNews/2020_homeowners_02419.html
>
> Wowsers. Note to self: Check to make sure self-important people can't set the rules
>for what I do to my own house.
>
> Thanks for the link, Gary.
>
> Jim
Check to see what restrictions are put on your use of the property, and
find out who is enforcing the restrictions, and do that before you buy
it.
If it's a homeowners'/property owners' association, get involved. Some
of the people involved are on a little bit of a power trip; having sane
folks on committees and boards and what-not help keep the situation a
little happier overall. My husband doesn't have time for it, but he's
on the finance committee of the property owners' association in the
neighborhood where we're building our house. At the meeting where
committees were being selected, the only two people volunteering were
the guy who had been doing it and a second guy who wanted an auditing
down to the last penny to know *exactly* what was being done with his
dues. Dan figured that was a disaster waiting to happen if no one else
joined them, and he had some experience both with working with money (he
was at one point CFO of his small software company) and working with
difficult people (some of the other people at that small software
company), and no one else volunteered.
The deed restrictions we are acutely aware of that are really affecting
our house under construction are, 1) plans need to be approved by a
committee of the POA (and ours were, no problem); 2) the exterior of the
house has to be 90% masonry (i.e., stone or brick) and no more than 10%
wood or other materials (and this is something we can live with
happily); 3) restrictions on fences: no chain link except within other
fencing, fences must be wood or nicer-looking metal fencing, and this
one is the worst pain for us of any of the restrictions, but we can live
with it. (Talk to me if you want to know how much a privacy fence costs
to put up next month.... We *will* be putting in a little chain-link,
to make a dog run within the bigger fence, but based on what other folks
in the neighborhood are doing, that is acceptable.)
One of our neighbors had a problem with the POA, and there was an
article on-line last fall about it, but it's gone now, or I'd post a
link. I'll try to explain in a later post, if anyone's interested. (I
am so fried right now, I feel like one of the onion rings I ate at
lunchtime.)
Julia
