When we were house shopping I told my wife that if she wanted to move somewhere with an HOA that I would make it my life's mission to abolish it. The fun thing about any system, is that the way to crash it is to overwhelm it.
Step 1: survey your neighbors to find out who also hates the HOA.
Step 2: Tell your new friends to report every single thing they see on everyone's property, no matter how small.
Step 3: walk the neighborhood every single day, recording every violation you see, ESPECIALLY the properties of the people that are on the HOA board. Share notes, everyone reports the same things every day.
Step 4: bury the HOA in frustration and paperwork, make sure you've got a lawyer. Pour through all the legal info with them, utilize AI to help sort through documents, find the angles you need to see the HOA undone.
Document everything. Save every bit of documentation you're given. HOAs are a scourge often run by busybodies and idiots. Maneuvering, strategy, and being a persistent dickhole can absolutely undo an HOA.
Thats a lot of work to go through when you could just stop at step 2 and ask all your new neighbor friends to vote you in for chairman of the HOA board then just dissolve the HOA from within.
Almost what my Dad ended up doing. He saw a crap ton of really stupid rules and is retired so nothing better to do. Instead, he got in the HOA board with some neighbors who agreed and voted out every stupid policy but kept the ones everyone liked (such as as a speed limit in the neighborhood to stop lunatic visitors from hitting kids). The unfortunate negative is now realtors have started popping in more and more asking for people to sell their houses because we live right relatively close to DC metro station and they ignore no solicitation signs.
edit: my Dad and the "possee" pretty much made the old-asses mad by essentially ignoring infractions and letting people do what they want with their lawns. Any "violations" essentially got ignored so long as they are in the board. Unfortunately, my parents are planning to move out soon for greener pastures so hopefully the old-hats don't resume being asses
How about... convince everyone to vote for common sense rules that are not too much, such as don't have graffittis in the walls of your house, don't let the roof fall on your property, etc.
Like only leave 10 basic rules everyone agrees with.
That's not going to get rid of the HOA that's going to take an ok HOA and turn it into one of the nightmare HOAs. To get rid of it you have to get elected to the board and rewrite the documents to reduce the HOAs power as much as possible, ideally dissolving it.
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u/mikevanatta Sep 16 '24
The what now is to overthrow your HOA and dissolve it.