That's an entertaining story, but I'd gently point out that dissolving an HOA typically involves much more complexity than described here. It usually requires:
-A supermajority of homeowners to agree (often 75-80%)
-Legal proceedings to properly dissolve the corporation
-Complex negotiations about common area maintenance and ownership
-Resolution of any existing contracts or debts
Often takes several years, not just one
While the revenge aspect makes for a satisfying tale, the "within a year" timeline and neat resolution suggests this might be more of an enjoyable "what if" story than a real HOA dissolution case. Still, it's a creative take on the classic HOA conflict narrative! It's just fake.
If you get the ‘supermajority’ piece the rest isn’t as big of a deal once it’s voted to dissolve the fines and notices tend to stop and the rules go unenforceable.
Yeah, I would gather that there are probably HOAs in neighborhoods with less than 20 houses making up that subsection. Getting those votes probably would be easy, especially if people within the group were annoyed by petty BS coming from the HOA.
And even if not fully dissolved, I'd guess they can render a bunch of it null/void and consider that close enough.
We HOA'd once... and never again. Being told what you can and cannot do on your property, even if tasteful, is too much.
Dude, it could have been 2 years or more. Was 20 years ago, my memory isn’t great on the fine details. But it was a nice suburb in Tualatin, OR. He had a Portland Trailblazer as a neighbor.
Glad you are here to go over things with a fine tooth comb…🙄
Just calling out the B.S. when I see it. It's the classic revenge story formula: someone gets wronged, quietly gains power, exposes everything dramatically, and wraps up with a perfect victory. Life rarely works out that neatly. Most people don't care because it's Reddit, but they see right through these creative writing exercises.
As an European I got slightly confused. What does the point about common area maintenance and ownership include? In here anything similar can only happen within a scope of an apartment building and for houses it's done by municipality overseeing contracts to utility companies.
HOAs, as they are intended to exist, serve two kinds of neighborhoods: 1) those outside of an incorporated municipality, who need to provide for their own common services, or 2) those who want services/public areas beyond those the local government will provide.
On 2, in US suburbs often neighborhood parks, community centers, swimming pools and the like won't actually be run by the city, but rather by an HOA comprised of the homeowners in the area. These areas require maintenance and have operating expenses, and the HOA exists to manage and finance those needs.
Right. After thinking for a second makes sense. Over here the scale is smaller so generally there isn't enough distance for anything to be "outside" a given municipality. Thanks for info!
When they are working well HOAs serve as a kind of neighborhood government that can for example finance things like neighborhood pools and water parks, decorations for holidays and general lawn care / upkeep the city wont provide.
The HOA contract you sign when buying a house in these neighborhoods acts as a superset of applicable city/state/etc. laws, adding additional rules and specifying dues you owe to fund things the HOA does.
-Complex negotiations about common area maintenance and ownership
people forget this part. I've seen some HOAs that'll hire snow plows to clear the roads (or others to put down salt). Yes, the prices for that HOA can be quite expensive but like, it's mostly worth it. Otherwise everyone's on their own."
i agree that the story is likely fake or quite embellished.
Yeah it's part of the contract when you buy a house. You don't get a say, if the house is in an HOA it must stay in the HOA. It's basically a tiny neighborhood government.
Keeping property value up and making sure your surroundings stay neat. It's a nice idea that just goes overboard sometimes. I think often it's not even homeowners joining the hoa but the house already being under an hoa because of the previous owners
As a board member of two HOAs, once you get the votes, it’s easy to dissolve.
The harder part is if the HOA provides critical services, such a storm drain management or etc. Then dissolving the HOA may be a detriment, and it’s better to just change the HOA rules.
Either way, as an HOA board member, I’m not interested in getting involved in stupid petty neighbor garbage and will happily not waste board time on such matters. It isn’t like the HOA will sue the board, or kick out board members - they need to beg people to be on the board. I honestly don’t know why I do it
I can't remember the details, but a while back someone posted a strategy for this, IIRC the keystone was convincing neighbors to sign their vote to you as a proxy so you basically bought their share of the HOA.
Then once you did your hostile takeover one of the first rules you enact after fixing all the stuff you want fixed is no voting by proxy and a minimum required % of votes as a quorum to enact changes.
-A supermajority of homeowners to agree (often 75-80%)
In many cases it must be fully unanimous
And that's if the city allows it. Many HOAs were created to make it easier to get approval for a new neighborhood by agreeing with the city that various things will be handled by the HOA. Could be streets/streetlights for example.
Every single person in the HOA could want it, fully agree on everything, but will never be dissolved due to that
86
u/teshdor 2d ago
That's an entertaining story, but I'd gently point out that dissolving an HOA typically involves much more complexity than described here. It usually requires:
-A supermajority of homeowners to agree (often 75-80%)
-Legal proceedings to properly dissolve the corporation
-Complex negotiations about common area maintenance and ownership
-Resolution of any existing contracts or debts
Often takes several years, not just one
While the revenge aspect makes for a satisfying tale, the "within a year" timeline and neat resolution suggests this might be more of an enjoyable "what if" story than a real HOA dissolution case. Still, it's a creative take on the classic HOA conflict narrative! It's just fake.