Do People Ever Really Own Their Home Anymore?

[nioka]

Home ownership is an illusion in an HOA. One surrenders their rights when submitting to an HOA and in many cases means doing the bidding of a few. If the board is strictly volunteer then what happens is people who want to control others seem to rise to the top. These people just love criticizing others and forcing others to do their will otherwise known as the covenants. I like to call these folks office Nazis.
Over the years we find a new business has emerged that provides a management service for HOAs. These management groups are usually people who could not find legitimate work elsewhere and were able to convince a few unsuspecting people the HOA would run better. Unlike the volunteers we now have paid managers who are intertwined with attorneys all trying to prove their worth at the expense of a homeowner who unknowingly parks one of his vehicles too close to the curb. When one of the homeowners complains, well, NO SOUP FOR YOU!
I think one of the most significant factors in HOAs is that fact that many of our legislators are heavily invested in them. The top lobbyist group is the financial sector followed by the real estate sector. These lobbyists have conspired with politicians to provide a power to the HOA equal to the any taxing agency and stripping the homeowner of any means of airing a complaint.
In the news, HOA residents fined for planting trees that were too small, parking too close to the curb, vehicles other than cars, grass and inch to tall, removing dead trees, flying an American flag, planting the wrong color flower, and the list goes on and on and on.

In an HOA the resident does not own the property. It is the reverse, the property owns them.

[Lilyat108x]

It would not bother me one bit if my neighbor had one of these trucks unless he was parking on my property. I grew up in Brevard County on 1 3/4 of an acre and I don't see the reason for this, even on a smaller lot. What about all the hard working entrepreneurs who own these vehicles? Where are they supposed to park? People aren't automatically burglars because they drive a big truck. In an HOA maybe because the houses are so cramped together. Here we have an issue with parking even with regular cars. Our neighbor on one side has 5-6 vehicles and sometimes parks in the street in front of our house and we don't mind because we park in our driveway and garage most of the time. Our other neighbor(renters) spits on your car if you park in street in front of "his" house. One time my disabled daughter had her car parked there and he spit on it and left a note telling her to park in her own yard. Then another time, my daughter's 17 year old friend parked there and that neighbor spit on his car and threatened to kick his @*%!

[bcohen]

I disagree with the above posting. If a person who works for a living cannot park their work truck in front of their home--or even in an enclosed garage, as the ordinance in Brevard County, FL prohibits--then they hardly "own" their home! At least in the city where I live, the local government has not seen fit to punish hardworking tradesmen with silly restrictions that they cannot even park their work truck--which is needed for their livelihood--in front of their house. There are some HOA's here which have these restrictions, but there are also some which will grant permission for people to park smaller commercial vehicles on their property, if necessary for their job.

What is interesting to me is that people who rent their home almost never seem to face these silly restrictions. Even the fanciest apartment complexes here, in the priciest neighborhoods have no problem with tenants parking their work truck on the property. If they did, then I'm sure they would quickly find themselves out of business for lack of suitable tenants. HOA's are able to impose silly restrictions because they know once you've bought the house, you are locked in. A tenant can always move as soon as the lease is over, and property management companies generally understand that fact and thus try to keep their tenants happy.

[justbroke]

Yes, you do own your home. There are even ordinances in any particular town, city, county that may impose conditions not too dissimilar to what an HOA's bylaws (covenants, conditions and restrictions).

As for parking, this has always been an issue even in major cities. In some major cities, you can't perk overnight on streets. Some HOAs have similar rules. Most HOAs have rules against commercial vehicles overnight in plane sight. Now, there are reasons why most HOAs just adopt other HOA rules on commercial vehicle parking. It was originally to prevent crime. There were MAJOR criminal rings that would use -- and still do today -- commercial vehicles to burglarize a home. The HOA that I live in now, does not have such a restriction in my particular sub-division, but others do ban both overnight parking and all commercial vehicles over 3 hours.

Unless you want to live in the boonies, Montana is really nice, you will be subject to some sort of restrictions in the form of HOA CC&Rs or town, city, and/or county ordinances.

So yes, you own your home. If you want to park commercial vehicles at a home, then it must be zoned for commercial use or mixed use. I know that I don't want to live next door, at least in my neighborhood, to large UPS step vans on the street. Besides, they are really too large for our traditional "18 feet curb to curb with on-street parking" streets where I live.

[Lilyat108x]

Seems like they want to act like an HOA. So much for freedom inside and outside your home, garage etc. They want to control everything.

http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20140307/NEWS01/303070013/Brevard-bans-commercial-step-vans-from-home-parking