Hi Lemmy, My HOA sent out a email saying dogs are no longer allowed on any grass in common areas or front yards including grass between sidewalk and curb which is… everywhere except our own tiny backyards. The reasoning is some dog urine effected dead spots. Honestly I didn’t even notice them, it’s 95° here and all the grass looks sad.
It’s a walking town and we are not a gated community, non-residents walk their dogs here all the time, so this rule can only punish those who live here and has no ability to effect others.
Anyway, this seems like a ‘we have tried nothing and we are all out of ideas!’ moment so I wanted to see if anyone here had any suggestions I can pass on to maintain a “good” curb appeal ground cover-wise while allowing dogs to do normal dog stuff.
I can converse with the HOA board in good faith, but this rule is basically banning dogs from the neighborhood - which I super did not sign up for.
Pertainent info: PA, USA - Town Home style homes - small central common grass - owned for 8y.
Edit: it seems like people may have glossed over the question part and skipped straight to HOA bashing (which is warranted at times!) so I will rephrase:
What ground covering or neighborhood solutions to similar (perceived) issues have other communities employed?
When you buy the house you sign a contract giving them authority over certain things. You’re bound by the terms of the contract.
Is it not possible to just not sign that contract? All contracts can be changed and if part of selling the house is that you are not beholden to the HOA, why is it forced on you?
Why does the HOA have any authority in the sale of a house? The contract is between the buyer, seller, and their financial institutions. Anyone else is unnecessary.
It’s not, not if you want to buy the house. The way it works is this:
I’m a property developer and I want to put in a new area of housing. Well that’s gonna be expensive up front, roads have to be paved, utilities like power and sewage ran, and houses and common areas built. That’s all very expensive, my incentive for doing so is that the property values will remain high. So before I sell a house to anyone, I establish an HOA and require anyone who wishes to buy a house to sign the contract for it. You don’t want to sign the contract, you don’t buy the house. That contract also includes a stipulation that if you sell the house you have to include the provision for the HOA.
Now HOAs can be dissolved. Once enough people own houses that they can form their own HOA board they are free to do so, and usually do. That board then takes over the control of the content of those contracts including the provision requiring their signing. So if you want to dissolve an HOA you get on the board or lobby your neighbors to do so, call a meeting, and dissolve it. If you can get enough of your neighbors to agree, the HOA is gone.
There’s usually some bullshit to allow the developer to retain control indefinitely. There will be provisions for the turnover, but the stipulations will involve something that won’t happen for sixty years.
But HOAs are communities right? Doesn’t a HOA meeting have super authority, to remove bylaws like that?
No community I know of in Dutch legislation can block a community (‘vereniging’) from dissolving itself. Moreso since there’s always a law above it on how to disband a community, which cannot be bypassed.
No, I don’t believe we have that kind of protection here. I don’t know enough details to say what kind of protections (if any) we do have.
Any HOA can dissolve itself, it merely requires the consent and vote of the board. The rules on how that happens are in the HOA’s bylaws. There’s nothing in law preventing them from doing so.
This is mostly governed under American contract law.
It’s possible to not buy the house, but the covenant/contract comes with it. Can’t do one without the other. When it’s formed the owner and the HOA have an agreement that no sale of an HOA’d property can take place without the buyer also agreeing to be in the HOA. The HOA has authority given to them by the owner of the property.