25 Nightmare Stories About Homeowners Associations

‘I was charged $50 because they didn’t like my patio furniture’
25 Nightmare Stories About Homeowners Associations

If your only exposure to homeowners associations consists of that one Frasier episode, consider yourself lucky. It appears that dorks who got shoved into lockers for the majority of their youth are now getting their revenge by making petty rules about grass length and outdoor decor. For instance, one woman fell and broke her hip in her driveway only to get slapped with a fine by her homeowners association for “sleeping in the driveway in the middle of the day.” 

It doesn’t stop there either. Numerous Redditors have come forward to share their homeowners association horror stories — from dog poop feuds to a president who would go anywhere to chase down unpaid dues.

elSenorMaquina 5y ago My parents modified the front porch, and now it was different from the other houses in the block. Once it was done, a middle aged lady comes out of nowhere (I had never seen her before, nor she ever talked to us before) to kindly warn us that we had just lost the right to vote on HOA or some shit like that since we did an unauthorized modification. We replied with the equivalent of K, thanks. And, once again, we haven't seen her ever since. It's like she crawled out of her lair to inform us
ecple0712 4y ago I had the slightest dent at the bottom of my otherwise perfectly good garage door and received a letter that it goes against the covenants on home aesthetics. I had to search for this dent and decided on an area they were maybe referring to but there was no way it could be spotted from their supposed drive bys of the homes in the neighborhood which meant they must have walked on my property. I called a maintenance company who agreed that was the area they were referring to but that panels for my door were no
PsychNurse6685 5y ago They charged me $500 for leaving a glass cup on the bbq. Damn I was pissed. My blood boils just thinking about it. I have so many other horrible stories like my wall was flooded inside and they refused to fix it even though it was a HOA problem. I pay $617 monthly. F bastards Share 1.1K ...
shitpplsay 5y ago Was told to have 10 year old trees removed (which was apparently approved by the board we found out like all landscaping) because in the winter they turn brownish and lose the leaves. Also got a notice asking how long we'd have a Toyota Tundra truck in our driveway over Xmas. Cousin stayed with us 2 nights. 1.3K Share ...
kukukele 5y ago Lived in a high-rise in Chicago that had an HOA full of old people with too much money. Fortunately, I was only renting, but I was curious to learn about the HOA and they were gracious enough to let me sit-in. The condo had just built a brand new outdoor patio for grilling, etc. The powers-that-be didn't like the shade of red of the cobblestone brick that they laid for the area, so they allocated $1M to redo the entire area with new brick. There were a few attendees who were young professionals who protested, but they
gimp2x 5y ago Upscale beach neighborhood, Repeatedly refused my solar panel application, sighted the location of them as being an eye sore (top of the back side of the house....not visible from street) and fought me at four different meetings, delaying my installation, ultimately cited the state law and they immediately backed down and amended their covenants- ps, a clothes line is a solar collection device and they cannot deny you use of that either, so if you want to play dirty- hang a bunch of beach towels in your yard! 2.9K Share ...
5y ago We live in a condo and began receiving $100 fines for not picking up dog poop. The area behind our building is a common area and lots of people walk their dogs around. I offered to submit DNA testing for my dogs and they ignored me and continued to send notices of fines. I began taking my phone with me on every walk and took photos and videos of me picking up poop with timestamp evidence. I sent a folder full of photos to the HOA with photographic evidence that I was picking up after my dogs.
jeffbarge 5y ago My dad was telling me a story about their HOA this week. A homeowner in their neighborhood passed away, and hadn't yet paid their HOA dues for the month. AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE, the HOA president approached the mourning family and asked what their plans were for paying the back dues, and for paying any dues until the house was sold. Simply amazing. 284 Share ...
scottevil110 5y ago We've only been part of an HOA for the last few months, and it's already living up to every stereotype I ever had in my head. They held our once-annual meeting with very little notice, and like 6 people showed up. They elected a new association and immediately decided to spend $700 on dog shit receptacles, even though like 4 people have dogs, and the whole neighborhood is one street. This sparked an incredible amount of drama. One guy on the HOA decided he was going to get super defensive when people started questioning this decision, and
-OldAndInTheWay- 5y ago They sued me for thousands of dollars in late fees. The day after Christmas. I was told my dues date was the 15th when I bought the house. Paid the 13th for a year or more. It was actually the 1st of the month. Turns out the dipshit admin at the management CO. input my previous address, an apartment, when setting up my account, so I never saw a late notice. Explained the situation, they said No exceptions. I couldn't afford a lawyer to fight it. 1.8K Share ...
ttrimmers 2y ago We live in a historic district so the HOA is super strict about the exterior of our homes. Our patio door was warped so we spent forever trying to find the exact same style/color antique door to replace it. As soon as we did they got pissed we didn't get it approved first. The only way you would even know we swapped it was if you were watching it happen. 37 Share ...
AmaranthRosenrot 2y ago . Edited 2y ago HOA of my neighborhood tried to tell me that my house needed to be added on to, because houses need to be at least 1800 sq ft in the neighborhood. My house is 1750 sq ft. HOA was started in 2004. My house was built in 1989. My family took the HOA to court, to make a long story short, HOA had to back down, cuz their rules didn't exist until AFTER the house was built. So, the HOA rules do not apply to my house. + 400 Share ...
EhlersDanlosSucks 2y ago Drones were used to make sure no one was growing vegetables in their backyards. No parking along the street in front of your house. Garbage cans had to be brought in within 15 minutes of pickup, though that was a different time each week. My neighbor was sued (and lost) after replacing their old windows. The new frames were the wrong shade of eggshell cream. 88 Share ...
OkraFit3987 2y ago We built a new fence around our property and told us to take it down since the other fences looked old. We built a walkway from the door to the driveway, they told us to take it out. 51 Share ...
TheCactusClub 2y ago They wouldn't let me add an acre of land onto my property. My neighbor owned 100 acres of land and was letting me buy an acre from him to add onto the 4 acres of land I already had. Since you can not build anything on 1 acre the HOA was refusing the purchase. However, when some lawyer said it was ok they let me buy the acre. I think they just wanted to waste our time. 308 Share ...
thugloofio 2y ago The condo association wanted to renovate the pool and pitched the cost they were moving forward with. There were a lot of developers in the building and they noticed that it was about 4 times the cost it should have been. Association says tough cookies, things get fun. People writing notices of what's going on with the association, the association writing emails about it, lots of sniping back and forth. Then one day I'm in the lobby waiting for someone to show up and the head of the association and one of the people calling them out
FireteamAccount 2y ago Everyone had to drag their trash bins down a hill to a curb where the garbage truck would pick it up. People would be slow to get their bins back after pick up. So the HOA went a dragged all the bins to the other side of the neighborhood and threw them in a pile in a random patch of public grass. So we pay these people to be childishly petty and antagonize us? And their punishment only created more of an eyesore than bins uniformly lined up on a curb. + 137 Share ...
Zonerdrone 2y ago I slipped in my driveway and fell and broke my femur near my hip and couldn't get up. I was laying in my driveway calling for help for about 30 minutes and I could hear people walking past but nobody stopped for quite a while. I eventually asked someone to call an ambulance as my phone was in my car out of reach and got taken care of. Spent a few days in the hospital and when I got home I had a letter from my HOA saying I was in violation for sleeping in my driveway
Loose-Possession-68 2y ago A gorgeous vintage wooden sled that has been in our family for at least 100 years was laid out one winter by my family. We received a letter informing us that since firewood is not allowed in front yards, we had to remove the pile from our yard. Share 131 ...
boardcertifiedbitch . 2y ago HOA sued us for leaving out garbage bin out a day past garbage day...a total of five times in the three years we've lived here 366 Share ...
CloudsOntheBrain 2y ago HOA attempted to hold a secret community meeting, where they'd vote on turning the large field and walking path everyone used for recreation into an RV park. It was secret because they basically told no one and put up the required notice in a place where no one would see. As you can probably guess, most of the board owned RVs. Thankfully a few neighbors took notice and started knocking on doors. A crowd showed up and the proposal was starkly shot down. Fucking dirtbags. 801 Share ...
jcr5431 4y ago I got fined $50 because they didn't like my patio furniture and thought it looked too much like interior furniture (it didn't, I bought it in the patio furniture section of the store). We are also only allowed to have beige pillows on our patio furniture, the right beige too apparently, or you will be fined. 33 Share ...
KitchenCellist 4y ago I know an HOA that foreclosed on someone because they had a pickup truck, not a commercial vehicle, a standard pickup, parked in his driveway. The owner fought the HOA for years and accrued a fined and violations over the pickup truck. Eventually, it did lead to him being foreclosed on. 44 Share ...
tabs3488 4y ago Our HOA has a ban on using our fucking garage for storage, on top of that you'll get hit with a double fine for parking in the parking lot while using said garage for storage 33 Share ...
thecasualchemist 2y ago I got six separate notices for a parked RV in front of someone else's garage. It wasn't my RV. It wasn't my garage. It was parked in front of the owner's house for about 2 hours while he loaded it up prior to a camping trip. The best part is that they photographed the violation and it's clearly someone else's stuff in front of someone else's house. 28 Share ...

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