Mandatory HOA’s (Homeowners Associations) should be outlawed. Most are getting ridiculous in the rules they “enforce”.
One example of this is a man in Cedar Park, Texas who is having a disagreement, according to KVUE-TV channel 24 in Austin, Texas, with his HOA over the placement of Solar Panels. Most modern day solar panels are relatively decent looking, but they do not necessarily match the neighborhood houses exactly. Most who know anything about Solar Energy know that the panels need to face where they will get the most sun, that is usually on the South or the East.
It is the Red Oaks neighborhood in Cedar Park, an HOA group called Real Manage. Reporters from KVUE both called and went to the office in Austin, and they refused to give a statement. Why? What does the HOA have to hide? Maybe the truth.
In this case, the HOA decided that the Solar Panels should go on the back of the house, rather than on the front, where they could be seen by passersby.
Under the disguise of “Home Values” mandatory HOA’s are in the business of taking away basic freedoms. It’s really about control. Communist like control. A few people want to control the freedoms the rest of us have, so they introduce “rules” and say it’s about their responsibility to keep up home values. It has nothing to do with home values.
This is not the first time HOA’s in Texas have interfered with the freedom of someone to install Solar Panels. In Lewisville, Texas a man tried to get a permit to install Solar Panels and the HOA did not respond to his request at all. So, he installed them anyway. His HOA claimed it was about Home Values. This prompted State Senator, Rep. Jeff Wentworth to introduce a bill into the Texas Legislature to introduce a bill that stated that HOA’s could not forbid the use of Solar Panels. It also prevented HOA’s from foreclosing on houses because of late or unpaid HOA fees.
One of the things HOA’s were doing was foreclosing on houses when someone had been in the hospital and they were late paying their annual dues, usually only $150 or so. But these fees suddenly had interest on them and rose to the level that even high interest loan sharks would consider immoral.
Regardless of your politics or your thoughts about Sean Hannity, he brought to the forefront a Veteran who was fined by his HOA for flying the American Flag.
These are but a few of the incidents HOA’s have used as excuses for communistic control over their members. I don’t know if it’s Sen. Wentworth’s bill, but according to KVUE, a new law in Texas states that if the difference a solar panel makes is more than 10%, a homeowner can ignore HOA rules. The Cedar Park man also got some of his neighbors to sign a petition for his right to install solar panels, well, in the sun.
It is the ridiculous enforcement of ridiculous rules like those mentioned in this article that have gotten HOA’s a bad name. They misuse power and justify themselves by pretending it has something to do with so called home values. It has nothing to with home values, and a lot to do with power and control.