Homeowner’s Associations Tips

When looking for your new home, you may likely come across property that lies within the jurisdiction of a homeowner’s association. You must know what they are about in order to make a good decision as to whether to buy or not.

The idea of a HOA can be generally a good thing for home owners because you have the added advantage of the properties in the development maintaining their value because of the rules.

Find the rules and read them. Most of them at this point have copies of their regulations on a website so you can easily find them. Be sure you know what the penalties might be if the rules are violated. Some of them have some very interesting rules that almost defy common sense, so be sure you know what you are getting into.

Assure that the home you are looking at is in compliance with the rules and doesn’t have past due fees and major compliance issues you’ll have to pay for once you take possession. For that matter, find out what the dues are and what you will be required to pay for. Find out when the dues and fees must be paid.

Sometimes a HOA is involved in infrastructure improvements in the community and that will mean an assessment will be added to the cost of owning the home. Are they getting ready to build a new clubhouse with Olympic sized pool and every home will be assessed for the cost?

Look over some of the minutes of past meetings that have been held. You’ll learn the personality of the community in general. It will be important for you to understand how the association resolves conflicts and how likely they are to sue you if you rub them the wrong way. For that matter, find out how they feel about you having renters in the home instead of you occupying the house.

With that said, you’ll want to watch out for the opposite problem to be true. Although HOA’s have a reputation for being overly zealous in their management, there are many where the opposite is true. In some associations there is not much interest on the part of the residents to manage the community at all. This could be a detriment to the value of the property in a community where anything goes.

You will really have to study the HOA when buying your next home to be sure that you won’t be

required to replace your roof every 2 years. The best thing about HOA’s is that the house next door will not end up with 3 junk cars in the yard and painted a nasty shade of green.

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