Home Owner's Association UGH!!

[harmony]

Deleted.

[enota]

It never pays to get on the bad side of a Homeowner's Association because they have the power to make your life a living hell, and they will not hesitate to use it.

The best advice I can off (this is coming from personal experience), is to not make waves and be as congenial as possible. If it is hard for you to do this (it would be for me), you might want to seriously consider selling out and moving either to a different type of property that does not have an HOA or go back to renting as you mentioned in your post.

When it comes to HOAs it almost never gets better and almost always gets worse.

enota

[JaneV2.0]

I took the opposite tack and hired an attorney as an intermediary. It was amazing how quickly that worked.

Given a choice, I would avoid HOAs at all costs.

[lhamo]

HOAs/co-op boards can be a real pain to deal with. When we bought our co-op in NYC a few years ago, the building was in transition from mostly older owners who had lived there many years to a bunch of younger people (largely young families like ours). The president of the board had been in her position for years, and had taken over the position when her husband passed away, and HE had been president for ages, so she kind of felt like she owned the building. Basic maintainance had not been done for a long time, though, and the building needed a new roof, pointing, and new windows. All the new owners were willing to take on the cost but many of the older ones were reluctant to do so. It turned into a pretty huge struggle that more or less made our building a "house divided." We managed to stay on good terms with most everyone, but our downstairs neighbor and the former pres (she elected not to run for re-election as she knew we had the majority to vote her out in favor of a pro-renovation candidate -- also a long-term tenant but younger) ended up with a very strained relationship.

I would think really carefully before buying into a situation like that again. I was board secretary for awhile and it was stressful.

In your case, can you go through HOA records/finances to see where repairs were done in the past if they are not willing to disclose that information directly? You could also call in the relevant office of your city gvt to make sure the repairs meet code -- if not they will need to be redone, no? It is a potential liability to the HOA and to you, so I think that justifies taking up the issue.

lhamo

lhamo