Spending Other People's Money

[Wolverine]

*RANT ON*

What is it with people who think it's perfectly okay to spend other people's money with reckless abandon? I'm president of my HOA, working on a major project, and every so often an item comes up that has limited use but "everybody wants it". That means that a few people want it and they want everybody else to pay for it.

"But it's only $n amount of dollars so we'll just get the HOA to pay for it."

Yes, but that's $n you are taking out of somebody else's pocket to pay for YOUR pet project that has limited use.

"But not everybody uses the tennis courts and they still have to pay for them."

Yes but they have free will to use them or not, AND those are already part of the package, AND those specifically add value to all shareholders in the HOA.

"But our group can't afford to buy these on their own, and it would only cost a few extra dollars per house."

Well then, I guess you don't really want it bad enough do you? If you can't pay for something (that's for your exclusive use), then I guess you can't buy it.

You want something special, go do it yourself, just don't ask everybody else to pay for it. It's disgusting how regular people can go so stupidly reckless when it's not THIER money they're spending. HELLO, CONGRESS!?!?!?!

@*^$@@!)!&$^ ! ! ! ! ! ! !

*rant off*

 

[Dleg]

Just curious, what are the special items they are requesting?

I have no experience with HOA's. It's the wild west out here. I've got a 5-acre cattle ranch across the street from my house, pig pens and fighting cocks behind us, mini-(illegal)-garment factories two houses away on both sides (one of which has mysteriously become empty after immigration agents were seen there one morning two months ago), and a junkyard-slash-autoshop diagonally behind us. I'm pretty sure there's a meth lab and probably an acre or two of pot growing within 200 yards of us, too.

 

[DVINNY]

Sounds Nice. ^^^^

When can I move in?

LOL.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Dlegs place sounds a lot more interesting!

Back when my wife and I were house shopping, one of the things we were adamant about was there could be no HOA or CD&Rs. Thank God that isn't all that prevalent around here (although I see it more and more).

 

[MA_PE]

Dlegs place sounds a lot more interesting!
Back when my wife and I were house shopping, one of the things we were adamant about was there could be no HOA or CD&Rs. Thank God that isn't all that prevalent around here (although I see it more and more).

CD&R? you must work for the government seeing as how you speak in acronyms.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Covenants, Deeds, and Restrictions.

 

[Dleg]

Dlegs place sounds a lot more interesting!

Well, yes but: "interesting" is inversely proportional to property value.

 

[snickerd3]

Covenants, Deeds, and Restrictions.

Death to CD&R!!!!!! They are the very reason we ended up buying an existing home instead of building a new one. We would have had to build a home much larger and more expensive than we felt we could financially handle. It a form of discrimination...ensuring you have rich neighbors.

 

[Guest]

Death to CD&R!!!!!!

Please tell us how you really feel.

I think many of these communities built up on covenants is a crock of ****. When I purchased a house, I specifically looked to move into a neighborhood that was free-from restrictive covenants.

Having said that, what do you think about the use of deed controls/restrictions/covenants for Instituation Controls (e.g. administratively controlling risk of exposure to contamination)?

FWIW - I call them prostitutional controls.

JR

 

[Road Guy]

I got stuck being the “maintenance guy” for our HOA, I don’t mind admitting that my primary reason for “volunteering” was so that I could have easy access to our clubhouse for Cub Scout meetings. See it’s all really about the children………..

Well the previous guy who did the job was an empty nester, and when stuff would break, he would fix most of it himself, so the cost was low, I am more of a pick up the phone and call someone to fix it, usually cost about triple than doing it yourself, but geesh, fixing a sprinkler head cause some teenager drove through the common ground in his truck isn’t my idea of something I like to do on a Saturday.

I did start getting 3 quotes for our landscape, pool, and other contracts resulting in a lot better prices than the other guy who just called the person “that had always done it for us.”

But I have wanted to barf sitting in a lot of our meetings, I skip most of them, but I have to show up at least once a quarter or else they will change the locks on the clubhouse ;D

 

[snickerd3]

Having said that, what do you think about the use of deed controls/restrictions/covenants for Instituation Controls (e.g. administratively controlling risk of exposure to contamination)?

We actually try to avoid using them. Other parts of the Agency use them all the time...because the owner is a willing participant. My unit deals with the DOD when they are trying to cleanup land that has already been transfered to private owners, they can't force the current landowner to put restrictions on their deeds, so they usually have to cleanup to residential levels.

For things that the Fed government still owns they are more interested in doing less, so we will work with them, but it is almost always impossible to enforce them. A co-worker is currently going through such a problem...institutional control for area around capped landfill (no driving across it, no planting trees, etc) the current land owner (Navy reserve I think), having full knowledge of the restrictions, drove across the top for faster access to other side and damaged the soil cover. They are paying to fix the problem, but DOD entity was still onsite to catch problem. Once they leave these type of problems wont be caught.

In some cases it makes sense to use ICs. At one of my sites (26,000+ acres), they divided it up for different reuses and cleaned up accordingly. Industrial parks, county landfill, VA cemetery (982 acres to hold 400,000+ veterans&family), and Tallgrass prairie. Why go all the way to residential, when at least for the industrial parks a foot of asphalt or concrete will be poured over it for parkinglots and warehouses and it will be very to see if the use changes.

 

[Mike in Gastonia]

Some restrictions and covenants are not bad (help keep people from putting cars up on blocks out of the front yard), but some can be overly restrictive.

A friend is building a house in a ritzy neighborhood and just found out that the front yard must be sodded and a sprinkler system is mandatory. That's why you read all of the fine print ahead of time......

 

[MA_PE]

Some restrictions and covenants are not bad (help keep people from putting cars up on blocks out of the front yard), but some can be overly restrictive.
A friend is building a house in a ritzy neighborhood and just found out that the front yard must be sodded and a sprinkler system is mandatory. That's why you read all of the fine print ahead of time......

Tell me, does one of the board members on the HOA (maybe the original developer with the biggest house on the cul-de-sac at the end of the road who also drafted the original agreement) own a landscaping company? It wouldn't surprise me.

 

[TouchDown]

Some restrictions and covenants are not bad (help keep people from putting cars up on blocks out of the front yard), but some can be overly restrictive.
A friend is building a house in a ritzy neighborhood and just found out that the front yard must be sodded and a sprinkler system is mandatory. That's why you read all of the fine print ahead of time......

Yeah, agreed. In my house, we got a copy of the covenant and I think signed an agreement, but there is no HOA, and obviously no enforcing of the covenant... I guess if someone wanted to be an ***, they would go out and get a lawyer and force a person to follow the rules. One of the rules is that you can not have any outbuildings (garden sheds), you are not allowed to rent out your house - it has to be occupied by the owners (I've seen 3 houses with for rent signs in the front yard), you cannot add onto your house structure without previous approval of the developer (ummm... this neighborhood is 20 years old and the developer is dead). My neighbor just did a bump out on his master bedroom and created a closed in patio under it in the back yard... looks nice, but he didn't ask anyone or get approval.

So, the restrictions exist, but they really don't seem to be restricting anyone because we don't have a HOA or a bunch of ******** who want to make a stink about it either.

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Oh, I was wrong, it is CCR, Covenants, Codes, and Restrictions....sorry.

My wife's old Beretta is sitting (in running condition, but unused) in the back yard. I guess that makes us one of those people the CCRs are trying to control.

Buddy of mine bought this tomey house in a hi-falutin' gated community and loved to brag about it. Then he bought a 13K crotch rocket and promptly got an 'assessment' from the HOA for parking a motorcycle in plain sight. He was livid. I pointed and laughed at him.

 

[squishles10]

What's a covenant? Codes and restrictions I can figure out...

 

[cement]

it's pretty much a list of "thou shall nots" that you have to sign before closing on a property in some Home Owner Association controlled developments. designed to keep the rusty wrecks out of the front yard, blue headed busybodies take over the board and beat you over the head with them for minor shiat that nobody else would care about.

not that I'm bitter...

 

[Capt Worley PE]

A buddy of mine liked to restore cars and his neighbor turned him in for having an untagged vehicle. This naturally made him mad, and he put his nasty 61 VW Type 2 pickup in the driveway, but backed it up to a pyracantha bush. It was tagged, but he wanted his biddy neighbor to go thru hell to confirm it.

 

[jmbeck]

I'm not sure where all are you are from, but every place I've looked at here in Birmingham has some sort of covenant.

However, I've yet to find one that I felt was too restrictive. They protect the community, which is a good thing here.

Oh, and every one has required the front yard to be in sod, and most call out the type of grass. I don't think that is a big deal.

 

[cement]

I ran a phone line from the kitchen to the basement on the outside of the house.

then I got a letter because I did not paint to match.