[jwarden]

I am surprised by this negative attitude towards HOAs. In my experience they have been absolutely necessary and helpful. I own a condo. The HOA maintains the exterior of the buildings, the shared driveway including snow removal, the landscaping. Every cent I pay in HOA fees is accounted for. The HOA board are other owners who work for free.

I have also heard of badly run and even fraudulent HOAs, that take money and then don’t use it for the good of the homeowners. But I doubt this is the norm.

[chgs]

There’s a difference between a managment company looking after a shared building and a management company with authority over individual plots

[spicyusername]

Condo HOAs serve a very different function to suburban HOAs.

Suburban HOAs essentially function only to browbeat everyone into maintaining their property according to arbitrary standards. While usually well intentioned, initially, because these standards are arbitrary, they often result in abuses of power.

In either situation, condo or suburban, the politics of an HOA often result in the HOA becoming dominated by bad actors, increasing the propensity for abuse.