>Last week, I-Team Investigator Adam Walser reported how a Riverview homeowner ended up in jail and her neighbor faced foreclosure over what started out as HOA violations.
It's a slightly longer process but it basically comes down to:
1. HOA has stupid rule about mailbox
2. Homeowner is found to be in violation of the rule and fined.
3. Homeowner does not pay fines
4. HOA places lien on house and is eventually able to force a sale to pay the fine.
It has to escalate to get there, but it is possible.
Also I can state from personal experience with two different HOAs on two different sides of the state of Ohio that they are exactly that petty.
The first one harassed my grandparents and threatened them with fines over having the "wrong" mailbox despite my grandparents literally being the first owners of the home and the mailbox they had having been put up by the developer who built the neighborhood and still controlled the HOA at the time (if you're not familiar with HOAs, in new developments it's common for the developer to have a controlling vote until a certain percentage of lots have been sold which allows them to exercise tighter control over the way the neighborhood appears to potential buyers). If I recall correctly the "right" mailbox was also one that was built by some random local shop that was connected to the developers so you couldn't just go buy one retail.
The second one was a decade later when I was renting a room from a friend, he had one of the common "Step 2" brand plastic mailboxes which had been installed for years and was also common around the neighborhood. Apparently it wasn't the right color, it was tan and only the black and green variants were allowed.
I don't mind the concept of a HOA for maintaining shared areas and such. The one in the second case actually was responsible for all yard maintenance in the neighborhood which was nice (except that their vendor loved to show up at 6 AM on a Saturday to wake us all up with the sound of two-stroke engines) and that was fine. The problem is that they have too much power over individuals' property. Outside of special cases like historical properties there is no excuse for HOAs to care about what color I paint my front door, what brand of mailbox I use, what type of shingles I install, if I have a satellite dish, etc. If it does not objectively affect others who are not on my property the HOA should keep its nose out of it.
One of the remedies HOAs typically possess is the ability to put a lien on your property. The end game to one of these liens can be complicated, but losing your house is among them.
There’s like 5 intermediate steps you’re just sort of glossing over there. This is like saying the inevitable result of a paper cut is losing the entire arm to gangrene.
HOA will put a lien on your house, you won't even know it, eventually when you don't pay it, they'll take your house through the courts. Happened to a friend of mine and almost happened to me until I sold my house and got out of the HOA. I'll never buy in an HOA again.
This is hard to believe. Have you got a source?