Banned is maybe too far, but why should we as a country allow people to have petty power over meaningless things their neighbors do? Could we ban HOAs from being included in house sales, and every time it's sold the new owners have to opt in?
For the most part, I'm wondering about this in the context of single family homes since for homes like condos, you could make the case that HOAs are useful for shared things like roofs and whatnot. Maybe limit mandatory HOA involvement to things like what's truly necessary and shared and not how tall your grass is?
Freedom of association means the freedom to be a member of an HOA. But requiring HOA membership to purchase a specific property should be banned. Freedom of association means that you should have the freedom to not be a part of the HOA.
There's nuance to it. I live in a townhouse and if some fucker in my row tanked my property value because they didn't redo their roof on a reasonable schedule, I'd be pissed. There are limited situations where having a collective solution on stuff like this is necessary, but the vast majority of shit the HOA does is just red tape annoyance and platforming the neighborhood Karens.
Maybe the HOA should pay for his roof then? You know, with HOA fees.
I get there is nuance, but times suck, people can afford less, and HOAs have become a way for people with tiny dicks to harm others. If we used them as a a way to identify and address issues in a neighborhood in constructive ways, it wouldn’t be an issue. They are about power.
Roof replacement is one of the things our HOA does, that's why I used that as an example.