Ever thought about living in a house with a Homeowners Association? You’ll quickly change your mind after reading these horror stories. Former HOA residents share the awful things their HOA did and why they’re glad to have moved away. This content has been edited for clarity.
Chill Out, Man
“My parents lived in a 55 and up condo community which consisted of townhomes, duplexes, and individual homes. You only owned the inside and the HOA was responsible for everything on the outside: paint, roof, gutters, grass, and bushes. I checked on them daily and had the power of attorney as I found and bought the condo.
One day, I was sweeping out the garage when three people walked up with clipboards and told me I was going to need to paint the shutters as they were not an approved color. The paint on them was from a previous owner and they were very weathered, so obviously hadn’t been painted in years. I laughed and told them to go right ahead and paint them. I said while they were at it, they needed to attend to several other things like a dead branch on a tree overhanging the patio and leaves in the gutter.
Then I told them the house is in a trust and I am the executor and will be at the next meeting to address the poor lawn care job. I also wanted to address how money was being wasted and how I suspected someone was lining their pockets as the irrigation systems at the entrances were replaced two years straight.
I thought I was going to need to call an ambulance as one guy of about 70 started screaming and went from red-faced mad to pale as a ghost and grabbing a wall to hold himself up. Well, the gutters got cleaned, the lawn got special attention, and no one for four more years ever came by with a clipboard again. I forgot to say previous to this, the guy who almost passed out had yelled at my 85-year-old mother for not having her garbage can off the street. I saw him walking down the street and told him to never, ever consider raising his voice to my mother again. Crazy old bully’s on a power trip.”
Plastic PVC Pipes
“We were renovating our condo to get it ready for sale. The plumber turned off the water to the unit and the pipe disintegrated in his hand. He hopped up and ran to find the shutoff valve to our unit and found that the only shut-off is for the entire side of our complex (about 24-32 units).
There was a big sign that said, ‘Nobody aside from ‘XYZ’ plumbing can touch valves.’
He called the number and they said it would be 3-4 hours before they could come out. Meanwhile, gallons of water were gushing into our condo. My plumber eventually ignored the sign and turned off the valve. It turned out that it was 25-year-old plastic PVC piping that had been exposed to the elements so it also disintegrated.
The water stopped flowing in my condo but every unit in the complex was without water and hundreds and thousands of gallons of water were being spewed into the ground. After another couple of phone calls, they eventually got the water cut and the pipes fixed and I was told a bill would be forthcoming.
I called ‘XYZ’ plumbing and was told they had been recommending that those valves be replaced for seven years and I shouldn’t pay anyone anything. I spent a month and a half fighting with the HOA until I was finally told I wouldn’t have to pay. Fast forward another month and I have a contract on the unit (yay, I only have to lose 45k on this absolutely terrible investment) and in the closing documents, there was a bill from the HOA for 6.8k.
The closing attorney called and asked if we hadn’t been paying our HOA fees. I had to explain the situation to him and scramble for three days on the phone with the management company until they finally agreed to remove the charge and let me move forward. It was a nightmare. I will never live in a managed HOA neighborhood again.”
I Win
“My former HOA threatened to take me to court over the color of a light bulb inside of my condo. They claimed that the color of a bulb inside my unit altered the exterior appearance of the building. I’d had Philips Hue lights for probably over a year without an issue. Then my neighbor left up their Christmas lights well past New Years and received a complaint about it. The next thing I knew, someone complained about my Hue lights.
I switched the lights to white. I could have won in court, but it wasn’t worth angering a bunch of petty bullies who have nothing better to do than to sit on an HOA board. Anyway, the association wanted to add a new amendment that allowed them to sue anyone over anything they deemed a ‘nuisance.’ They brought in their lawyer for a question-and-answer session.
I asked if the color of my neighbor’s lights could be considered a nuisance, and he clarified it had to be a bigger concern. I followed up asking if we could claim that my neighbor had altered the exterior appearance of the building, and he laughed and said no dismissively. By that point, their lawyer had already admitted their case was unwinnable, and he’d said earlier in the meeting a big part of his job was to keep the association from taking an unwinnable case to court. So the lights were whatever color I wanted them to be from then on.
I now live in a neighborhood without an HOA. Sometimes a neighbor’s grass is a bit high and another neighbor just built a patio in the front yard and sometimes people put trash out a couple of days before the city says they can and nobody says anything. It’s wonderful.”
Purple House
“Many years ago I lived in an HOA. The board of directors was a terribly inept, cruel, and corrupt group only there to serve their own purposes and fund things that were important to them. The rest of us were mere peasants and should simply be grateful to pay dues roughly equal to 1% of our home values annually and to ensure our properties met their lofty standards.
Among the worst of the board members was ‘Todd’ (not his actual name). Todd was a lawyer and had one of the ‘nice’ houses at the top of the hill. He also was on a power trip because of his position in the HOA.
As you can imagine, after a couple of painful years, I decided to sell that house and get out of there. This proved to be quite a challenge in that market. It was only made harder by the fact that all the buyer’s real estate agents were very aware of that particular HOA and regularly recommended to their clients that there were plenty of houses exactly like mine without an HOA attached.
After being on the market for over six months, I was desperate to do anything I could to sell the house. It was the beginning of winter, but there were a few warm days, so I decided to paint the faded siding to up the curb appeal. I headed off to home depot with some paint chips, got them to do the color match thing, bought a couple of gallons and some brushes, and was off to paint.
While I was outside painting, Todd drove by. He immediately turned his truck around, came tearing back up the street and, I kid you not, jumped out of his truck while it was still rolling.
‘You can’t paint, put it back or we’ll get the lawyers involved!’ He screeched.
That was the start of this wonderful exchange. His complaint was it was ‘purple’ and the house was an ‘approved light blue’ before. I calmly explained that the paint was still wet, as he could plainly see, and I was just refreshing the original paint color. Could he please let it dry, and we would talk then? He huffed and puffed and after the veins in his forehead receded and 30 minutes of whining, he eventually left.
The next morning, he came back to the house and pounded on the door first thing in the morning. My wife answered the door. HE PUSHED PASSED her, walked into my house, and into my home office screaming about how it wasn’t better and needed to be fixed NOW. This was a much shorter conversation as I informed him to get out of my house and that if he returned under any circumstances, he could expect to be met by someone with a weapon and a badge. If anyone from the HOA wanted to talk to me about this matter, it would not be him.
The next day, a much more calm-mannered gentleman from the HOA came by and said, ‘Todd says you won’t talk to him about the paint. Why not?’
I laughed and explained the situation. He rolled his eyes (he’d seen this before) and said, ‘Okay, well, it does look a little purple and you didn’t get permission to paint, so you have 30 days to fix it.’
Remember, it was winter and the warm spell had passed so it was snowing. I politely said that is not going to happen because it looked fine. He said that he would start the legal papers, and I said, ‘cool.’ A few days later, he came back, head in hands.
‘Well, it looks like going to court is going to be very expensive for both of us. Can you just promise to paint it in the spring?’ he said.
Very well aware that he was bluffing, I responded, ‘I hope to not be here in the spring.’
‘Hmm. Can you put something in the sales contract for the buyer to paint it in the spring?’ he said.
‘Absolutely NOT! I can’t sell this house as it is because of your HOA. Now you want me to tell them upfront they have to paint the house?’ I said.
After a few more days, he called me and asked if it would be okay if the HOA painted the house at their cost and I said, ‘Fine by me!’
A few more days passed and he called again saying, ‘Well, it’s November and snowing, and we can’t find anyone who will paint right now. We’ll try with you or the new owner in the spring.’
There were so many other things that were messed up about that place. One of the other board members smashed my fence with his pickup truck on the WALKING trail behind my house and just drove off. He wasn’t too pleased when I informed him I had it on camera. And then the time a sinkhole big enough for a child to fall into opened up behind my house on the common grounds which I reported multiple times and was ignored.
I sold that house shortly after the Todd incident. It’s been eight years and three owners and that house is still the same color, which is definitely purple. Home Depot messed that one up for sure. I drive by that house whenever I’m in the neighborhood and bask in the joy that Todd has had to drive by it every day and look at it.”
Red Roses
“My sister bought a house in an HOA neighborhood three years ago. To be fair, none of us are super familiar with HOAs since none of us had ever lived in one and my sister was told the HOA fees were just for lawn upkeep and snow removal. The realtor who showed her the house said that the HOA really didn’t get involved in anything except doing the lawns, removing snow, and trimming weeds. The whole experience has been an ‘I’ll never live in an HOA again’ story for my sister.
The trouble started pretty much the second she moved in there. The first issue was the electrical not working. My dad was a master electrician so he went over to troubleshoot and fix the issues. He was working on some re-wiring when one of the HOA board members came up and asked him what he was doing. My dad told her he was fixing the electricity. The HOA board member had a fit about my dad having a small red toolbox out on the porch. My dad got back in her face and she went off in a huff.
The second issue was my sister planting some roses. The roses were the wrong color–only pink, white, or light peach roses were allowed. My sister had committed the cardinal sin of planting red roses! The HOA flipped out and demanded she removes them and fined her for it.
Another dumb issue was a citation for her teenage daughter ‘loitering with a group’ on the front steps. Her daughter had been standing on the steps for a few moments talking with another girl and exchanging phone numbers. My sister has always been a person to do what she wants so you can imagine this went over really, really poorly.
She painted her door bright blue out of anger. She also ripped up the notices of fines and left them in the HOA president’s mailbox. She put the house on the market and has another picked out. She is supposed to hear this week if she is approved for it or not.”
Nightmare On HOA Street
“My HOA fee was 425 dollars when I moved in. It went up 100 dollars every year and was up to 800 dollars when I moved. I got complaints 2-3 times a week because the neighbor across the hall would be dropping weights and my downstairs neighbor would call to complain and say it was me. I was fined 500 dollars when I was deployed 7000 miles away for NOISE. I sent a video showing I was not home at the exact time the noise complaint came in. This happened at least 20 times in the few years I lived there.
My record was full of complaints at the exact times I was either working at the hospital or deployed. Oddly, the noise complaints never came in when I was home. I also had carpet and got complaints about ‘rolling noises.’
The plumbing was also wrecked. The wall next to my condo flooded inside several times. I got called at three a.m. to hire a plumber to fix it. The plumber billed the HOA 700 dollars but those fools tried to blame me over and over again. They did this to me every six months for five years.
Next, I got fined 250 dollars for having a tiny glass bowl in the barbeque area. I received no warning so I appealed it. They called me to sit in on a board meeting but I was dealing with a serious patient issue at the hospital. I was trying to find a family member to pick up his body from the VA morgue but here I was explaining and begging the HOA to not fine me 250 dollars for a bowl.
The number of complaints we had against the HOA was amazing. They completely misappropriated funds and abused their power on the regular. The best thing to happen to me was selling my place and getting out of there. It was an absolute nightmare.”
Harassment
“A week after moving in, I received a letter from my HOA saying I was spotted not cleaning up after my dog in the common area. That was a blatant lie. Every single time he used that area, it was picked up. I didn’t have roommates at the time so there was no way it could have been someone else. The fine would’ve been 100 dollars after the first warning and 150 dollars after that. I wrote back telling them I didn’t appreciate being lied to and accused and that was not the way to welcome me to the neighborhood.
I went on to inform them that if it happens again and they provide no evidence to back their claims, they will be hearing from my lawyer for harassment. They constantly made up special rules about parking depending on who it was for. We weren’t allowed to park on the road at all but other neighbors could. I brought that up to them and then called the president any time I saw a car parked in the street. He didn’t like the constant calls. I started parking on the street and when he said something, I told him he had to have the same rules for everyone or leave me alone.
They would complain about the backyard, which could only be seen if you purposely went out of your way to look. They said they had to keep the community looking beautiful. I asked why there was always trash not picked up and little shot bottles everywhere. No answer. I made it a point to pick out every little thing in his yard and called him to report him. He didn’t like that. I told him to stop harassing me or I would get my lawyer because he was singling out my house. It had to end or he was going to be paying for the consequences.”
Law Breakers
“When my wife and I first married, we lived in what was an oversized trailer park. It was a ‘subdivision’ according to the city, but a rose by any other name. There was an HOA that we had to pay dues to. If I remember, it was like 30 bucks per month. Me being the happy-go-lucky youngster I was with an older brother, sister-in-law, and uncle who are all attorneys wound up in court with the HOA over my refusal to pay the fee.
The argument was we rented the trailer and were not homeowners in the community, therefore no membership was required. The HOA argued, in the courtroom, that if we didn’t pay the dues, we couldn’t visit the park and swimming pool.
You could almost hear the comments the judge’s eyes were making toward the HOA’s attorney. The park and pool were funded by the city and the HOA had no authority to charge anyone to use them but they had been for quite some time.
Fast forward about a year, we were moving out and hadn’t really been staying in the trailer since getting our new place. My neighbor (cool dude, chill as they get) came down to shoot the bull. He said the HOA was in a class action lawsuit with everyone who had paid the dues to use the park.
A few months went by and I was in the neighborhood and stopped to visit. My neighbor told me the HOA had broken up, had lost the lawsuit, and wound up being sued for close to a million bucks. The president, VP, and treasurer all got charged with something (larceny, maybe?) because the money for the HOA was being pocketed by them and they were holding public property hostage from taxpayers.
Later on, I learned that the three ladies got around five years each in club fed (minimum security prison) and were ordered to pay restitution to everyone involved. Around 500 memberships for 5-6 years of dues. Not sure why I got on the rant, but I can’t stand HOAs.”
“Tough Guy” Bill
“I bought one of five condos in a top ten U.S. city. The top floor was being lived in and finished off by the contractor, let’s call him Bill. Bill was an eccentric chain-smoking ‘tough guy’ like so many contractors, and also like so many contractors, was completely narcissistic. He drove a motorcycle, womanized, did good work, but was a pretty psycho. I was always wary of him, but the condo unit we bought was indeed beautiful.
We were all VERY nervous about how long it was taking him to finish the top floor – this was going to be a ‘double’ unit with a staircase to the roof where there would be a deck just for that unit.
Eventually, he finished the unit. Giving equivalent numbers, let’s say each of the tenants paid around 500k for our units, Bill was going to list the penthouse for 750K. It went on the market and wasn’t doing well, so he ended up selling it for 350K. We were all flabbergasted. He had just sold the 2-level penthouse unit for nearly 30 percent less than everyone else paid for their 1-level units, half the size. He wiped out the value of our units.
The new tenant, a wannabe white rapper with a wife who was a party coordinator, moved in. He was in the building maybe a month, tops, before he comes to the board meeting and says his ceiling was leaking. His ceiling was the roof, an HOA common space.
Immediately, we all knew what had happened: Bill knew there was a leak in the roof so he sold the property at a rock-bottom price and skipped town. The property passed inspection because it wasn’t raining that day, and voila. The white rapper dude wants the HOA to fix the leaky roof.
All the rest of us say no way, the only reason you got an 800k property for 350k is because Bill sold you a lemon. This is between you and him. You gotta sue him. But of course, the dude didn’t want to sue – he got the deal of the century. He said the HOA should have fixed the leak before he bought it.
From that point on, it was nuts: everyone had a different angle, opinion, and legal option on the issue. Bill denied there was ever a leak. Eventually, we worked out a deal with the rapper: the HOA paid some but he paid more. But still, between the months of back and forth and being hustled by Bill, I lost a lot of money in that building.
To this day, I tell my kids: you can rent in an apartment building, you can rent a condo, but don’t ever, ever buy a property with an HOA involved.”
“24-Hour Security”
“I have a lot of horrible HOA stories and they go as follows.
I got a notice that I needed to repaint my window shutters or I would be fined, as they had become faded and chipped. I’m colorblind, so I asked them to please let me know what color to paint them. They said they couldn’t do that. It took two more emails and a quote from the ADA to get them to send me the link that had the color pallets for the houses in the HOA.
We had 24-hour security when I first moved in. Then, all of a sudden, they changed it to security only during pool hours. They did not reduce our HOA fees and increased them the month before I moved out after a guy across the street got stabbed in a domestic dispute during a party. The party was on a Monday and the stabbing occurred at like 11 p.m.
The people next door were renters, moved out, and left a huge pile of trash in front of their house. It was right in front of the garage and spread out all in front of the house. The HOA sent me a notice to have ‘my’ trash removed or I would be fined.
HOAs are trash. Especially that one. I refuse to ever live in an HOA again. Bonus fact, after the neighbors moved out, someone broke into the house next door, because again, we no longer had 24-hour security.”
