return void;

I promised a while back that I would sift through some of Microsoft’s patents to show how little merit their campaign against Linux really had. Well, I’ve been distracted from doing that lately, so let me explain a bit.

I have lived in 7 apartments since I moved out of my parent’s house 7 years ago. Seems like a few too many, but I actually took advantage of the typical 10 month lease most apartments offered (at the time) and moved into a new apartment every school year. I’ve had 4 roommates, one of which I am married to. I’ve never been evicted, but I have been evacuated before (I’ll have to tell that story later, it’s long). Anyways, the point I’m trying to make is that I am finally getting tired of living in apartments and think that we should start looking for a home of our own.

One thing that’s always bothered me about buying a home though is the Home Owners Association that many neighborhood force upon the owners. I’m not a big fan of someone dictating to me what I am allowed to do with my property so as long as it doesn’t violate state and federal regulations. To make things even less appealing, you have to pay fees and fines to this association. Sure, you get a well manicured entrance and possibly a community pool, but at what cost? Sunshine mentioned a friend of hers was evicted from her home because she did not pay some fines. Knowing this person, I suspect what really happened was the association dues were not paid. While I am not largely concerned with being forced to join a HOA as I have the choice of the neighborhood, I am very interested in the possibility of eviction over fines. I’ve even read that it would be possible for an HOA to foreclose on a home you own entirely, be granted the power of sale, and sell your home (which you own) to recover some fines. That seems extremely unethical and illegal, so let’s explore that some.

I decided to dig around and look into the Texas state regulations regarding property ownership rights and HOA regulations. I first started by finding a local area HOA website and read their CC&R’s (Convenant, Conditions & Restrictions). The HOA regulation that I will cite in the rest of this post refers to the Raven’s Nest neighborhood of Rockwall, TX (east of Dallas).

First let’s start by going over some of the statutes in the Texas Property Code since Texas (specifically, Hayes county) is used as a case study for property rights in the US. The applicable statutes is found in Chapter 209, titled ‘Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act.’ Sifting through that chapter, you’ll find Section 209.009 the most interesting as it states the following:

Sec. 209.009. FORECLOSURE SALE PROHIBITED IN CERTAIN CIRCUMSTANCES.

A property owners’ association may not foreclose a property owners’ association’s assessment lien if the debt securing the lien consists solely of:

1. fines assessed by the association; or
2. attorney’s fees incurred by the association solely associated with fines assessed by the association.

Now, if I’m reading this correctly, an HOA is not allowed to foreclose on a home if the debt in question is based solely on fines from the HOA or legal fees incurred related to said fines. Digging around on the internet, you’ll find that this is in stark contrast to the Inwood North case back in 1985. This basically gave HOA’s in Texas the ability to foreclose on your home when you don’t pay your HOA dues. It’s unclear if these dues are the same as the aforementioned fines or legal fees assessed by the association. There is also the question of what is classified as debt and what is classified as a fine assessed by the association. That treads a very fine line and I bet there needs to be more of a legal precedent to define these terms.

So going back to Raven’s Nest. I took a look at their CC&R and found it to be rather restrictive and it actually contradicts state policy. Have a read, you’ll find that residents aren’t allowed to place any sign visible from the street, are forced to use white or light neutral window coverings, are not allowed basketball goals, and are not allowed to perform any sort of maintenance on their vehicles without prior authorization.

Of particular note is that Raven’s Nest prohibits signs of all nature. This directly violates the Chapter 202 Section 009, which grants all citizens the right to place political signs in the yard when an election is nearing. There are other contradictions, but it’s getting late and I am having a hard time looking for more (feel free to comment to others that I am missing).

In the end, I found that I will read every single article of any HOA rules and regulations as well as finish reading the Texas Property Code, as it applies to a homeowner. The good thing is the state legislature seems to be much more effective in making changes locally than the federal government. I now know that I will have to be in complete agreement with any HOA that I sign. I also intend on taking the system down from the inside out; I’ll probably join the HOA board and try to rectify arbitrary regulations that have little to no effect on the value of property.