Psychic? You don’t have to be psychic. You just have to be literate.
Read the rules and by-laws to determine if you find them reasonable. If so, you shouldn’t have a problem with it. If not, you have every right to decline to sign on for it. If you don’t understand legalese, just admit that to yourself and seek legal counsel before signing anything.

But to say NEVER, without regard to what the particular situation may be? I just find that absurd and, to be frank about it, ignorant…my choice to be a reasoning being, not an argument for or against HOAs as there is no universal model for them such that I could possibly be against them all.

Seems pretty easy to me. A lot easier to find out the facts of the matter contained within the four corners of a document than to speculate or make assumptions.

You say you fear how “they” may change the rules, but fail to take into account that once you become a member of the community you become a “they”…you’re one of “them”, and have a say in the rules-making process.
I may not like the rules all of them make, but I wouldn’t move in there. I’d move in where I agreed with the rules, and I’d fight against any changes I found unfair later on.
HOAs don’t MAKE rules, they VOTE on them after input from the community (the ‘A’ stands for Association, not Autocracy). Participate if you don’t like what they propose.

Now, your lack of trust in the written document is a whole other issue. One which I’d say is a personal one not suited for discussion here except to say that contracts protect both sides in a written agreement.
That’s their very purpose. Whether you sign one is up to you and whether you’re OK with the terms, but no one can change the terms once the contract is signed unless both parties agree to the changes, you’re Grandfathered (unless you sign a contract which states that one side may change the terms at any time, like a credit card agreement), and your original agreement remains in place, so just READ THE CONTRACT BEFORE SIGNING IT. If not, you have no right to sour grapes.

(contract law…which doesn’t cover how your gift cat may behave when accepted such that you could sue the gift-giver…you can sign a contract that you’re accepting a Persian, but no clause saying how that Persian will behave would be enforceable because you could never prove the behavior was innate and not caused by how you treated said Persian [are you really comparing cats to contracts? or just looking a gift cat in the mouth? ])

I am sure there might be some HOA out there that are just fine. I still don’t trust any one enough to live under one. My choice. I have no way of telling which ones are good or not since I am not psychic and I REALLY don’t want to end up in a bad one. So I choose to avoid it all together. Just because one seems reasonable at first does not mean it really is.

If you hate something bad enough that living with it would make you miserable in your own home, then its a safe bet to avoid it all together.

Like if you hated cats. You have heard a lot of bad stories about cats. You are very wary of cats. However, your friend gives you a cat that seems nice at first. Would you risk bringing that cat into your home even though you loathe everything about cats in general? Probably not. That is how I feel about HOA.

They (HOAs) are not all bad, and that you assume so, even after having read my more than “live-and-let-live” friendly position on the matter, makes me wonder how you could be so obtuse.

You can say they’re all evil as much as you wish, but, not having read every HOA agreement yourself, I’d say you’d be overgeneralizing. And Over Generalization is one of the classic fallacies we learned in high school.

I addressed what you had to say about your fear of changing rules by explaining grandfather clauses and how they work. you very conveniently ignored that I’d pointed out your ignorance of and about such things…thanks.

You, CC, have expressed a fear of unknown possibilities. I’d suggest you study the issue and convert the unknown into the known.

Perhaps the only liar here is you, and you’re only lying to yourself.

But I’ll respond to this bullcrap nonetheless.

You say you’ve found a reasonable HOA contract. That supports my position that they DO exist. Then you say you still think most are bad, as if you’ve read most HOA agreements, when you have not…really cannot.
So, how can you have enough information to have that belief unless you just want to have that belief?

I’ve agreed many times that many are over-the-top with their rules, but that doesn’t resonate in some minds for some odd reason about which I’ll not speculate much, but suspect has much less to do with facts than with feelings.

All I’ve said on the matter is that we should keep open minds on that issue, take it on a case by case basis.
Is that a bad thing to say? A lie?
Did I pull a Goole search result out and put it up as proof of anything without saying that Google search results are not valid for for that purpose? Where am I guilty of deceit again? Because you really need to make that clear if you want to stand by calling me a liar.
I mean, I’ve called people liars here before, but I also proceeded to show the holes in their stories afterwards, to back up my position in some way, shape or form. You think you can just say it and leave it at that?
Okay then, I’ll just say you’re a liar and that will make it true. I don’t need to support that statement any more than you need to support yours by your rules, right? But, I’d probably start defending myself by saying that you’ve called me a liar and cannot back that up with irrefutable evidence because you’re a vindictive bullshit artist, still pissed off because I hurt your precious feelings quite a long time ago.

As you’ve said, “link it or lump it.”…or make a public apology if you have the guts to do so. LOL…j/k, no apology necessary…I don’t know you nor do I give a care whether you happen to like me, because you will never know me…I hope. But that doesn’t mean I cannot share my thoughts on the matter with you.

Since FDR has already been quoted out of context on this thread, may I do so as well? “You have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

You’d deny yourself a nice place to live because of a worry the rules may change in the future? Then tell us, just where on the planet you’d live, because everywhere is within the jurisdiction of some governing body of some type which could make rule changes.

It’s the nature of the world…things change, people learn to live with change…sometimes organized groups of them make change then later other organized groups of people change things back, or at least get rid of the last change.

That’s not bluster, “just the facts ma’am”.

It didn’t change my mindset… I still think most HOAs are probably reasonable, and if anything they probably swing toward the “ineffective” side of the spectrum rather than the “dictatorial” side. And I still think the risk-benefit analysis (i.e. the likelihood of a good HOA times the benefits thereof, minus the likelihood of a bad HOA times the grief it can cause) looks really unfavorable. But it was interesting.

uhhh eat me Nunya! I live in NY which by the way has ALOT of freaking trees. of course the city doesn’t have nearly as much but we have lots of trees there too…by the way, ever heard of the Adirondacks? or do you just spew shite from your mouth before thinking. Sorry, let me be more polite. Nunya, NY, your insidious comment aside, actually has a lot of forestry..please do some research before commenting on something you obviously are lacking knowledge on…Thanks.

Yes, there are people who will call out a lie for what it is. But that doesn’t stop people from trying to change their story a couple of times when you catch them at it – then double down and try to bluster and yell their way out of it – then finally just start pretending it never happened. As you well know, since that’s been your MO.