r/HOA

Back in February, ICE and DHS broke into my partner’s building via smashing a ground floor window and then breaking down the door to our floor, because they wanted to detain my his tenant. There is evidence on video of agents making no attempt to enter the building without force, and refused to show a warrant when asked. (Our very brave neighbour was filming them at 5am)

He wants to sell the unit, and the building management took over 2 months to order a replacement door. It’s still not installed.

Today, he received a letter from the board’s lawyers saying he would be personally responsible for all $20k in damages incurred by this incident, including the lawyer fees.

What can we……do? It seems crazy to me that this would be the direction they decided to go, but here we are. We’re also feeling completely powerless, as we’re not lawyers and it seems like the board just…..decided to do this? And that makes it okay?

Edit: The tenant is a US citizen, and DHS did not have a warrant to enter the building.

hello everyone,

I bought my house in December of 2024, we were one of the last homes sold in this phase. The developer sold half of the lots in our subdivision to a national builder, the other half he kept to sell as custom homes. The HOA was founded in 2023 and thats when the first homes were built, so we are coming up on 3 years of people living here.

The issue, the national builder advertised our neighborhood having a pool, a cabana, a playground, and walking trails. our yearly budget sent out by the HOA shows what our new monthly dues would be when the pool is built. Well the national builder is gone, sold all of their homes/lots and The developer died in July 2025, his daughter now owns the company and us homeowners are stuck in limbo with no movement on a pool and no say in our HOA because the developer still owns all of these lots. understandably all of us neighbors are getting pissed and we are looking to retain a lawyer. me personally don't think we have a case due to strong CCRs and the pool is not listed on the subdivision plats or in our home contracts.

I finally went to our management company last week and requested the P&L sheets and transaction logs for our HOA bank accounts the last year. the icing on the cake is our HOA paid the developers estate 100k for a "reconciliation" of some sort Dec 2025.

Really just venting and want to see if anyone has any advice.

This is the CC&R rule: “A late charge of $10.00 or ten percent (10%), whichever is greater, per each delinquent Assessment shall be payable with respect to each Assessment not paid within fifteen (15) days after the date of delinquency.”

Let’s assume the HOA assessment is $500 a month. They increase it to $550. I did not get a notice. My autopay continues to pay $500/month.

Edited: A late charge should be $10 or $55?

Thanks!

First off, huge respect to anyone volunteering on an HOA or condo board.

Genuinely curious from current or former board members how much do people actually worry about personal liability or being blamed if something goes wrong in the community?

With all the horror stories around insurance, reserves, deferred maintenance, lawsuits, etc, does this feel like a growing concern for people serving on boards? Or is it mostly overblown online?

The HOA for my mom’s subdivision is on it again about trash bin placement (out of sight, beside/behind the house). She is 87, has had strokes, and is on a walker. She recently fell while trying to move the bin, sustaining a brain bleed and broken arm as a result. Thankfully, she is doing better. We live about 30 minutes away, but make it up there on Sundays (day before trash day) 95% of the time to get the bin out to the street. It’s usually incumbent on her, a caretaker, or a neighbor to bring it back to the house, but none of those is 100% reliable (nor should it be necessary). Attached is a letter I sent two years ago on the matter. I believe it’s pretty clear she is entitled to the accommodation.

Not looking for legal advice, just others’ experience with HOAs and reasonable accommodation. Thoughts?

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Question for Board or Attorney if there are any reading this. I am a board member. I recently looked at details of our invoices and saw that our president has been contacting our attorney a lot and has had quite a few legal opinions sent to her. We have no idea what she is asking the attorney. How can the board get copies of these opinions and access to what she has been talking to him about?

My neighbors next door are selling their home. I think they have had it with the HOA. The husband has a few cars which caused problems with the HOA. I guess his project car in the driveway was a point of contention. They told him to move it into the garage. After not listening, they fined him. Then for good measure told him to paint his house. He tried to play the race card. I'm like dude, I'm black too and they don't bother me.

I'm a recent Air Force retiree who grew up on military bases as an Army brat. I follow the bylaws. In my opinion, it's no different than living on a military base. Just follow the rules in on base housing.

Anyway, I was scrolling through my security camera footage to see if the postal service vehicle had dropped off our mail. I came across the HOA citation vehicle around 11 PM. They have a night guy who drives around to cite vehicles parked on the street. The driver does a u-turn in front of my house and parks right along the curb in between our homes. He starts writing the neighbors up next door who are trying to sell their house. It has to be the car that's covered which sits in the driveway. The high winds had blown the cover off the vehicle.

I haven't read through the bylaws on cars. Do you guys think it's the car that's causing this conflict?

I’m doing customer research for a project for school around self-managed HOA operations.

For board members of self-managed HOAs:

1. What takes the most time?

2. Is vendor/contractor follow-up a real headache?

3. How do you handle meeting minutes and action items?

4. What made you avoid or fire a management company?

5. Would you pay for software that reduced vendor chasing, meeting admin, and board follow-up?

Trying to understand if this is a real problem or just a small annoyance.

At our board meeting, our HOA president criticized our new PM (5 months with us) for about 25 minutes.

I was the only non board member there.

**Should I call the owner with my feedback?**

I want what's best for our HOA **but** prefer to stay out of this bc talking with or about our president makes my skin crawl.

Voting out the president seems impossible bc our bylaws require such a vote be in person. We don't see how we could get enough owners for a quorum to attend.

Our HOA has written rules in such a way that anything we do in our backyard needs approval. This is ok with me. However it is not clear what the approval will be based on.

For eg while approving my fence the condition is it needs to be at the back of my house, 6 ft tall, white. However HIS handbook does not mention these requirements at all.

Am i missing something here? How do i force HOA to put everything in writing or at least general guidelines?

Hello! Please, no judgments and condescending comments/questions. Life is hard for everyone right now. I’m behind, a lot, on my condo fees, and the association is now threatening to sue. Does anyone have a template letter or suggestions on what to write to the Board to try to reconcile before taking it to court? I am already in the process of selling my unit. Not because of the missed condo fees, but because the Board & Management are practically refusing to do anything about the unit owner next to me, who is a hoarder. Several health & mental issues, rodents, and roaches because of my neighbor and their lack of hygiene practices and trash piling up in their unit. Another owner (lives directly under the hoarder) who’s having the same issues I’m having is also selling their unit because of the hoarding unit owner. If more details are needed about the hoarder to help with my letter to reconcile, I can share them. Thank you so much for your time and suggestions.

Hi everyone,

I’m researching how volunteer HOA boards manage admin work — resident emails, complaints, violation letters, meeting minutes, vendor follow-up, and document questions.

I’m not selling anything. I’m trying to understand what tasks are most painful or repetitive for board members.

For anyone who serves or has served on an HOA board:

1. What takes the most time each week?

2. What gets dropped or forgotten most often?

3. How do you currently handle violation letters?

4. Would drafting support for resident replies or violation letters be useful if the board still approved everything before sending?

Thank you for any insight.

Hello,

I am considering becoming a licensed CAM (community association manager) in south FL. I have a background in project and operations management and have been considering making a career change into the property management field. For those who are from and work in that region, is it a good investment and field to get into? What are some pros and cons to the job? Any feedback would be appreciated.

Hi, just purchased a new townhome and in the process of obtaining HO6 insurance for it. I was reviewing the CC&Rs and noticed they have a section requiring certain coverage limits. For instance, personal property needs to be in an amount no less than $80,000 (Coverage C) and loss assessment needs to be no less than $50,000 (is that Coverage D?). HOA master policy covers full cost of rebuild, owners are only responsible for betterments and improvements inside the property. Do those limit requirements look typical for a townhome? Thanks!

Hi, I’m closing a property in HOA community in SoCal. During a process to review HOA document, I found out there was a settlement between HOA against builder in 2018. They came with settlement and none monetary agreement. Is it okay to close this property? There is no current litigation. The building was built in 2012. Thanks

My neighbor built a raised patio against our shared wall which gives them a direct line of sight into my yard and home. They stand at least a foot taller than the 6ft fence. They had it built without getting approval and since then the board has denied it. They were told they would need to remove it but are now requesting a variance. The thing is, my other direct neighbors have now done the same exact thing with a raised built in fire pit on my shared wall with them, so I now am sandwiched in between 2 neighbors who have completely removed my privacy on both sides of my home. And neither of them got approval before doing so. I have plenty of photos and have told the HOA manager I reject their request for a variance and asked if I could speak at the meeting about it but have not heard back. I feel like I am living in crazy land with both of my neighbors feeling like it's totally fine to be able to see into my home and yard like this. This has been going on since January and I am getting so tired of this fight. The other ones with the firepit won't even respond to the HOA to submit anything. They're just completely ignoring them. What else can I do here to get the HOA to enforce their rules? What are the odds the board approves this variance request? I cant even go into my yard without having to see them staring. Its so uncomfortable and makes me unable to enjoy my home.

So my dad has lived here since the 90s. We have a Townhome Condo type (3 floors, 1300 sq ft); and it's just my dad , myself and my wife living here. We have 3 cars in our family (His 2 and mine); and my wife wants a car soon as well.

We have a lot of renters and I'm pretty sure there's more than 4 people living in a lot of these properties and I'm sure they each have a car. There's also kids that come in and hang at night smoking pot and leaving trash everywhere and taking up spaces plus the neighbors have parties with guests that take up spaces.

They are having a meeting before voting to take comments . They only do it on Zoom now so I'm not sure how this will work.

I spoke to a HOA person and she said many tenants have complained about not being able to find parking. They are voting to implement 2 passes per house and everyone else must park on the street. The "street" is just one winding road that goes down the outside of the community. Parking is only allowed on one side , and most of this is ALREADY full of cars.

Plus any guests must share our pass or park on the Street. There's no guest parking

If you live at the end of the community this would be hard and long walk for people back to their homes .

The HOA lady said this complex was originally designed for 2 spaces per home when it was built. But a normal household usually has 4 people. Husband, wife and 2 kids. I'm just being genetic here not actually saying this HAS to be this way but 4 should be the max passes in my opinion.

Once they start towing like they said they will , a lot of the guests and people that don't live here and people with more than 2 cars there should be a lot of space. But this creates the problem of no more spaces available on the street once "guests" start parking there.

Hopefully they can see there would most likely be enough space for 3 cars or maybe 4.

I'm not sure what I should say at the meeting or how to post photos on Zoom to share . I wanted to post photos of these people having parties with all the cars and what it looks like after midnight vs daytime. They keep raising the damn HOA fees as well but supposedly don't have the $$ to power wash the siding this year.

What are your thoughts?

I’m looking for some outside perspective on a situation with my small HOA (15 homes). I’ve owned my home since 2021 and have rented out my basement for the past five years. It’s always been quiet, respectful, and never caused any issues. In all that time, the HOA has never said a word about it — no notices, no violations, nothing.

Recently, the Board, made up of my neighbors, suddenly announced they’re going to start enforcing a clause in the covenants that says you can only rent out your entire home, not a portion of it, and leases must be at least six months. They’re now telling me my basement rental violates the rules.

What’s frustrating is that no one ever communicated this directly. The “notification” they’re referring to was buried inside annual meeting minutes — not sent as a separate notice, not emailed, not mailed, nothing. In a community this small, I would have expected a neighborly conversation before jumping straight to formal enforcement. We all live right here; a simple, “Hey, can we talk about this?” would have gone a long way.

I’ve asked the Board to grandfather my home so I can continue renting the basement, especially since this has been allowed (or at least never questioned) for years and I relied on that when making financial decisions. I’m waiting to hear back.

I’m trying to figure out if I’m being unreasonable for feeling blindsided, or if this is genuinely poor communication and selective enforcement. Has anyone dealt with something similar? How did your HOA handle long‑standing uses that were suddenly targeted after years of silence?

Would love any advice or perspective.

In the last year 5 homes in my neighborhood streets have gotten pools. A few have had landscaping rock added. They all stored their piles of materials on the street. Only 2 had orange cones and tape to alert you to it.

Tonight at dusk I was going 20, in a 25 and almost ran into a pile of brown rock on the right side of the street.. just hanging out there.. 2 feet tall. No signs. Cones, lights. Nothing.

The street isn't your storage. This is dangerous.