Did you investigate the Home Owners Association before you bought?

 

Or did someone knock on your door the day you moved in to tell you not to park your RV in the driveway or you would be fined?  Not a very warm welcome on moving day.

 

Home Owners Associations (HOA) have become the norm in our area, so if you are buying in a suburban area, you most likely will be under the guidelines of an HOA.

 

That said, the best thing you can do during your due diligence process is read the HOA covenants, conditions and restrictions (CCR’s).  After reading, if you have any questions about what you can and can not do, you should discuss them with your closing attorney.  If an interpretation is needed, it would require an opinion from an attorney.  And, of course, you can contact the HOA management company or the president if it is self managed and talk directly about your concerns.  If CCR’s are not available, you could drive to the court house or pay the required fee to the management company to obtain your own set of CCR’s.

 

If you are thinking about selling your home, you are entitled to a copy of the CCR’s.  Call the management company and have them email you a copy.  Then you can forward the email to your realtor to have on file for a prospective buyer.  The better prepared you and your realtor are, the smoother the transaction.

 

The boards that run HOA communities consist of homeowners elected from the neighborhood.  They are not subject to the constitutional constraints of government and wield a lot of power under N.C. law.  They set dues, require assessments (homeowner required payment beyond dues) to cover expenses, fine homeowners for noncompliance, place liens o homeowners for unpaid monies and they can even foreclose on property.

 

If you have a board that is not “friendly” to those in the neighborhood trying to sell their homes, don’t vote them back in.  An “unfriendly board” can get a bad reputation with the general public and even cause sales to lag in a community.  Be careful who you elect.  Make sure they are professional and knowledgeable.