HOA truly scares me about American living. That a group of people can dictate what you can and can’t do with your own house is absolutely wild. How is that home ownership?
You probably do have a group of people that can dictate what you can and can’t do with your own house. You just call them “local government”, “county government”, “provincial government”, “state government”, etc as appropriate to however your current region organizes things at the smallest level.
The difference is that the bad kinds of HOA are essentially extra-local government chartered into existence for just one neighborhood, and since the “real” government has covered most of the actually important issues, they need to do something to justify themselves and are local enough to actually pay attention to your front yard and make ordinances against things they think will lower property values.
You probably do have a group of people that can dictate what you can and can’t do with your own house. You just call them “local government”, “county government”, “provincial government”, “state government”, etc as appropriate to however your current region organizes things at the smallest level.
The difference is that the bad kinds of HOA are essentially extra-local government chartered into existence for just one neighborhood, and since the “real” government has covered most of the actually important issues, they need to do something to justify themselves and are local enough to actually pay attention to your front yard and make ordinances against things they think will lower property values.
Also don’t forget that a lot of the HOA’s aren’t even ran by the residents, but rather a third party company that’s paid to run the HOA.