Help! The neighborhood BoD has gone power hungry / control crazy .. annual 'hood meeting is this Saturday

[Coiled]

Check your documents, IIRC, there is a requirement to provide notice 30 days in advance of annual meetings. You could use that to delay the vote and give you time to research and garnet support from some neighbors

The annual meeting has been held on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend for at least 20yrs, it ain't news 'round here.

 

[Sasquatch]

HOAs, POAs & Civic Clubs have long existed for Texas neighborhoods. We genarally don't have zoning laws like other areas.

Yeah, this was a big surprise to me. As individualistic as native or naturalized Texans are, the abundance of HOA's, POA's / Civic Clubs was pretty astounding, and they go back at least half a century. The neighborhood I live in is an old one - 50+ years old and its had a civic club / POA for most of that time.

The biggest downside of such organizations is when Karens and Kyles get a taste of power by getting on the board, then go crazy trying to pass rules, jack up fees, and shape the place toward *their* vision, instead of the vision of the rest of their neighbors. It also means one cannot escape politics, even at home.

 

[Coiled]

There is not even a requirement to have a HOA. I do not live in one.

Obviously I'm referring to more refined neighborhoods with substantial rules and adequate supervision.

 

[dennisz]

Most of the changes to Texas HOA laws only effect the By-laws sections of the documents, most of these can be changed by a vote of only the BOD. Changes to the Declarations (CC&R’s) can only be done by a vote of the owners, it must pass with a minimum 67% of the owners otherwise it cannot pass.

Here is a link to the 2021 changes, they MUST be followed, but they are NOT required to be incorporated into you documents. https://www.fsresidential.com/texas/news-events/articles/13-ways-sb-1588-affects-your-texas-hoa/

 

[Axxe55]

The wife an I belong to an HOA of our own. I'm president, the wife is VP, and the older dogs are the other board members. As long as I feed the dogs, they always vote with me!

 

[Glenn B]

HOAs, POAs & Civic Clubs have long existed for Texas neighborhoods. We genarally don't have zoning laws like other areas.

Thanks, got it but I must say: An HOA is not a neighborhood - it is only an HOA, in my mind anyway. I have never seen an HOA that came close to being a traditional neighborhood. They seem more like control freak zones.

 

[Coiled]

The 2024 drama: select neighbors; OK one, who's elevated waterfront view is over shown roofs, want ALL boat stall roofing replaced to the tune of @$50K.

Two metal roof covered boat docks, each with an even number of stalls. The center aisle from shore to the top of the dock "T", closest to main water, is community maintained. All other roofing / stalls are privately owned.

My stall is in the upper dock and a solid white roof; it is in good condition.

 

[Coiled]

Forgot to add, annual meeting is tomorrow. Oh joy !

 

[Sasquatch]

Meanwhile the piss poor HOA board in our neighborhood has once again shown why I'm sooo glad we wound up with one of the few non-member properties - we have two docks on our "big" neighborhood pond. Last summer my friends and I rebuilt one (one friend was then VP of the board, we were his helping hands and only people who volunteered for the project) - we couldn't get the other rebuilt.

Friend left the board (got tired of the bullshit) the next election after we did that. This year, the current board has done ****-all to keep things up. Two months ago the dock we didn't get to rebuild had a major failure - its a T-shaped dock, and the plank extending out from land broke and one of the corners over the water fell into the water. Two months - no one has touched it. Not even to rope it off with caution tape.

Mowing hardly gets done. But they did decide that new members will pay more dues. And they upped the fee they charge to approve improvements to your property, or to build a new home. For the life of me I still don't understand why Texans put up with HOA nonsense, especially with the confiscatory property tax rates already.

 

[Coiled]

Meanwhile the piss poor HOA board in our neighborhood has once again shown why I'm sooo glad we wound up with one of the few non-member properties

How in the world is that possible?

 

[kbaxter60]

That's right folks, a mobile home park. I didn't want to reveal that but perhaps that nugget will provide context.

We prefer to use "manufactured housing".
Unless they all have wheels attached?

 

[Sam Colt]

round up the neighbors, get them to attend and vote it down.

Or get them to assign you proxy. A simple signed proxy allows you to cast their vote. The more proxies you can gather, the better.

 

[Polkwright]

HB 614

88(R) HB 614 - Enrolled version - Bill Text

I'll say, as a member of an HOA, I think this is a good thing. They have to list what's permitted or not permitted, and the fines involved, plus the process for issuing and appealing said fines.

It keeps associations from making things up as they go along. So far our HOA is great, but we had one in the past that we had to participate in a coup to get rid of the corrupt board. In that process the members of the opposition were tagged with all sorts of BS "violations" that they basically made up.

 

[seeker_two]

How in the world is that possible?

I have a house that's outside of the local HOA. They've tried to get us to join, but we rebuff them every time.

 

[thescoutranch]

If you are in an HOA, most valuable thing you can do is read your 3 documents- your bylaws, articles of incorporation, and your declarations documents, which would contain your ccr’s. All HOA have to have these three documents on file with the county

The power and authority of the board is spelled out in those documents. If the board will not provide copies of those documents to you, they should be filed in the county in which the HOA resides.

Read them, study them and learn them.

Every HOA will be different, learn yours.

You might also want to read some of the documents on here

Guides: Property Owners' Associations: General Information

This legal research guide provides information on homeowners associations in Texas, including links to relevant statutes, practice aids, and information in “plain English.”

guides.sll.texas.gov

ETA
I know reading the legal stuff is dry and miserable for us, remember:

Knowledge is power when it comes to HOAs and rogue bod’s

 

[Younggun]

Meanwhile the piss poor HOA board in our neighborhood has once again shown why I'm sooo glad we wound up with one of the few non-member properties - we have two docks on our "big" neighborhood pond. Last summer my friends and I rebuilt one (one friend was then VP of the board, we were his helping hands and only people who volunteered for the project) - we couldn't get the other rebuilt.

Friend left the board (got tired of the bullshit) the next election after we did that. This year, the current board has done ****-all to keep things up. Two months ago the dock we didn't get to rebuild had a major failure - its a T-shaped dock, and the plank extending out from land broke and one of the corners over the water fell into the water. Two months - no one has touched it. Not even to rope it off with caution tape.

Mowing hardly gets done. But they did decide that new members will pay more dues. And they upped the fee they charge to approve improvements to your property, or to build a new home. For the life of me I still don't understand why Texans put up with HOA nonsense, especially with the confiscatory property tax rates already.

Because for some people it’s more important to have control of their neighbors property than rights to their own.

 

[Sasquatch]

How in the world is that possible?

So our specific property was somehow actually removed from the HOA by a previous owner - its been over 20 years, so the HOA has no leg to stand on IF they tried roping us back in thru lawfare - not that they can afford it. Having a friend on the board + knowing what they charge, roughly what their expenses are - I know they have no warchest for legal battles. The most they can actually afford is for a lawyer to send dunning letters to current delinquint members. My home is 100% paid off, but we'd take a damned mortgage back out on it to fight that shit too, were they retarded enough to try. We've got more equity available than they could raise thru dues, and the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze - since their current top-end dues are somethling like $200 / year for a lot our size.

There are a handful of other properties that were likewise removed a long time ago, or were never actually roped in to the original organization in the 60's.

The HOA here is also actually a POA - they have the ability to manage retail properties and other properties in other neighborhoods. There is a commercial property at the entrance of our neighborhood that pays higher dues due to being commercial, and there's a cell tower that also is dues-paying property.

As far as I'm concerned if they ever want to get uppity, I'll simply send them a bill for all the work I've done at no-charge, my labor rate equivalent in time donated to improving the neighborhood would be worth years of dues and we can have a court battle over that shit too.

 

[Coiled]

I have a house that's outside of the local HOA. They've tried to get us to join, but we rebuff them every time.

Thread relevance?

 

[Tex929rr]

There is way too much to explain on this site. But Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act was started by the 82th Legislature. One can google the law as they are written at TPC 209. The legal guide one can buy that tries to explain in layman's terms is 800 pages long.
Every two years they add things to the law and it is mandatory that HOA's of certain sizes add those changes to their CCRs, Covenants Conditions and Restrictions.This ACT applies to Condominiums also.They then have to file those changes with the County and the State Real Estate group that is very powerful at getting those changes made every two years.

The recent changes included rules HOAs have to add, like emergency generator rules, Flag display rules, solar panel rules, they forbid a couple that reside together in the same home from serving on the Board and the ACC. Set rules and limits for advanced meeting notices, now one may pay their annual fees monthly and avoid foreclosure. Set fees for copies of documents you wish to obtain so the HOA does not make it impossible to get such by charging outrageous fees or troubling routines. Now takes 3 advanced notices of your violation before they can stick you with a fine, and the fine can be limited also. That can take 90 or more days.

This entire law was put in place to stop agressive and abusive HOAs from the dominance they once held and to inform the Owners that they have rights and what those rights are.

This. The legislature is generally quite hostile to HOA’s and almost every session revises the law governing them. The most recent changes I remember are requiring a website with covenants and secret ballots, but only if in the covenants (they used to be prohibited). Most shitty HOA boards will cave when faced with someone who has actually read the covenants and know the law. We took over ours for 12 years to stop all the BS.

Just remember there is always some geezer pissed off at something wanting to screw over his neighbors.

 

[Eli]

I AM NOT AN ATTORNEY!

I'm not sure how I missed this thread in the first place - I most likely would have replied!

There are two sets of governing documents for an HOA/POA, the Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CCRs, a/k/a 'Deed Restrictions') and the bylaws. It's important to understand and differentiate the two, the CCRs list what properties are restricted (legal descriptions of every property) and what the restrictions are; the bylaws state how the HOA operates. The CCRs are very hard to change, requiring 50% + 1 of all property owners to vote for the change (not 50% + 1 of the voters); while the bylaws can usually be changed by the board.

Having only scanned some of the docs I am FURIOUS right now, please pardon my haphazard presentation.

In the past week the Board of Directors of my TINY neighborhood (<50 small lots) sent the property owners several documents including a 23 page draft to revise the Covenants & Restrictions, again. We just revised the original, 2-page 1970s C&R in 2016 and they became a whopping 6 pages. A portion of the additional pages was the newly formed Architectural Control Committee (their words, not mine). Compliance with the ACC has been widely ignored including by the 2016-current President. These are not expensive properties, I'd be surprised if the most valuable could fetch $160K.

The BoD is claiming "new" State laws require all neighborhoods update their restrictions. Unfortunately our annual meeting is on 9/4 so right now my question is, do such new State laws exist? Link please.

Thanks much for your input.

The Legislature of the State of Texas meets every 2 years, and usually passes some new restrictions against HOAs. This does not usually require new CCRs - in fact, I don't know of it ever requiring new CCRs - it usually requires a bylaw change at most. It sounds like somebody is trying to pull a fast one!

We lucked out when we bought our place. Its one of 3 or 4 properties in the 260+ property development that is *not* part of the HOA here. We made friends with some of the people on the board. Hell, I volunteer and help out in making the place nicer - because we still use the amenities (lakes and park) since we do live in the neighborhood. The dues in the place are stupidly low, as far as HOA's go. A lot our size would be $170 *per year*, and we'd be in the top dues tier. The smallest lots pay about $90 a year.

Learning a bit of the inside baseball, and having attended a meeting (when it was warned that they were going to try pulling us into the neighborhood) I learned some stuff. I also learned that this HOA doesn't have a huge war chest when it comes to legal battles. I've made it clear to those I know who are on the board, *if* the HOA were to try pulling us in against our will, I'll go mortgage the damn property (its 100% paid for, no mortgage) and rack their legal bills up far beyond whatever dues they could ever extract from me, and the likelihood they'd prevail in court and rope us in would be low. Our deed mentions nothing about being in the HOA. It doesn't actually list that subdivision as where our place resides, because 20 some years ago, a prior owner was able to pull it out of that subdivision, then subdivide his property into three lots and *that* subdivision - not the actual subdivision that encompasses the neighborhood - is what is listed on our deed.

I don't feel a burning desire to have restrictions placed on my currently unrestricted deed. I think that would ultimately make my property less valuable, and would then cause me to have to get the stupid HOA's approval (and pay them a fee for nothing) to make alterations or improvements to my property. Their own building committee is full of snoopy bastards who I've witnessed trespass onto others property to see what sort of land clearing and materials are moving in and out may be going on.

An HOA cannot encumber your property against your will, even though a lot of board members think they can. As I mentioned above, the CCRs specify exactly which properties are restricted, for you to be added would require a 50% + 1 vote and your consent.

Most of the changes to Texas HOA laws only effect the By-laws sections of the documents, most of these can be changed by a vote of only the BOD. Changes to the Declarations (CC&R’s) can only be done by a vote of the owners, it must pass with a minimum 67% of the owners otherwise it cannot pass.

Here is a link to the 2021 changes, they MUST be followed, but they are NOT required to be incorporated into you documents. https://www.fsresidential.com/texas/news-events/articles/13-ways-sb-1588-affects-your-texas-hoa/

I believe it's usually 50% + 1, but yes. CCRs are nearly carved in stone, and quite hard to change.

Meanwhile the piss poor HOA board in our neighborhood has once again shown why I'm sooo glad we wound up with one of the few non-member properties - we have two docks on our "big" neighborhood pond. Last summer my friends and I rebuilt one (one friend was then VP of the board, we were his helping hands and only people who volunteered for the project) - we couldn't get the other rebuilt.

Friend left the board (got tired of the bullshit) the next election after we did that. This year, the current board has done ****-all to keep things up. Two months ago the dock we didn't get to rebuild had a major failure - its a T-shaped dock, and the plank extending out from land broke and one of the corners over the water fell into the water. Two months - no one has touched it. Not even to rope it off with caution tape.

Mowing hardly gets done. But they did decide that new members will pay more dues. And they upped the fee they charge to approve improvements to your property, or to build a new home. For the life of me I still don't understand why Texans put up with HOA nonsense, especially with the confiscatory property tax rates already.

I'm not 100% sure, but I recall that a lot of these fees are actually prohibited by statute - largely due to abuse.

I have a house that's outside of the local HOA. They've tried to get us to join, but we rebuff them every time.

Good!

If you are in an HOA, most valuable thing you can do is read your 3 documents- your bylaws, articles of incorporation, and your declarations documents, which would contain your ccr’s. All HOA have to have these three documents on file with the county

The power and authority of the board is spelled out in those documents. If the board will not provide copies of those documents to you, they should be filed in the county in which the HOA resides.

Read them, study them and learn them.

Every HOA will be different, learn yours.

You might also want to read some of the documents on here

Guides: Property Owners' Associations: General Information

This legal research guide provides information on homeowners associations in Texas, including links to relevant statutes, practice aids, and information in “plain English.”

guides.sll.texas.gov

ETA
I know reading the legal stuff is dry and miserable for us, remember:

Knowledge is power when it comes to HOAs and rogue bod’s

Yes!

I AM NOT AN ATTORNEY!

Eli