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Only in the back yard. We have a homeowners’ association* here, and our monthly dues pay for a landscaping service which takes care of all common areas. Front yards are considered common areas, so the gardeners do the lawn mowing.
*Never in my life will I ever succumb to being a part of such a regime. This is my first and last experience with homeowners’ associations, and had I known what I know now, I would not have moved in here.
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How did we make the leap on the thread from mowing the lawn and homeowners’ association to racism and interracial marriage?
No, none of the things you stated, more along the lines of paying ever-increasing fees for substandard services that seem to get worse the more one pays, and the long list of restrictions as to what you are allowed to do with/on your own property. Abandoned cars, graffiti, vandalism run rampant just as if this were some ghetto, yet we received a nasty-gram from the association that someone on their “nosey-neighbor” crew reported that my wife’s flower bed in front of the house wasn’t aesthetically cohesive to the surrounding houses, so she had to remove it or rep it or be fined monthly if it remained. That’s just one example of dozens over the 19 years we’ve lived here.
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Owning or not owning the home is not the issue, it’s whether or not there’s a homeowners’ association tied to the property. The CC&Rs of a homeowner’ association give it jurisdiction over the property itself and the conduct of the lien holder, the property owner, the resident, the renter, and in some cases, even the guests/visitors. The HOA has the legal right enforce its written CC&Rs regardless of your status. For example, when we first moved in here, we were paying the mortgage on our house for many years. When we paid off the mortgage in full and became homeowners in the true sense that the word, there was no difference in the eyes of the HOA; we are still bound to the legal agreement we signed with them.
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This post was edited by Randy D at July 6, 2024 6:59 PM MDT
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