HOAs are a hot topic on Reddit for Americans — and it looks like the trend is spreading!

Or at least, some people wish they would.

This Redditor is living in Germany, though, and is not about to green light an HOA in his new neighborhood.

Here are the details!

AITA for rudely shooting down the idea of an American-style HOA

I live in Germany and am a house owner in a small, quiet community of about 25 houses, mostly families or older people whose children have moved out.

I grew up in this community and have taken the house over from my parents.

Over the years, the community has changed quite a bit and, especially in the last 3-4 years, we have had more and more conflicts.

Most of the time, it comes down to families with kids vs. elderly/families without kids, stuff like kids playing on the street (legal, it is a “Spielstraße”), kids being loud outside.

That seems a bit nit-picky, considering kids aren’t out late.

Another big point is that the house and garden designs.

Some families have big BBQ places in their garden or swimming pools or swingsets and so on.

A family recently painted their house in a pastel color. This is often a point of conflict as some people claim it “devalues” the neighbourhood.

I can’t imagine one pastel house deterring someone from moving on the block.

One of my closer neighbours has recently started campaigning for a legal construct in the way of American homeowner associations (he specifically refers to that).

Essentially, he wants all the neighbours to sign a legal contract that would force them to comply to certain rules set by an elected committee.

Uh oh, major red flag!

He introduced this to a smaller group of neighbours, including me, during a dinner.

The way he described it made it sound like a wonderful idea that benefits everyone, except that I have known him for years and my family had quite a few conflicts with him when I was a child.

Oh, so OP has a personal issue with this man.

So during the dinner, I pretty much immediately shot down the idea, [and] that I would never sign up for something like this and would actively advise others against it.

Things got heated, and he demanded to know why I would want our neighbourhood to “turn into trash pile”.

Uh, this dinner just got awkward…

So, I brought up all the times he expressed his hatred for kids playing, for any decoration/design/garden that he deemed an abomination, the fact he got kicked out of a Schrebergarten committee for being too much of a rules freak.

(Yes, I know it was pretty much a personal attack, but I honestly [think] he is a horrible person.)

My wife and I got kicked out of the dinner, of course.

Yikes, that had to be a sore spot on the night.

She later told me [that], while she agreed with me, I should have been nicer and that his plan would probably not work anyway.

Another neighbour, who I consider a good friend, also mentioned that the whole thing probably wouldn’t even work legally.

Ah, yes, this probably would’ve been pretty hard to execute. So, will OP apologize?

I don’t know (and don’t really care) if it is legal, if it is feasible, if it will probably not work out.

I think people like that sometimes need to be called out and this judgmental, elitist attitude is just god awful.

What does Reddit think? Was this homeowner too harsh to his neighbor?

Overwhelmingly, Redditors agreed on “NTA,” but they all had different reasons.

Some knew how HOAs in America operated.

And other commenters supported this homeowner “fighting the good fight.”

A German homeowner even weighed in about the reality of contracts in the country.

This homeowner’s reaction was uncomfortable, but it seemed necessary for preserving the neighborhood.

It doesn’t seem like anyone else disagreed with him.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.