If you live in a neighborhood that’s part of an HOA, there are quite a few rules you’ll have to follow, and you’d need to get approval from the HOA before doing things like painting your house or building a shed.

There can even be rules about decorating for holidays.

While some people like rules and want everyone to follow them, other people would like the freedom to do whatever they want with their property without an intrusive HOA telling them what they can and cannot do.

In this story, a man wants to start an HOA, and his neighbor is wondering if he was too rude when he shot down the idea.

Let’s read the whole story.

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 whos 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.

Here are examples of the 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.

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.

A neighbor wants to start an HOA.

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.

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.

He shared all the reasons he thinks an HOA is a bad idea.

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

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

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 thing he is a horrible person.

His wife thinks he was too rude.

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

She later told me 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.

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.

He’s right to not want an HOA, especially with a horrible person like that in control!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person is on this homeowner’s side.

This person compares an HOA to communism.

Another person points out that being calm is more effective than getting angry.

Here’s the perspective of someone who lives in an HOA.

Just say no to an HOA.

You’ll be happier in the long run.

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.