Homeowner’s Associations can be a huge hassle to deal with, but every once in a while, you get a good one.

What would you do if you were the HOA president because you promised to do nothing more than was legally required, but one of the members kept complaining and telling you to do more?

That is what happened to the HOA president in this story, so he kept giving that neighbor instructions on how to run for president herself, which she didn’t want.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

HOA board campaign to do nothing

I lived in a small, 18-house, neighborhood that had a deed-restricted HOA.

We had a minimal common area along the main entry street that needed maintenance and some drainage infrastructure that needed to be maintained.

Not much work had to be done at all.

That’s a great slogan.

No one wanted to be on the board so I ran for the board with the slogan, “I will do nothing more than is legally required to fulfill the legal requirements of the HOA.”

This slogan was enough to get four more neighbors to run with the same slogan.

We had the typical “committees,” all with the same members and with the same idea – leave everyone alone, fulfill our legal obligations and move on.

What a weird thing to say.

I was walking down the street one day and was accosted by a neighbor who said, “You don’t deserve to be president.”

I replied, “You’re right, I don’t deserve it.”

This really set her off so she started yelling at me about all the things I should be doing – planting a specific kind of flower, forcing her neighbors to do things unregulated by the HOA, etc.

So, I invited her to run for president.

That’s a dangerous bet.

I told her that she could submit a petition calling for a special election and I could guarantee that everyone on the board would sign it and probably vote for her to take on the job.

This, of course, just infuriated her.

So she started writing letters to the board complaining about everything.

We ignored the letters, which, technically was a mistake. Our HOA documents required all letters to receive a response.

She continued to send letters that had nothing to do with the HOA so we crafted a malicious compliance response that read: “Thank you for your letter to the HOA board. After careful consideration we have decided to ignore it.”

These people really want off the board.

We then included instructions on how to call for a special election to have us kicked off the board and promised her the support of all board members if she chose to circulate the required petition.

She sold her house and moved.

Our board continued with the same philosophy for the 12 years I lived there – nothing more than legally required and leave everyone the hell alone. We would hold a homeowner’s meeting once a year which was nothing more than a pot-luck dinner.

We had to invite someone from the compliance company who worked for us to make sure we covered everything required for our annual meeting and reporting and we would always have an agenda item under new business: Does everyone promise to be a reasonable adult?

I’ve moved to a new, 14-house, neighborhood with an HOA. I haven’t yet decided if I’ll run for the board.

This sounds like the perfect HOA! I’m still not sure if I would be willing to live there though.

Read on to see what the people in the comments on Reddit say about it.

Exactly, but who wants to be on an HOA board?

Sometimes cutting costs isn’t a good thing.

I mean, he could Google it.

This commenter’s wife is on the HOA board.

This person is happy to see a good HOA story.

Finally, an HOA story with a happy ending.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.