Can a homeowners assocation ban guns?

[rangerbill]

be very careful about these homeowners associations

they can and do go crazy.

sufice it to say we busted up the little click and closed the monster down with the 6 o'clock news team doing an expose.
it was pathetic. they tried to take 284 lots out of 325 total. for non payment of dues. we didn't pay dues because 7 years back the HOA quit maintaining anything at all, not even mowing the grass. the place was a shambles. there were never any by-laws written the board just made up rules as they went, often to only stengthen their hold on us. they bullied us lied to us etc. "we are legal we have a federal attorney working on this" they would say.
it was embarassing they had little coup attempts at the annual meeting with camcorders hidden in picnic baskets. property values were thru the floor. a lot in the subdivision ran about 1000.00. i bought a same size lot in another area with neighbors that lived in bus bodies and cars turned upside down in the yards for 4500.00.
these people filed leins on property and they had not had legal corporate standing in five years. why did we not sue? because it would take 5000.00 to start procedings. we had a good case. but the HOA had only about that much cash on hand and the little park area as assets. that would have all been spent in their defense so we would have won the case but lost monitarily as the HOA could not reimberse our legal fees.
luckily i got the 6 o'clock TV news team to do a story on the HOA that embarassed them into quitting. that plus i stole their corporate name, i became ********* park estates homeowners association. the twits on the board saw that and thought i owned the association land and all. i didn't realize that until after they had all resigned at the meeting. the ex-president asked how i came to own it. i explained i only owned the written word, not anything more. what a twit.
i got a look at the records that were left after the "burglary of the office" and got the cancelled checks. these people were writting them selves checks for 500.00 or 1000.00 dollars at a pop. and the leins were supposed to have been typed by a typing service for 8.00 a page, two pages each. total of around 5000.00. alright i found out the typing service was actually one girl. the presidents sons fiance. hmmm. i did send this to the state attorney generals office, anti-trust division. to which they did absolutly nothing.

thats how bad it can get. i regretfully had to live through it. the point i want to make here is YES an HOA can ban anything it darn well please's and treat you any way it pleases. they can do it if you either will not fight them, can't afford to fight them or its just not feasible to fight them.

 

[Bobarino]

if a home owner's association bans guns from the homes, then don't they assume responsibility for the safety and security of the homeowners? it seems to me that they are just asking to be sued when someone gets hurt by an intruder and wasn't able to adequately defend themselves due to the ban on guns.

we bought a house this summer. we looked at several developments with rules similar to these. no gun bans but some of the rules were just outright ridiculous. needless to say, we bought a house that is not a part of a development or HOA.

Bobby

 

[Mike Irwin]

"I can see the 'evil' part where they take your money, legally harass you and limit what you can and can not do on youur own property. What is some of the 'good' that they have the capacity to do?"

You and I have been discussing HOAs ever since 2000, when you first ran afoul of the one in Florida.

I've explained in great depth how HOAs generally operate, how they should operate, how directors can abuse their power, etc.

If you haven't gleaned any of the extant benefits that are derived from a well run and reasonably apportioned HOA in those 3 years, then nothing I say is going to make it any clearer to you.

You had a bad experience with an HOA that was, in part, you own creation. You knew that, and you admitted to that.

Your HOA wasn't the most reasonable on the face of the earth, we also know that.

But you had experiences with a SINGLE association -- not the best way to draw objective conclusions that can be applied to all associations.

 

[Smurfslayer]

Smurf,

SS: Mike... Please... don't confuse me with those little blue devils !



Maryland law is CONSIDERABLY different than Virginia law on HOAs.

For example, in Maryland, pretty much everything outside the home is the responsibility of the HOA -- roofs, walls, sidewalks, painting, trim, etc.

SS: As I only have direct experience with the one HOA I was involved with, I am not qualified to dispute the above statement. I would however say that it was not true in our case. Our HOA was only responsible for the common areas; in fact, several properties had land adjoining the a public road which was not otherwise accessible to the association. It was questionable whether the board actually had any claim of authority for those portions of those properties ( I had one ), and when I posed the idea to the board that they did not, they did not oppose me. I had asked a specific question about motorcycle parking / storage in my back yard. HOA rules said no vehicles on HOA regulated property that was not paved, but the county / town said in written form they had no legal authority to regulate... I think if they'd gone to court, they may have prevailed, but I also think that the town's position that it wasn't actually part of the HOA was enough to bully them into submission. I wanted to store my motorcycle in the secured back yard, which was accessible directly without entering HOA property. I did explain, and they did agree that it was better for parking regardless...


As I understand Maryland HOA law, entrance to the property by HOA board members isn't trespassing or unauthorized IF exigent circumstances require entrance to prevent damage to HOA property or adjoining properties.

The ongoing fiasco with polybutalyene piping in Maryland -- where pipes rupture at their own whim, is an example of something that can result in an exigent circumstance.

But, the question arises, just how do HOA board members gain entrance to the unit in such a situation?

SS: Again, I am only speaking to what our lawyer told us specifically WRT
access. Both our lawyer, and the Charles county sheriff's office concurred that under no circumstances were any persons permitted access to property without either express permission of the owner or a court order.

My HOA also went 'dark' for a little while - 3 years or so, not collecting dues, not interfering for the most part; there was very little interest in getting involved, and until the last board member die hard moved all was well. That set in motion some financial problems. All the street lights went dark because the HOA didn't pay the bills... Duh - there wasn't one ! We had to have the recently moved HOA former president sign over account authority to someone - but wait - in order to do that, we needed to elect someone ! It was chaos for about 4 weeks, so I got back involved. Unfortunately, the newbies had obviously never even looked at the bylaws. They were in full panic mode talking about $500 / year assessments (up from $130), which was expressly forbidden, and a host of other problems. I not only shot down their dues increase, I pointed out they'd past the due date for the current year's dues and couldn't collect for this year. I then proceeded to point out that we hadn't collected dues in over 3 years now, and still had at least 4 more years of operating capital left. So much for the dues increase. By this time, I knew it was time to move

I don't think there's any way that an HOA could ban firearms... Hunting on common grounds ? Yes. Even on property owned in the HOA... That can reasonably be tied to increase property value- who want to live in the middle of a duck blind?

Thank goodness I got out of there...

 

[fix]

As others have said, the solution is not to place yourself under the rules in the first place. I am already subjected to Federal, State, and County/City government. The last thing on my wish list is neighborhood government. The HOA, like any government in a free society, has derived it's powers from the consent of the governed. No consent, no worries.