Let’s say that you buy a home in cash and have 100% paid off. Could you still lose it somehow?
One thing to keep in mind is that in the US, there’s very few people or companies that actually own the land that they’re on. Most of the time you have the rights to use the land for certain types of things, but not actually own it. The US government (federal on down) has various ways of seizing property for its own purposes.
There’s only a handful of people who actually own the land they live on. Most of them were granted the land by prior governments (mostly Spain) before the US was a country. Their ownership was grandfathered in and has passed via inheritance through the families. Several of those family plots are in Texas and Florida. Everyone else is just allowed to stay as long as they play ball with the rules.
To certain extents, I think the government has rights of expropriation of land in other countries too. Sometimes you can sue the government for it too. It’s a messy biz.
??? Damn that’s the first I’ve heard of that. I wonder if that’s so the government could justify pushing around native american revervations, or taking places like Hawai’i into the States? I can’t imagine many Countries would willingly allow the US govt to just take their shit
They aren’t saying the us government can take land in like France whenever. But like Canada has expropriation laws available where if needed Canadian land can be seized from the land owner, usually with compensation.
This is often done for things like infrastructure, highways and such. Turns it from needing the owner to be willing to sell into “we are buying this land now, heres what we think the land was worth”
I’m talking about the respective government of the country in question, not the US government…
Do you have more info on those that actually own? Sounds interesting.
This sounds dubious. Sources?
You can get eminent domain’d or your house could be destroyed by natural disaster, house fire, etc.
In theory, in the case of eminent domain you get the value of your home paid. In practice… its often not enough to actually buy a similar house.
You get a government set rate for the house, not what it could sell for on the open market.
You can be shot by the cops, in your bed, while asleep. Yes I think you can lose your paid-off house.
I used to see stories in the legaladvice subreddit regularly about Housing Owner Associations putting legitimate liens on properties for not following the rules. Even when the rules were as ridiculous as “air-conditioning unit can’t be visible from the street” or “only these specific plants can be grown and your lawn cannot exceed a few inches in height and must always be green” or “internal curtains must be pink or white”.
For a culture that prides itself on its freedoms, the miniature authoritarian regimes that HOAs embody are a great example of the evidence not matching the story.
Amen… never buy a house in a HOA if you plan to actually keep and payoff said house. Even if its a “good one”, they can and do change. All it takes is a vote for your $50/mo HOA to become $1000+/mo because they want to build a golf course or do custom street signs and a pool or whatever.
HOAs started as a way to keep neighborhoods white only. Now it’s a way for developers to have a super majority vote to keep giving themselves contracts and a way for control freaks to control their neighbors. They started as bad actors and now some are bad actors for other reasons.
Not all HOAs are terrible but there aren’t a lot of actual accountability in-spite of some laws to stop corruption and there’s not a ton of benefits for most except perhaps for condos.
For example, I wouldn’t mind having an HOA that contracts rates for trash, lawn care, creates and maintains a park with some stuff for kids, maintains beautification of non-homeowner areas and maybe even has security patrols. You know, actual amenities to keep the neighborhood nice and convenient for the home owners. Not an HOA that makes sure that shampoo bottles in people’s bathroom windows aren’t visible, front doors have to match some aesthetic or have to approve decks and sheds for people’s yards.
I think you mean “amenities” rather than “enmities.”
Yes I did and I’m embarrassed. Thank you for the correction!!
I rent in a medium-high-density non-US housing complex. It’s obviously necessary after you live like this for a few years that there needs to be an organisational body to deal with building and land issues, especially when there are hundreds of people who occupy a shared structure that needs to be maintained and repaired. For example, if the water goes out for me, it could also be out for hundreds of other people, which makes it a more expensive and higher stakes problem than a single detached house with one family, and more than one person will need to make the decision on how it is repaired and by whom.
Local governing bodies are not necessarily based in racism or hyper-control motives either, even if American (and other country) housing organisations regularly use it for those purposes even today. These organisations are borne from the complex needs of living in a peaceful community of different people with different desires and needs.
But experience has also told me that this works better when the overarching legal systems are more accessible and corruption-resistant. The biggest problem is that it is very difficult to evaluate what patch of land (or walls and floor) has the best longitude and latitude to provide a decent probability of not being exploited for someone else’s gain or suffering from someone else’s bad decisions. It’s a constant global issue, and the consistent theme is that most places favour the wealthiest human in housing or other legal disputes.
I rent in a medium-high-density non-US housing complex.
Well, we’re talking about home ownership here. If you’re renting then your landlord/management company or whatever decides policies that are compliant with your laws. If they allow some sort of HOA-like structure where residents can participate in a sort of ‘council’ that advises them or has some sort of authority of the landlord, then so be it.
I did however, bring up condos, where a person essentially has an ownership stake in a housing complex but other people also have ownership of their dwelling and the land is shared. It absolutely makes sense to have an HOA then. Someone’s got to arbitrate in shared spaces and since the person that owns the dwelling doesn’t have a landlord, then well, it would be terrible not to have an HOA.
Local governing bodies are not necessarily based in racism
I didn’t say they were. I am stating a fact, that in the US, HOAs started as way to enforce gentrification. There were actual racist deed agreements and binding covenants. This isn’t an opinion or speculation.
Sources:
University of Washington
Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society
Housing Matters
Denver Post
Business InsiderBut experience has also told me that this works better when the overarching legal systems are more accessible and corruption-resistant.
OK but that’s not everyone’s opinion. My neighbors and I get along fine without an HOA, except for the lady who denied receiving my package once even though I had it on camera and my wife’s curtains are hanging on her windows now but an HOA wouldn’t have solved that anyway.
Well, we’re talking about home ownership here. If you’re renting then…
Yes, even as a mere renter myself I am extremely familiar with the workings of home ownership in my area and the legal rights and responsibilities of each. I just didn’t feel it necessary to elaborate on how I know. It didn’t seem relevant.
I am stating a fact, that in the US, HOAs started as way to enforce gentrification. There were actual racist deed agreements and binding covenants. This isn’t an opinion or speculation.
Yes, I am aware many home owners organisations were begun in the US out of xenophobic backlash after slavery was partially abolished. However, the concept of groups of owner-occupiers and investors/developers governing their community is not a uniquely US thing, and likely existed in practise before the term “Home Owners Association” was coined. I could have been clearer that i was speaking more globally and generally, but this is why I used the non-US-specific term “local governing bodies” which could cover everything from favella gang leaders to democraticly dlrected government councils.
OK but that’s not everyone’s opinion. My neighbors and I get along fine without an HOA,
Yes, most owner occupiers where I live also luve without being under an HOA, but they are still also subject to the laws and regulations of their local councils, state governments, federal governments, strata bodies and everyone else in between. Renters like me, or owner occupiers too are able to seek legal recourse through those courts. Depending on the value in dispute, they are able to do it without lawyers. In other communities, such as small towns where the sheriff is the mayor and the local judge was elected with no legal experience… this would be a much bigger problem for the person with little cash.
I wouldn’t even want to live again in a building where the majority vote on repairs was held by non-occupying investors. It leads to stupid amounts of decay.
america is a sick joke
Yes.
This was the whole premise of Happy Gilmore. He became a pro golfer to save his grandma’s house
Absolutely. You have to pay taxes on your property (in most states; there may be exceptions that I’m not aware of). If you don’t pay your taxes for a long enough period of time, your property will be seized and auctioned off. Starting bids on property auctions are usually the back taxes; in less desirable areas–such as undeveloped land that with no utilities that’s out in the middle of nowhere–that may be all it costs.
This is America, what do you think?
Sure. If your HOA does not like you, they will use your own money to pay lawyers against you, to dispossess you of your house. 'Murica!
TIL, property tax is a thing.
You own nothing and you’ll be happy