Fenceline: HOA Reviews

Your HOA has a review page now. Fenceline is where residents write down what their HOA is actually like to live under: the dues, the fines, the letter that showed up over the wrong shade of mulch. Anonymous reviews from the people who actually live there. Every HOA gets a read on a five-tier scale, from Chill to Mellow to Uptight to Overbearing to Hostile. It isn't stars. Two things move it: how heavy the rulebook is and how hard it's enforced, and how nasty the HOA gets about enforcing it. The stricter and nastier your HOA, the worse it scores. No single review sets the tier, and no one picks it by hand. Before you sign anything, check where an HOA stands on the ten things that actually start fights, from backyard chickens and RV parking to solar panels, exterior paint, and yard signs. Each one is marked allowed, conditional, or banned, in the words of someone who lives with the rule. Find your HOA and you'll usually find neighbors already there, comparing fine letters and swapping what the HOA let slide. Follow the communities you care about and keep up with what changes. Buying or renting into an HOA? Read it before you sign. Most of what gets written about a neighborhood comes from the listing and the leasing office. This is the other side, from the people who already live there. You sign in so Fenceline can investigate reports and stop abuse. Other residents and the HOA never see the account behind your posts. There is a report button on every post, comment, and review, and a real person reviews the reports.