HOA, or a Homeowners Association. When you buy a home in a specific community, gated neighborhood or condominium building or complex you’re likely to be buying into a homeowners association. This association is typically developed to maintain rules and order within the community or condo building. Whether you love them or hate them, they do serve their purpose. Often times the developer who builds the condominium building will develop to the homeowners association. They will write up rules, restrictions, conditions and bylaws to present to each homeowner or potential buyer. This is known as the CC&Rs, or covenants, conditions and restrictions. It will state just about everything one should know about living in the condo community. A condominium homeowners association differ from a regular association in that there is a significant amount of commonly owned property in a condominium building such as the swimming pool, certain amenities, common walls, landscaping and parking. Also, most condominium units share the roof, hallways, elevators and maybe even heating systems and driveway access.
When you purchase a condominium you agree to enter into the Association to upkeep your particular unit and financially contribute to the Association for maintaining any common areas.
There are many benefits to living in a homeowners association. They maintain order, it someone that you can complain to if you notice someone is breaking the covenants and restrictions and they cover major repairs such as a roof replacement, siding or painting, landscaping etc. Most associations will maintain the property to a certain standard including any changes to architecture, landscaping and maintenance. Homeowners associations will collect fees for necessary upgrades and repairs either monthly and/or in a special assessments.
However, there are negatives to a homeowners association but really it’s your own personal response to the rules whether you like them or not but there are some disadvantages to living in a controlled association.
The homeowners association will place rules on all the common areas such as curfews, noise ordinances and what you can and can’t do in common areas. However, the Association could be mismanaged and if the board of the community does not handle certain issues properly, neglects them or overemphasizes their power, it can be very frustrating to condo owners. This is why you’ll need to ask as many questions as possible about the Association and talk to neighbors about their feelings toward the Association. I things handled fairly? Is the money put to good use? Are there a lot of special assessments? Asking neighbors is a great way to learn more about the Association and how it is managed.
The biggest things about homeowners association is that you know what you’re getting into. If you’re buying a condominium in Panama City Beach you should receive a copy of the CC&Rs. this will tell you just about everything you need to know about the Association but if there are specifics that you want to ask about be sure to do that before finalizing your sale. Associations can control quite a bit controlling what happens inside your condominium such as how many pets you can have if you can have them at all.
For more information about a condominium homeowners association in Panama City Beach contact our agent today. Feel free to ask any questions you might have and when it comes to purchasing a condo in an HOA.
